Grisaia no Meikyuu: Caprice no Mayu 0

After the absolute disaster that was Studio 8bit's adaptation of Grisaia no Kajitsu, I'm sure the question on everybody's mind was whether or not the sequels would face the same treatment as well. Personally I don't think there was any reason to have faith in 8bit at this point, but the sequels come with the one advantage of being extremely short in comparison and thus being almost impossible to rush. And as it turns out, that was actually all that was needed because what we have here is actually a perfectly legitimate and very well made adaptation of Grisaia no Meikyuu.

Meikyuu's story takes place mostly ... in the past and is told by Yuuji himself as one long flashback to his and Kazuki's childhood and history. Many people like to refer to this as "the Yuuji route", as none of the main heroines of Grisaia really make an appearance in this route other than Kazuki. Meikyuu tells the sinister tale of the countless hardships Yuuji had to live through when he was a kid, starting out with the heavy abuse he received form his father, and then over time becomes more of a shocking life and death drama (that's about all I can say without spoiling anything). There are also numerous sensitive topics touched upon in this story such as incest, rape, pedophilia, homosexuality, forced crossdressing and more.

The pacing is still fast, but compared to Kajitsu's adaptation it's nowhere even remotely close. It's fast, but not so fast that you can't keep up with the plot. In all honesty I think 8bit did a quite respectable job with the amount of content they were able to squeeze into merely 45 or so minutes of screen time. It should be noted though that this special doesn't actually cover the entire story from the visual novel, however what is left will simply be adapted in the beginning of Rakuen's adaptation instead so there's nothing to worry about. This is simply because the story of Meikyuu and Rakuen is effectively one and the same, merely that it's divided up between two different visual novels (like a part 1 and part 2), and thus changing the exact cutoff point for their respective anime adaptations doesn't really make any difference.

The animation is identical to the one of Kajitsu, but the soundtrack is not. The Grisaia sequels have many new tracks added to its repertoire and I personally thought it was a lot better than Kajitsu's when I was playing them about a year ago. You'll notice this much more so in Rakuen, but even here it's already a pretty clear difference.

Overall, I'm sure a lot of people lost all hope for the Grisaia trilogy's adaptation after how Kajitsu turned out, but I think Meikyuu gives some hope back. It's captivating and interesting, and I can't really think of much that could have been adapted better either. Furthermore I still believe 13 episodes or so should be just barely enough for Rakuen as well so in the end I would still recommend people who managed to finish Kajitsu's anime to give the sequels a chance. I know it's very late to start hyping Grisaia again at this point, but you know what they say: better late than never.

Grisaia no Meikyuu is a complicated arc from the main story of the Visual novel/anime (Grisaia no Kajitsu) the story is told by the main protagonist himself Kazami, Yuuji. Wanting to pursue a promotion within the CIRS company Yuuji must submit documents as part of the promotion process explaining his own past.

The story telling of his childhood was so enticing, listening to him tell his story while watching the flashbacks and memories was perfect. Yuuji goes in depth on how difficult and traumatic his childhood was like. He explains his childhood thoroughly from an early elementary student to a young teen boy.

A main protagonist with ... a tragic background is nothing out of the ordinary its quite common and over used within the Harem genre. Some do it better than other, but I believe the producers of Grisaia did it the best, its not one of those simplistic revenge story were the main protagonists sets out for revenge over the lost of a loved one. In Grisaia they actually go in huge depth of his past adding traumatic, sad , horrific, and psychological all into one you have pretty much the worst case scenarios all packed into one - one hour episode (47.45 approx).

The art quality (expecting you've watched the prequel) is quite similar with the exception its a little more vivid and HD then previously. You have the strong vivid colors fitted with the smooth backgrounds giving a clear display of what you're watching. Very well drawn characters and fluent animation with how little action scenes there were they were pretty intense and the blood splats were amazing and detailed.

Sound quality was pretty standard nothing out of the ordinary. You have your same VA cast as from the prequel. There was not much background music since it was told in story telling POV, but the small sound effects put into for example flashing cameras, helicopter propellers, and punches were good. As for intro and outro as for where I watched it there was none they used up all the time.

Ah the characters, Im sure many people in the anime community can relate and all agree dense male characters can be the most annoying thing in the world. Luckily there are the few main protagonists out there who just keep me sane one of them is Kazami, Yuuji this isn't your average male harem lead he is a complete 180 to most of them he's competent, reliable, badass, handsome, and isn't as dense. His personality is pretty unique from my knowledge if he could relate to any character it would be Shiba, Tatsuya from Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei. As for all the other characters they all have around only five minutes of screen times, with the exception of Yuuji family.

Most Harem anime are usually just full of just comedy and romance which is exceptional, but this is why I really enjoy Grisaia no Kajitsu its has all your standard comedy and romance elements, but has a darker undertone mixed with a big psychological aspect it goes to great lengths explaining every characters background and how they came to be, instead of your average harem with random girls just popping in and out. If you want a drama, romance, psychological, and comedy undertone harem I would highly recommend watching the prequel to this special.

