Monster Strike

Ren Homura has just moved back to his hometown of Kaminohara, but he isn't able to remember much about the time he spent there other than vague flashbacks. When he retrieves his cell phone which he had sent to a shop for repairs, he finds that a mysterious game titled “Monster Strike” has been installed on it. Unaware of its purpose or how it got there, Ren decides to open it, an action that will change his life forever as he finds himself suddenly attacked by a strange man.

Now trapped on the roof of his school which strangely has been designated as a "stage," Ren is shocked to see the man summon a realistic monster from the game, one that is more than capable of inflicting damage on a human. His only chance of getting out of this situation alive is by summoning the dragon Oragon, who tells Ren that he will crush the opposing monster for him. Unfortunately, it turns out that Oragon is a tiny dragon that is completely useless!

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Homura, Ren Main

Kobayashi, Yuusuke Japanese

Oragon Main

Fukushima, Jun Japanese

Mizusawa, Aoi Main

Lynn Japanese

Wakaba, Minami Main

Kimura, Juri Japanese

Kagetsuki, Akira Main

Kawanishi, Kengo Japanese

Lucifer Supporting

Hikasa, Youko Japanese

Sakamoto, Ryouma Supporting

Murata, Taishi Japanese

Firefighter Supporting

Chiba, Toshiya Japanese

Kagutsuchi, Haruma Supporting

Ono, Daisuke Japanese

Dark Zeus Supporting

Koyama, Rikiya Japanese

Hirasawa, Nao Producer

Miyazaki, Yuuji Producer

Ichikawa, Kazuya Director

Aketagawa, Jin Sound Director

Reviews

Oct 15, 2018

Sensei_Jaq

Recommended

This is by far one of the dorkiest shows I have seen. For the first few episodes, you have absolutely no clue what is going on. And it really doesn't get much better.
First of all, the episodes are only 8 minutes long (though in all reality the episodes are only 6 minutes long. 2 minutes of nonsense). Due to this, there is little time for character development. There is no real story until you hit about episode 12. This anime feels like a mixture between Pokemon, Digimon, and Yugioh, yet the episodes are a 3rd shorter than they should be! (Average is 24 mins long. ... This really got to me.) The only good thing about short episodes is if you are in a time crunch and only have 10 minutes to watch an episode.
The sound is fine, but everything is really dorky. The MC is a dork, and then he fluctuates into a "strong man", and back to a dork. He is constantly in his head, which is hard to make a great story.
It is a decent anime. I'm going to finish the other seasons because I'm a completionist, but I would not recommend this for anyone seeking an OP MC. (This was recommended for me, which is why I say that.) The MC lost all his memories. He remembers somethings when he fights (he actually becomes a completely different character) and then immediately forgets them. There is some fan service that never really gets put into action. The characters hint at naughtiness, but nothing comes from it. (ep 10 or 11. I can't remember which one was the coffee shop.)
I never played the game itself, which can probably account for my enjoyment of the show. Had I played the game first, and then watched the anime, I would probably not have anything good to say about this anime (by going off of reviews I saw around the interwebs).
If you're on the hunt for a dorky show that doesn't make any sense at all, then this is the one for you.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Dec 23, 2016

Cooltaff12

Mixed Feelings

Story:
The story is not interesting and almost looks like less inspired version of other pocket monsters game anime in that genre. This may not be as disappointing if you came to this anime through the original game, which had a very flexible premise that could lead to many different designing principles. Seeing them play it safe and take the most standard can be rather insulting. Even by ignoring this, the anime does not represent the game well and gives out false impressions of some mechanics.

Art:
The design and art style is very similar to the game, which can go from decent to great design. Thanks ... to the design and style, it does render 3D models better than other monster based show with CGI like Berserk. However, it does not go far than that and the animation only peaks in fights that does not last long.

Sound:
The audio department has only two aspects that remotely stands out: The voice actors and ending theme. The voice actors have done a decent job and try to make the character sound less inspired that they already are. The Ending theme is decent, but it’s every rock ending theme you heard. The cover of Queen’s We Will Rock You is not my favourite. Maybe it’s because I’m too fond of the original.

Characters:
The human cast is underwhelming. Those character that starts interesting lose their touch and those who did not becomes at least entertaining. The only one that I could think up that does not fit in either side is Minami. Minami is the equivalent of the 90s kid who kept shooting out catch phrases and pop culture references in any chance she got. Or in other word, a character that is likely to piss off old anime fans.
The monster cast is more interesting and they are probably the reason why you come back to this show.
The villains are mostly generic as they come. Nothing more to say about them.

Enjoyment:
When the focus was on the monster, it was entertaining. When it the focus was on the humans, only some supporting characters could hold entertainment to some degree. The humour was entertaining when it went meta on the first episodes, but it disappeared afterwards.

Overall:
Monster Strike is a decent anime series that plays as any adaption of a popular social digital game. If you don’t regard the script, execution of said premise, the references, boring soundtrack, the misguided direction, the false impression of the source material, the shallow protagonist and even more shallow antagonist, you find that this is decent enough for you who wants to watch a 10 minutes’ episode anime on YouTube. I mean the design and action was good, or pretty much when the series focused on the monsters.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Dec 26, 2020

CandleNekra

Not Recommended

Story: It felt way too rushed. I don't understand why they didn't just make a 20 minute episode instead of creating a 8 minute episode if they are going to make 51 episodes. The story was terribly explained and the problems were fixed half-assedly. The mechanics of the game weren't even explained so basically, you had to figure out what the heck is going on. This anime made me more tired than satisfied watching.

Art and Sound: Pure laziness. There are some parts where I thought they animated pretty nicely or the art quality looked amazing. But then they bring in the awkward CGI that doesn't ... fit with the background. The only thing that I found pretty neat were the characters. But thats about it.

Characters: DISGUSTING! The show tried their best to make everyone have a complicated personality, but every LAST ONE OF THEM just gave me a headache. There was no decent characters. Even the monsters were treated like trash. For example, all the main characters; Ren, Aoi, Akira, and Minami have more than one monsters, and yet, none of them had the thought of using more than 1! I'm pretty sure in the actual game, Monster Strike actually allows you to play with more than one monster at a time. SO I don't know what the heck the creators or the studio of this anime was thinking. ALSO ORAGON? Weird mascot, but he was the least annoying in the show.

OVERALL: This was a waste of time and I don't recommend. Unless you're looking for shows to add to your episode/anime count... もったいね！！！！

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Monster Strike Episode 51 Discussion Stark700 - Dec 3, 2016	10 replies	by SheyCroix »» Nov 20, 2022 5:56 PM
	Poll: Monster Strike Episode 50 Discussion Stark700 - Nov 26, 2016	5 replies	by SheyCroix »» Nov 20, 2022 5:55 PM
	Poll: Monster Strike Episode 49 Discussion Stark700 - Nov 19, 2016	3 replies	by SheyCroix »» Nov 20, 2022 5:55 PM
	Poll: Monster Strike Episode 48 Discussion Stark700 - Nov 12, 2016	6 replies	by SheyCroix »» Nov 20, 2022 5:54 PM
	Poll: Monster Strike Episode 47 Discussion Stark700 - Nov 5, 2016	3 replies	by SheyCroix »» Nov 20, 2022 5:54 PM