Ayakashi

Ayakashi, was...not bad. I was bored for a while and had already finished death note but a little advice for people who finish a GREAT MATERPIECE OF ANIME, do not wathc this atferwards, you will feel like crap and think "I could of done better". Ayakashi was okay but it just gets annoying after the first 5 episodes but atleast we get a nudity scene in ep. 4 or 5. :D

Check your brain at the door, it'll just get in the way.

The show starts off with an interesting premise, but ultimately, that's all it is. The show feels like it was created by hobbyist highschoolers shooting for "cool" by being violent and "edgy" with pseudo-intellectual "dark" moments, but the execution was mishandled and it just comes off a convoluted mess.

Too much stuff happens in too quick a succession (pacing problems), and things are conveniently forgotten and parts of the story skipped (lazy writing). You'll find yourself thinking, "Wait, why is that happening? Did I miss an episode or something?" much too ... often, and it's not because you missed a detail, but because they couldn't be bothered to explain and just decided to jump ahead.

If could you treat this like a mindless horror-action series, all that would probably be forgiven (ala Elfen Lied and Deadman Wonderland), but unfortunately that's hard to do. The truth is, while there are some gory scenes, they all take place outside of the fighting so they feel like throwaway shock-value (they're not particularly graphically gory either, just violent in nature; and the violence is pretty much shrugged off by the characters, so there's no suspense or gravitas, making the scenes feel decidedly surreal). On top of this, the actual battle sequences are relatively boring and unsatisfying.

The animation and art are quite good, but these guys clearly did not know how to choreograph fights, so you just get a bunch of 30 second skirmishes with half a dozen action poses, and then someone "winning". It lacks the stylistic over-the-top moments that carry and elevate other shows of the type; and that may be its fatal flaw.

If you go into this not having been exposed to the action horror genre before, you might enjoy it more, but otherwise the anime is mediocre at best. It's certainly not absolutely horrible, and if you've got nothing else to do, its easy on the eyes and can pass time, but there's probably something better to watch. The concept and art style make me think this show had potential, but ultimately, all i feel is disappointment that the production company dropped the ball on this one; and that's the core reason I'm so negative on this show.

Story: 3 (The potential was there, but it was wasted :/)
Art: 7 (Visually above average for the time period. The palette and monster-character models are somewhat interesting, and the animations feel smooth... but the smoothness feels wasted, because their actions are so unimaginatively bland, and that drags it down. What's the use in making it look pretty, if you do nothing with it?)
Sound: 5 (Kind of forgettable. I do distinctly remember hearing a sound effect so hackneyed I couldn't help but laugh though)
Character: 4 (The characters are very RPG'ishly one dimensional. I read somewhere this started off as a visual novel or eroge... and it makes sense--... but then, I guess so did Fate/Stay Night. *shrug*)
Enjoyment: 5
Overall: 5 I've seen worse. It's watchable at least. It could have been great :/.