Story - 8
Art - 8
Sound - 7
Character - 8
enjoyment - 8
Overall - 8

After watching Grisaia no Kajitsu I wasn't exactly bubbling with excitement for this. The series was hampered by trying to cram so many stories into the space of 13 episodes and it suffered badly for it. But what a difference a bit of more focused writing can make in Grisaia no Meikyuu. There was more character development, more interesting story telling and more excitement contained within this 47 minutes than almost the entirety of Grisaia no Kajitsu. This prequel episode has actually restored a lot of faith in the series for me. It's by no means perfect - kicking along at blinding speed the biggest ... fault - but you can colour me surprised.

Part of the problem with the original series for me (not having played the VN) was not understanding Yuuji's behaviour and his personality. Now you get the full picture, and it's a very dark one at that. The story of Meikyuu takes us through the childhood of Yuuji and how a series of horrifying and grotesque moments shaped him to become the focused, quiet individual from the first series. For the first time in the series, perhaps barring the final arc of Kajitsu, I found myself really empathising with a character's plight.

There still isn't enough time taken with scenes to properly develop both main and side characters and make me care for them, a familiar fault from the first series. It's definitely not as big a problem this time around but it's still prevalent. Scenes and locations flash past you before you know it and suddenly another chapter is upon you. For what they had to work with the writers have done a nice job condensing the story in under an hour but I can think of a multitude of scenes I would have liked to have seen fleshed out further. Some characters come off with that "cheesy villain" feel because of this.

Art and animation don't do anything spectacular but do anything spectacular though one stand out moment in the latter regard comes with a set piece towards the end. I enjoyed the clear shift in palette after a particular section of the show and did a nice job of showing the internal struggle of what our MC is going through. Really nice use of light and shade throughout. Some choppy CG moments that feel out of place but nothing glaringly bad.

There's not too much else that can be said regrading the show without having to delve into the story, which is easily its strong suit, so I won't do that. I definitely can't recommend watching Kajitsu just to get here to Meikyuu but it definitely gives a greater understanding to the prequel series. What was the most refreshing thing was that I always eager to find out what happened next and that's the sign of better directing. A solid, and deliberately uncomfortable, watch that was well worth my time.

Le Fruit de la Grisaia was a series that tore me to bits. On one hand, I found it to be a decent series because of its different approach and overall feel for a harem series, since it didn't completely focus on ecchi/comedy, and it wasn't really a standard harem as obvious from the first five minutes. On the other hand however, I hated this series because while watching it, there were certain things that irked me, such as character importance, the explanation of the MC and his character traits, and my overall queasiness while watching this. So, with this OVA, what ... kind of twisted story will it reveal?

Author's note: Trust me, there will be NO SPOILERS.

Story (8.53/10): Meikyuu's story follows up pretty much right after Kajitsu, opening with a scene with Yuuji and JB discussing about a report that she has to make. Because of the insufficient detail that Yuuji has given, she asks him personally about what kind of life that our strange, stoic, and expressionless protagonist has. And let me tell you, boy was this a story.

The whole runtime of Meikyuu is used to tell Yuuji's childhood up until his early pre-teens where his guardianship changes and where Rakuen starts. The thing about this OVA that sets it apart from at least 95% of others, is the fact that it has such a long runtime. Not many OVA's actually get an hour long runtime in order to tell everything it does, and because of this, this OVA does really well on the storytelling aspect because everything is told in a clean, organized manner, while also being quite detailed on certain parts. There were a few areas of the story I feel were lacking (mostly the last bit), but overall, I felt like the story was very cohesively done.

As for the actual story itself, it was done relatively well. There were moments (several moments in fact) where admittedly...I thought the show had gone WAAAAYYYY too far, but even with that, I still found this to be a very well-made story that answers the biggest question people had after finishing Kajitsu, who is Kazami Yuuji? Overall, I find this OVA to be a perfect bridge between the two seasons because it answers a lot of questions and ties into what happens later on in the second season.

Overview:
+ Explains "Who is Yuuji?"
+ Good pacing
+ Detailed story points
- (Personal complaint) Kinda fucked up...

Characters (8.33/10): Of course, since this OVA was mostly about Yuuji, let's talk about him first. Yuuji in this OVA is quite obviously the star of this OVA. Because the first season left the viewers confused as to really who this guy was. (Unless you played the VN's, you probably were asking yourself that question.) With every scene, you get to know a little bit more about how he became the man he is today. With every horrified expression, you tally up the "Unseeable" things those dead eyes of him have seen, and with that, I felt is the reason why this OVA is good. A lot of his character traits make sense after seeing this, and that works really well for the series.

Aside from Yuuji, the other character that deserves mention is Kazuki, Yuuji's sister. Likewise to Yuuji, we get to understand what kind of person Kazuki is as well growing up. We saw her in Amane's arc, but we didn't know all of her backstory. For the most part, Kazuki's role for this OVA was to more or less serve as a sort of catalyst for the events that occurred in Yuuji's life, tying in what happened with her to Yuuji's story in order to make one cohesive timeline. They put more emphasis as to who she is, and I think that also works very well.

