Kagewani

A video blogger attempts to fake cryptid sightings to boost his views, but gets more than he bargained for when his crew is slaughtered by a real monster. Elsewhere, students find themselves preyed upon by a sandworm-like beast, initiating a desperate struggle for survival on their own school grounds.

With more of these attacks from mysterious creatures occurring, researcher Sousuke Banba tasks himself with delving into the mystery. With nothing but the keyword "Kagewani" to lead him, he scours the sites of recent attacks in hopes of finding a lead to eradicating the creatures for good. However, Sousuke finds that these threats to humanity are even closer to home when the pharmaceutical company, Sarugaku, starts to encroach on his investigation.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Sequel:

Kagewani: Shou

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Characters & Voice Actors

Banba, Sousuke

Main

Sugita, Tomokazu
Japanese

Kimura, Masaki

Main

Okiayu, Ryoutarou
Japanese

Komori, Satoru

Supporting

Satoshi

Supporting

Kosugi, Fumiya
Japanese

Detective

Supporting

Miyazaki, Hiromu
Japanese

Daiki

Supporting

Saori

Supporting

Shindo, Naomi
Japanese

Kazuto

Supporting

Shindo, Naomi
Japanese

Haruko

Supporting

Hirohashi, Ryou
Japanese

Minori

Supporting

Aizawa, Mai
Japanese

Staff

Takashima, Tomoya

Director, Original Creator

Kumamoto, Hiromu

Script

M.S.S Project

Theme Song Performance

Usa, Yoshiki

Associate Producer

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Ending Theme

"Arrival of Fear" by M.S.S. Project

Reviews

Feb 9, 2016

Willowtry

Recommended

In one line : A hommage to the old horror genre.

Initial expectation :

I always had bad experiences so far with 7 minutes long Animes. Those encountered were always rushed, senseless or ridiculous and build around fanservice, so I had the tendency to avoid them. When I came across Kagewani, I wanted to test it out not only for its unique art style, but because it was tagged as horror.

Story :

What struck me with the very first episode is the mastering of the pacing. Writing a scheme properly within mere 7 minutes isn't as simple as it may sound. On the contrary, to settle down ...

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Dec 28, 2015

ZephSilver

Mixed Feelings

Occult mystery stories have always been a staple for campfire gatherings and time-slotted entries for the SyFy channel. It's not the most "enthralling" thing out there, but for the sake of offering cheap thrills, some goosebump moments, and something to whet the appetite, I think it serves its purpose well in pop culture. Kagewani is a title that pretty much follows this rubric down to the letter. It isn't going to "waw" you with any pioneering ideas, nor will it find itself in your coveted "top 10 favorites" list. Instead, what this "animated" short offer is a fairly decent time-passer, serving as an intermission break ... before you take on the next show that you truly want to watch.

Told in a quasi-memoir like structure, the story of Kagewani was comprised of a series of anthology-like fables, where we find ourselves following Sousuke Banba, a scientist (or better yet, a supernatural detective), as he investigates the trail of carnage left behind by mysterious monsters that populate Japan. Sharing a personal life-altering encounter with these monsters, a majority of the story was dedicated to not only putting an end to the monsters' destruction but also exploring the backstory of Banba as well.

The first thing that would immediately grab your attention is the uncommon art-style that Kagewani incorporates. Similar to another occult mystery anime, Yami Shibai, the art-style is akin to that of cardboard cutout paper-mache collages. Images that move across the screen like a puppeteer pulling strings. In most cases, this type of art-style may feel out of place, but for an anthology series that basically uses folklore to tell tales of strange happenings across Japan, the choice is perfectly at home. It gives everything an ominous vibe, a type of uncanny valley effect to the way everything moves and looks, which helps compensate for the lack of atmosphere not allotted to it otherwise. Of course, you'll have those individuals that immediately say that the show "is shit" for not following convention, but for those who like anime that diversify its style and art direction, it can serve as a unique entry. It isn't bad, just different.

Another noteworthy thing is the monster design themselves; borrowing elements European fairy tales and merging it with Japanese kaiju designs to create interesting hybrids. As in the case of the art-style, these ugly monstrosities help out where the audiovisual output was lacking.

Surprisingly enough, the music selection was virtually nonexistent. Outside of a few sparse sound effects here and there, and the ending theme song itself, there was very little here of note. Usually, shorts like these utilize music to help build its atmosphere, so seeing how little Kagewani took advantage of this chance to really up the creep factor was a bit disappointing.

But this wasn't a series I really had much investment in, to begin with, so not like it mattered all that much.

While it had its issues and doesn't go beyond being a novelty act, Kagewani did well enough under the time restraint and limited material it had to work with. It's not a title that you will probably remember in the long run, but I say it's still worth a try. It's short, to the point, and gets the job done, and at the end of the day, that's all that really matters.

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Oct 5, 2016

ktulu007

Not Recommended

Welcome, to the start of horror anime month. Where most of the series I review will undoubtedly have the horror tag, not because they're scary in any way, but because they have monsters. Kagewani is a thirteen episode series that was written by Kumamoto Hiromu and brought to us by Tomovies. You may not recognise the studio name and wonder what else they've done. Well, there's this and its currently airing sequel. That's it. The studio is really new. How does their initial venture into anime production hold up? Let's take a look.

Story:

Kagewani follows Professor Judas Traveller*, a crypto-zoologist. You probably think of cryptozoology as ...

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