In terms of side characters, Meikyuu does a lot of setup. A lot of the characters that are seen/mentioned in this OVA are characters that we know or will know. As a whole, they don't really serve much more than contributing factors to how Yuuji became the way he is, but it is because they serve this role that they show a little more worth as characters rather than just cannon fodder or background characters.

Overview:
+ Good character explanation
+ Additional character info for other characters
+ Decent side characters

Art and Sound (7.21/10 and 6.00/10): Admittedly, the art and sound for Grisaia may be a bit lacking. In the art department, the show itself doesn't actually look all that bad. A lot of the show utilizes this very bright neon colored style of palette in order to showcase its characters and some pretty good detail when it came to certain aspects of the show, such as the detail on the guns and rifles, that looked rather good.

However, there is still one thing that personally bugs me about the artstyle, and that is, eyelashes. On every female character in the series, they have this red hue on the ends of their eyelashes. After looking at the VN images and noticing it myself in Kajitsu, Meikyuu, and Rakuen, this is an intentional art design flair. The thing is, it looks weird. It looks like every girl has a weird rash around their eyes and it really, really bugs me. I've seen this in other anime, and it just looks weird when characters have the eye design look a different color other than black.

In terms of sound, there's not really much to say. The OST for Meikyuu is rather small, and there's nothing really exceptional about the music that was played, mostly because the show sort of just dives right into the story.

Overview:
+ Decent artstyle
- The eyelashes really bug me
- Pretty much non-existent music

Personal Enjoyment (3.98/10): So, even with all of the praise I give for the story and the character development, why does this OVA get an abysmal personal enjoyment rating? Well, to answer that simply, I...really just don't like Grisaia. There, I said it. From a quality aspect, this OVA is actually really well-made. It's not a perfect 10/10 for story, but there's really not much I can say about something that benefits the series it's in. It makes sense, it tells the audience what it wants to tell, and it's actually interesting. It's really interesting. But in terms of personal enjoyment...there are aspects, several aspects about it that I really don't like personally.

Did I like this OVA?

Quality-wise, I think this was a really good OVA. It had a good story, good character development and character building, and it goes straight into Rakuen without any hesitation. Literally, the end of Meikyuu and the beginning of Rakuen are scenes that go one into the other. For me though, this...really isn't the series for me, and I'll explain why.

What didn't I like about this OVA?

Ok, ok. This is really my personal complaint for not just Meikyuu, but Grisaia as a whole. I find this series to be really...really...REALLY...fucked up. There are things that happened in Kajitsu that scarred me a bit, (I'm a weak person), and there were a good number of things that happened in Meikyuu that had the same effect on me, and it was a couple, so I was trembling in my seat for a while. (Jeez, now I understand why Yuuji has those fears...) Because of who I am personally, my enjoyment of the series dipped significantly, to the point that I will most likely never touch this series ever again after watching it. It's still a good series, don't get me wrong.

Would I recommend this OVA?

If you've seen Kajitsu and want to move onto Meikyuu, I would say it is not just recommended, but necessary for you to watch this OVA first. (Don't make the same mistake I did.) The reason being is not just the fact that this OVA was released between the two, but because a lot of the details in this tie over to what happens in Rakuen, Grisaia's second season. Overall, I believe that it would make the viewing experience more pleasurable because the plotline would make more sense. Plus, the opening scenes of Rakuen wouldn't make sense unless you've seen Meikyuu first, so there.

Overall Score: 8.03/10

Author's Torment: Oh god...my eyes...I cannot unsee any of that now... (I am a very weak-willed person.)

So this special is dedicated in telling us about Yuuji's past life. What happened to him which made him like he is? His childhood, his family, his relations, his battles, his troubles, everything he went through as a child till the present day. It does a good job and really depicts the psychological genre this anime is known for. A dark past and some graphic scenes are all it takes to make it one of the Grisaia specials.

Story 9/10:
Yuuji explains his past up till now to his handler, the blonde woman of the CIA. How he was treated in his family, how his sister acted ... towards him and what happened after her sisters death. A sad and dark past of Yuuji is shown and after that comes his training arc which made him the assassin/sniper his is today. Though the ending of the special is more of a "to be continued" thing which will, I think, be continued in the sequel "Grisaia no Rakuen"

Art 8/10:
The art remains the same as it is. Really nice animation for a psychological anime, some graphic scenes and your average psycho-stuff.

Sound 7/10:
No opening or ending to the special.

Character 8/10:
The main focus is Yuuji. His family is shown in the first half and his sister gets quite the attention. After his family, comes his training story where he meets new characters. In the end, they show his encounter with his "to-be" master, Asako Kusakabe.

Enjoyment 8/10:
I can't say that I enjoyed this special since it was supposed to only fill in the gaps in our main character. Graphic scenes and a dark past aren't that enjoyable if you ask me. Nonetheless, this special is a really good one and I think the information given in it will play an important role in the upcoming sequel.

This is the worst anime I have ever watched. Not because it's technically bad; art and animation are fine, voice talent and music are fine, no that's not the problem. The problem is that the story is purely manipulative dreck.

HERE BE MASSIVE SPOILERS.

I found this story offensive. I have nothing against harems per se, and I am ok with Grisaia giving its harem girls somewhat difficult pasts for the feels. But this one, Yuuji's route, is just ham-fisted schlock. Whoever wrote this piece of tripe must have had the directive of "invent a really tragic past for Yuuji" and decided that ... throwing the kitchen sink of possible trauma was the right way to go. I am sorry, but manipulated feels are worthless. They are worse than worthless, they are trivializing actual trauma. As somebody who actually had an abusive childhood, I resent this crap with a passion.

Yuuji is physically and emotionally abused by his father, molested and emotionally twisted by his genius sister (whom I had previously rather liked, but now despise), abandoned by his mother (after she was raped by his father, who became the first person Yuuji killed), whom he then found dangling from the rafters, taken in by a pedophile who crossdressed him while sexually assaulting him, nearly raped by a pal of this paragon (whom he also killed, while in his underwear -- good for Yuuji, trained as a terrorist where the last bit of human feeling was beaten out of him with the final help of some girl who treats him nicely ... until she is supposed to kill him (or he her) as a graduation exercise. I have the feeling more is coming after the CIA finds him.

No, seriously, pure, unadulterated schlock. I don't believe for a second that Yuuji could come out of that as the laconic, yet caring protagonist of Grisaia. I am now gonna go bleach my brain.

TL;DR - Labyrinth of Grisaia (& the Cocoon of Caprice story it begins) is dumb schlock that sets out to offend & leaves you entertained. By the end of it, Yuuji has an engaging backstory, the rest of the Eden of Grisaia story is well setup & you've found yourself laughing awkwardly at rape jokes. Not for Tumblr.

Fruit of Grisaia was, all things considered, a disappointment. A rushed attempt to cram five story routes from the visual novel into twelve episodes, the result was a watchable but not particularly enjoyable harem where main man Yuuji blitzed his way through the back stories ... & personal problems of the girls at Mihama academy. Now, with The Labyrinth of Grisaia & indeed the whole Cocoon of Caprice story arc, we finally get to find out more about the mysterious assassin who is Grisaia's cool & composed protagonist. (note, this review takes the whole Cocoon of Caprice story into account, not just events of this episode)

& what a back story he has. I don't think it's a stretch to assume that everyone expected the route Yuuji took to becoming a cold hearted assassin was going to be a traumatic one. But the tragic back story told in The Cocoon of Caprice goes far beyond what one might have been anticipating. Incest, domestic abuse, murder, child sex slavery, child soldiers, rape, war & the kitchen sink are thrown at the audience with abandon. Yuuji has been through more in his seventeen years than most would go through in multiple lifetimes. A life so brutal & a mind so traumatised that it's a wonder he has come through it with an shred of humanity at all, if indeed he has any left. It's a traumatic & depressing journey of despair...

...& I laughed.

I laughed throughout all of it. I laughed when Yuuji was sexually assaulted by his sister. I laughed when found his mother naked & hanging from the rafters. I laughed when he murdered a man wearing nothing but girl's panties, & I laughed when his dog was eaten by a bear. I laughed, laughed & laughed some more, at this utter clusterfuck of a story that seemed the result of the writer being told "Yuuji needs a traumatic past" & he just went to town with no editorial or self-restraint.

Over the course of Cocoon's two hours, Yuuji goes from neglected younger brother, to child soldier, to trainee assassin, to US Marine, to not-CIA agent before reaching high school. The story seems to have taken "inspiration" from a number of films & other media including Leon, Hanna, Platoon, Come & See, the Hansel & Gretel story from Black Lagoon & heaven only knows how many other possible sources. Even Forest Gump is in there.

Despite it all, it's a pretty simple story, serving to let us know more about Yuuji, his up till now only talked about mentor Asako & his relationship to the blonde terrorist Heath Oslo, who appeared in the last episode of The Fruit of Grisaia. If you've watched any of the above named films, you'll know pretty much how each part of Yuuji's journey will play out. What you probably won't be expecting is how gleefully offensive the story of Yuuji's "traumatic" past gets.

This story contains so many taboo & offensive subjects it almost feels like that's the intention. Be it Yuuji being molested in the bath by his sister, or him raping Yuria Harudera at the insistence of his mentor & molester Asako Kusakabe (&, of course, her liking it) while still a minor, this story just throws taboo & traumatic scene after scene like there is no bottom of the barrel to be reaching to. One should really be offended by all this, since over the course of Cocoon pretty much every cliche & trope that makes people give late night anime a wide berth is shoved in with no discretion. Rape as a joke, sexually assaulting a minor as a romantic pairing. It's all here.

Fortunately, the writing of Grisaia is so cack handed that even in it's darkest & most tragic moments, all I could do was laugh. Cocoon handles the subjects it raises with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, & while it plays its subject straight it's pretty apparent that the whole thing is a joke; an attempt to see just how far they can push it & still come out with a coherent story at the end. & to the show's credit, Cocoon is the best story arc in the Grisaia series so far. While Fruit of Grisaia felt like it was rushing through most of the girls back story to get to Amane's, which then ended up mostly being about Yuuji's sister anyway, Cocoon is focused purely on Yuuji & devotes two hours to it.

Also to the writers credit, the story makes the effort to setup things which happen later on that a lesser script would overlook. The most obvious example is how the girls of Mihama academy, who play a very minor role in this story, are able to find out about Yuuji's past despite the fact that he's telling this story in person to Yuria (& us) at a debriefing meeting. It might seem odd for me to give props to the writers when I've dismissed the story itself as cack handed, but whatever I might have to say about the story, the screenplay is pretty good, & not just the bits lifted from other sources. The script is pretty dumb, both in terms of the dialogue & things like how no matter where Yuuji ends up, there's a pretty girl there to take a pointless interest in him (guy's got game). But by accident or by design, I was entertained by it all, even the Forest Gump/Platoon part which did drag on a little.

Cocoon of Caprice is what one can call schlock as a compliment. It's a dumb as a post story that tries to offend every sensibility you have, but does so in a way that I, at least, found both amusing & entertaining. I don't know how intentional all this was, but from what little I know of the Grisaia visual novel I know that it isn't something that takes itself as seriously as some of the anime adaptation's fans seem to. It's an entertaining tale of depravity that benefits immensely from the longer run time given to tell its story. Even people who didn't like Fruit of Grisaia should check it out, because the focus on Yuuji means you need almost no knowledge of preceding events in the series. Here's hoping the rest of Eden of Grisaia matches up to this.

This is a fairly dark single-episode addition to Grisaia that does a great job of explaining Yuuji's horrific past (likened to the protagonist's childhood in Fate/Zero's). It also sets the stage for what is to come in the second season. It is told from the current time frame as a reflection of Yuuji's past in order for him to get a promotion. After exploring the protagonist's dark past, the episode finishes with a brief scene with the main TV show's heroines. The title image here is a bit misleading as it explains the events prior to the title image, you don't see much of Yuuji's ... interactions with the master that he keeps referring to in the TV series, as would be implied by the title image. Definitely a worthwhile addition for anyone who watched the TV series.

Animation:
The animation is on par with the main show, it is still presented in a widescreen format and uses the same color scheme and character designs. If anything, expect even more intense action and mature emphasis.

Sound:
There isn't an OP but a pretty energetic ED post climax. The VA cast is identical to the main show.

Story:
I mentioned a good deal of the story above already. In addition, you'll get a lot of Kazuki's background as well as the bishoujo principal. Yuuji's training under the (pedophile?) terrorist Heath Oslo is also explored in depth. It's a pretty dark, but engaging story (if I haven't said that enough already).

Character:
As mentioned, there is a great deal of informative and well-presented development in this OVA.

Value:
If you've watched the main show, this should be a no-brainer, a lot of the important context may not make sense without the background from the prequel.

Grisaia no Meikyuu is a must watch inbetween Grisaia no Kajitsu and Grisaia no Rakuen. If you start Rakuen you'll immediately notice a gap in story, this because Meikyuu is the introduction story to the second Grisaia season.
Meikyuu is wonderful and complete, it has a very good pace and knows how to stir your emotions during this flashback story of Yuuji's youth.
The art is amazing as in the first and second season, and you'll never want to look away or miss a single moment.
I don't give a lot of reviews, but Meikyuu deserved my devoted attention!
To all you still ... wondering if you should watch this, YES, watch it! It's necessary to start Grisaia no Rakuen, and if you found yourself thinking the first season is rushed (which it is i.m.o btw), do not worry, because fro mhere on out the pacing is as it should be for such an amazing story! And if you still crave more details and moments of Grisaia, the VN is available through multiple means (yes also legally in English, just search =P but I don't promote companies so if you still can't find it you'll have to ask me in a PM in which I'll gladly direct you where you can buy this masterpiece)
So, go go go watch Meikyuu & Rakuen!!!! (^o^)/

After just finishing The Fruit of Grisaia I went right into this one and man, was it depressing as hell.

The Labyrinth of Grisaia is a sequel film to the first season of the Grisaia trilogy. The entire movie explains Yuuji's sad and lonely past and it was depressing as hell. In this film we see his relationship with his sister Kazumi. She was the star and he was the outcast but she took time to hang out with him and later began to care for him more, lovingly.

Kazumi and Yuuji's relationship I really liked at the beginning,and then the bath scene happened. It was weird ... and gave me chills that didn't feel good. But the thing that caught my attention was when Kazumi mentioned that she would find a suitable friend that was a girl for him and that she approved of. My guess is that that friend turned out to be Amane, since she grew really close with her during the Minibus Disaster.

Now Yuuji's parents. His father was a major asshole before and after Kazumi's "death." His mother however grew. At the beginning she ignored Yuuji but after Kazumi's "death" and his father going insane she became more loving and caring towards Yuuji.

And lastly Rei. I don't even want to talk about him quite yet since he's in the second season but let me just say, he can go to hell. The entire thing with him taking Yuuji in and making him dress up as Kazumi just made me want to snap his neck. It was horrible how he treated Yuuji but if he hadn't sent him to that training school, who knows how Yuuji would be like present.

All in all, Labyrinth gave us a ton of answers for Yuuji's past and let us see how Kazumi acted before the Disaster. I enjoyed it no matter how much the father and Rei pissed me off, along with the sudden brother/sister affection stage.

I give Labyrinth a 7.5/10 for the story, characters and animation. The sound wasn't the best thing I've heard but pretty good. And for my enjoyment, I was pretty invested with it.

The Labyrinth of Grisaia is a fifty minute OVA detailing the past of our main character, Yuuji. In the series, Yuuji was the only guy in a tiny school full of girls but he was also an accomplished sniper and one of the more developed MC’s in a show of this type.

We open with a hostage situation requiring Yuuji to snipe a man. This is little more than fan service, giving us a glimpse at how he met a minor character in the main show. After that we go back to when he was a child, treated like garbage by his parents because of how ... useless he was compared to his sister, Kazuki. She’s an accomplished painter and pretty much good at anything she does. Despite how well she is treated by her parents, she doesn’t like them and has a very close bond with her brother. And by close, I mean Monogatari style bath scene that had me going “Yoooo!”.

This section doesn’t develop Yuuji so much as Kazuki, which is very welcome. She’s a likeable character and I really enjoyed the dynamic between her and Yuuji until it turned to creepy incest. But at the same time, I kind of liked the weird turn and I should have expected it. Kazuki is awesome so…I guess it all works out.

Further sad things happen, especially after Kazuki’s “death”. One of the most disturbing things is when Yuuji is taken in by one of his dad’s friends who dresses him as Kazuki and…jerks him off then licks his hand…Oh god….

And then, in the end, we learn about Yuuji’s training at a terrorist camp and wrap it all up by showing off the harem from Fruit to make the OVA relevant.

The Labyrinth of Grisaia does a good job of explaining the past and setting up the next season but is also creepy as fucking hell. It’s an OVA with a lot of shock value, but it’s also highly entertaining.I wouldn’t suggest it to those who haven’t seen the first season, but if you have and enjoyed it, you’ll love this extra helping that will sate you till the release of Eden.The Labyrinth of Grisaia is a disturbing, sad, and totally unique experience. If you like watching anime push the bounds of good taste, you’ve come to the right place.

The parent to this prequel is Grisaia no Kajitsu, I thought it was good but there could of been some serious improvement. At first I felt Grisaia no Meikyuu was going to be the same, an unnecessary attachment to the series HOWEVER, I was proven wrong and proven wrong very strongly.

There was so much character development and I felt there was so much more value to the main character then ever. I really understand all who, what, where, when.

I was shockingly impressed by this prequel and I would suggest to anyone who watched Grisaia no Kajitsu to give Grisaia no Meikyuu a chance, you won't ... be let down.

In the prequel we see Yuuji's sister in depth and their parents. These were the characters who receive mass character development.
However, the main purpose of the prequel is to show how Yuuji became Yuuji being the highly skilled person he is and were walked through an emotional family experience.
In addition, we understand the relationship between Yuuji and Yuuji's sister even though it can be really strange at some parts. I mean insest weird, but again still very well written and applied even though you might be thinking WTF.

Overall, I HIGHLY recommend you watch this squeal and you don't even have to watch the parent. Even by itself I found great entertainment.

Backstory for the MC, this one starts strong, but quickly decides it's going to give him the most disturbing backstory it can, and then it loses me. The show goes out of its way to add reasons for him to be traumatized, and while I like good suffering in my MCs, this one just felt absurd. All I could think was that there's no way he comes out of this being any kind of OK, and frankly, it still doesn't make sense. I have a better opinion of it now that I've seen S2 because it at least gave more context for it, but I ... don't like shows that devote their runtime to torture porn, especially when they have so many ecchi and near-hentai elements.

Grisaia continues to be the most brashly awful thing I've ever witnessed and I still love it. At least with this arc there are elements that feel like they could have been good and were just executed abysmally by the studio rather than with the first series where it wouldn't have been possible for any of it to be good.

What really makes Grisaia so special is the motivation behind how the authors portray the MC. Just the idea of taking the MC of a harem (usually left as vague as possible so that the player can immerse themselves in the roles easily) and just making ... him the greatest man alive is hilarious to me. Even in this instance where they attempt to humanize the character, everything is still designed to put him over. I can just picture people playing through the VN feeling so goddamn macho playing this stoic badass that's so cool that everyone just wants to bang him. This is coming from someone who thinks the harem trope is great for storytelling and even I think this shit is way too overboard.

It's not just the writing though, everything else is really bad too. There were parts in this that had me in tears because the editing was so badly handled. It would try to do the thing (which most anime does effortlessly) where they really lean on the music in a key scene to make it impactful but the music would always be just not good enough and it would be over the wrong scene. Also, just the worst CG.

As much as I am (deservingly) shitting on this, Grisaia is one of the most entertaining things ever made. Something that's this bad on all levels that takes itself this seriously is something rare and magical. Grisaia is "The Room" of anime.

I had low expectations of the adaptation to begin with, considering how rushed and condensed "The Fruit of Grisaia" anime was. "Labyrinth" was no different, and I feel like this kind of pacing makes it difficult to really care that much about the people Yuuji got involved with and died, since they feel like just one-off redshirts who appeared on-screen for one minute and then disappeared.

We know from "Clannad" and "Steins;Gate" that it's not impossible to adapt a visual novel into a proper anime if enough money was thrown at it, so it's kinda vexing that Grisaia has such a piss-poor production quality.

Also, the anime ... was significantly more bloodless than the VN. Not that the VN went out of its way to depict blood and gore everywhere, but its textual descriptions were far more detailed and brutal than what is seen visually in the anime. Yuuji merely had some laughable scrapes on his skin after being beaten down, not even a purple bruise on his entire body. Talk about family-friendly. What is this, Disney?

Oh, but sex and rape scenes are fine, because violence is a far more taboo subject than sex. Gotta squeeze more money outta those hentai audiences, right? So you had to put more effort into those risque sex scenes, but not into the brutal fight scenes Yuuji goes through. Yep, perfectly understandable. That's Japan for you. Sex f-ing sells. Even America is starting to take a more self-conscious stance against gratuitous sex scenes nowadays, but Japan just can't help sticking to its promiscuous roots, I guess.

Sigh. Whatever. I can't say exactly that I feel like I wasted my time, since they animated what were merely walls of texts in the VN, so there's a certain amount of merit for you to check this out, I guess. Perhaps out of some morbid sense of curiosity. It's not nearly as bad as adaptations of actual sex games like Kara no Shoujo or its prequel, Cartagra (stay the f*** away from those two anime adaptations if you care for your sanity; don't say I didn't warn you), but it's still a pretty mediocre bargain-bin production.

I enjoyed Grisaia's first season originally for its fast pace and focus on multiple gritty characters with deep-rooted problems. I was expecting to have liked this interval story as much, since it covers the main character's deep-rooted problems as well. However, the story is fairly derivative and simplistic, instead relying on simple tragedy after simple tragedy. It's a far cry from the interconnected web of relationships that the first season had.

With no personal agency, Yuuji appears to have no characterbuilding in the film, instead being silently blown like a dead leaf from disaster to disaster. Worse yet, the show uses molestation as a disturbing ... crutch more times than I care to have counted, without having any additional impact for their presence. Perhaps that's a personal gripe, but disturbing the viewer with child molestation should not be confused with story impact.

The art and sound are fine, not earning any gripes or particular notice from me. I was enjoying the show up until his sister's character, a powerful force in the first season of Grisaia, was tarnished by taking the brocon archetype much too far before her passing. After that, Yuuji's misfortunes continued to ring hollow.

Perhaps it's a personal vendetta of mine, or perhaps I've become jaded, but I've seen enough of writers using cheap shock tactics and using stock plot elements to make a tragedy, especially at the expense of a strong existing character's integrity.

(Quick Review Spoilers)

So this special was interesting in a weird way. It was about the past of Yuuji Kazami before meeting his master Asako Kusakabe and his life was weird but I guess interesting. He lived with his family with his parents and his older sister who was more talented than him so his parents ignored him and only cared for her. He had a really weird relationship with his sister also known as incest whilst like I said his parents ignored him until his sister had died making his father abusive and acholic to him and his mother which they both moved away from ... him until he found them again which Kazami killed his dad and his mother killing herself since she can't handle all of this which then he is then taking by a man named Heath Oslo which only made his life even odder but he did become some sort of assassin. I don't really like this story as it wasn't that enjoyable and like the first season that one was boring as well as this one so yeah I don't really like this series much.

Story 5/10
Art 6/10
Sound 6/10
Character 6/10
Sound 6/10
Enjoyment 5/10
Overall 6/10

I normally don't write reviews for single episode shows that are just part of a larger series, but I'll make an exception here since I do have a few things to say about this. So what is it that compels me to write about what is essentially just episode one of the sequel show? Well...

- Story & Theme
One criticism I had about the first series was that it didn't really focus a lot on the protagonist and this time around it's the opposite. This is the big backstory episode where you get to learn all about Yuuji Kazami and who he is. The problem is ... again that the story is just about the story and never really the characters. There is little actual growth or change beyond what is expected and while we get to see many new characters they all fade away quickly from the mind. The protagonist is still a Gary Stu and this time around there is quite a lot more fanservice and implied sex between people of inappropriate ages and inappropriate positions of power. There's a large serving of male fantasy scenarios written for and by people who, most likely, have little to no actual experience with anything like it. The incest vibes are strong too and the bad taste from the first series was quickly replaced with a worse taste from this episode.

- Characters & Writing
Did I mention that Yuuji is a Gary Stu? Because he is such a Gary Stu. He is good at almost everything he does, instantly liked and adored by all women and quickly end up in what seems to be the wet dream of any 13-year old boy. At times he comes off as an autistic savant, but then he is shown to have a good grasp of social interaction and none of the problems. There is no real tention anywhere because of this, coupled with the fact that it's a prequel story so we already know what will happen to him. The rest of the characters suffer from being written only to play up the protagonist and there are plenty of situations where people do things that simply does not make sense.

- Style & Presentation
Nothing special here. The animation is fine, the music is fine, the style is fine and so on, so forth.

- Conclusion
In all, this isn't a great episode and while a bit of background is needed for the next series to make sense it isn't handled very good. Parts of it are entertaining while others are plain boring or just bad. Nothing really stands out here and the pacing and timeline is all over the place. If you want to watch the series that comes next this episode is, unfortunately, required viewing but if you're on the fence I can tell you that while the series that follows is better than this it's only better than the first series in some regards and worse in others.

[Review contains spoilers, read at your own risk]

Ever wondered how much can studios butcher an anime adaptation so badly, so did I. For the past years I have not seen an anime adaptation worse that than Grisai trilogy, journey through me Cyranical as I relive and retell all the pain and anguish I felt while watching the second anime adaptation of the Grisai trilogy which is The Cocoon Of Caprice 0.


The Cocoon Of Caprice 0 is the continuation of 8bit's disaster of an adaptation for Grisai no Kaijitsu, it also serves as a bridge for fruits and eden. It tells the tragic past ... of Yuuji's childhood, he was abused by his dad, sexually and mentally abused by his own sister, and had an inferiority complex towards his sister Kazuki, he also saw his mom get beaten and raped by her dad multiple times, he tried to stop him countless times, but he would get beaten by his old man instead for prying into his bussiness. Yuuji's childhood was harsh and unbearable for the average kid, but he somehow kept on pushing, after he mortally wounds his dad trying to protect his own mother, she begs him to flee and when he returns he finds out his dad is dead and his mom commited suicide. He is then taken by the terrorist Health Oslo and turned into his tool, until during a Ichigaya mission he was retrieved by none other than his soon to be master Kusakabe Asako.



The Cocoon of Caprice 0 is a bad adaptation of the first parts of the Labyrinth Of Grisai's main course that being the Cocoon Of Caprice in it's entirety. Now I don't know if this is a movie or a OVA but whatever it is, it possesses the same problems that it's predecessor has, these types of stories are not meant to be speedrun, there are a lot of aspects such as character development and pacing that need to be taken into account when adapting stories like this, but the anime ignored all of that and butchered the execution. For example Yuuji's childhood a majority of scenes that I consider important and necessary to the story have been skipped here, he went through a lot as a child and went through a lot more after meeting Asako, like I said before these types of stories should be adapted and paced properly, if you just go through stories like this all willy nilly then it won't work out, furthermore you're going to dissapoint a lot of people tuning in from the original source material like me.



Now Grisai is not one of my favorite VN's or anime hell it's far from it, but it certaintly s a lot better than your average Harem anime, even tho yes it has a harem ending, and thank god it is adapted into the anime. I would have enjoyed this adaptation a lot more if they actually just straight up adapted the entirety of Cocoon Of Caprice, and just added new things to patch out Rakuen, but I'll talk about this more in the Eden review. [ Rakuen is japanese for Eden btw and I love using it ]



Pros:
-OP and ED is decent
-Did pretty well considering what it had to work with



Cons:
-Rushed the story and cut out a lot of important scenes and details
-Skipped some interesting parts
-Maybe they coudn't expand on the abuse that Yuuji went through and just tried to fix it with a flashback narration which I didn't like, but aye anime can only show so much, then again it came from a VN so it is what it is
-Shit pacing




Overall The Cocoon Of Caprice O is a adaptation that was wasted potential since it didn't adapt Yuuji's backstory fully, and instead just rushed through the first parts of Caprice which is a feat of itself since those parts are already short AF, hell they were like 3 hrs of playtime for me.


Personally I would have liked this adaptation more if they just adapted Yuuji's backstory fully, allowing Eden to be a better anime since it would have changes and more breathing room. Unfortunately if you're watching the anime then you need to go over this since it serves as your connection to Eden, so sadly for you you're going to have to endure this for 47 minutes and be left scratching your head after it since the story went by too fast. I also would have just liked for Eden to have this on it, plus it be a little longer, if they were going for the route of adapting the rest of Caprice and rushing the Seed Of Blank Isle anyway. I give Cocoon Of Caprice 0 a 4/10 for my overall anime rating, plus I'm sorry for the anime only watchers that had to endure sitting through this.