Ao Oni The Animation

I'm kinda disheartened by the overall low scores for this otherwise genius masterwork of comedic fiction. Now I do an extent of ignorance towards the sorce material but from the sounds of it, they made the right choice in making Ao Oni the Animation such a classic comedy anime. Along with the likes of Corpse Party, the amount of thoughtful shock value is exceedingly high. Personally, I laugh at every episode with a huge grin on my face.

Many of the characters reminded me of my wonderful friends, so seeing them get brutally murdered by Ao Oni every week is slightly heart wrenching, but nonetheless a ... satisfying time. Every character is distinct, what with their own terrib- I mean beautiful designs and interpersonal traits.

Now, if you can read past my sarcasm, I actually think Ao Oni is an underrated masterpiece of comedy. Hey, I laugh at the characters being dismembered on a regular basis... so it can't be all that bad. Right?

This opera is really underrated because of itscomplex structure. It looks like a dumb chibi funny anime, with no interest in developing the characters or making them progress like happened with the game. So you are probably wondering why I gave it a 10.
That's pretty simple, this opera contains one other anime, really deep and conscious. You have to analyze what happens and you will understand what I say. For eaxmple in every episode they die, but in the next episode there is no sign of change in their acting, but if you know stoics's philosophy it will gain one other layer. It represents ... the Doom or Logos, that no one can avoid and everything keeps repeating. Then we have the inverse episode, where the girl kills every monster alone. Again this is a great meaning, showing how you always have to analyze each side before doing something, and how there is no good and no evil. And in the end we have the second different end of the episode, as we saw in the "inverse" episode they main characters aren't killed only because they are part of one other world (Again a reference to stoics's philosophy), in the last episode we see how the kids become the monsters, again the speaking idea of no one is good, everyone can turn evil.
Everyone who has bad reviewed this anime should go deeper instead of just simply watching it.

First of all, if you are coming into this show thinking it's going to be a direct adaptation of the game, you're going to be sorely disappointed. Ao Oni The Animation is certainly a unique show from the same studio that brought us the horror classic Higurashi... and also Pupa. Instead of a direct adaptation, Deen decided to do a black comedy short series.

Story: Since this is a short episode comedy series, there really is no overarching plot to speak of, and the actual plot of each episode ends in the characters dying in some fashion or another. To be fair, there's only so much ... you can do when your episode length is two minutes.

Art: As you can probably tell by the previews, Deen used a heavily stylized chibi art style for this show, which was a smart move as it compliments the comedic style while contrasting the black comedy. The animation is nothing to write home about. If you're expecting super fluid animation from this series... you're just going to be disappointed.

Sound: Ending is good... that's about all I can say about sound. They did use that stupid sound effect whenever they Ao Oni appears in the game which is a nice touch.

Characters: The characters are all pretty bland if you look at them separately. None of them really have any defining characteristics except for a single trope, with the only exception ironically being the monster itself, the Ao Oni. He's the best character in this show by far, and he doesn't even have any speaking lines.

Enjoyment: Here's where this gets interesting. Ao Oni The Animation relies on black comedy for its humor, which is a rather risky move since black comedy can be rather hit and miss. Luckily for me, I am a fan of black comedy and the first episode had me laughing out loud for quite a while.

Overall: Ao Oni The Animation is definitely a "Your Mileage May Vary" show. I recommend trying out the first episode (It's only three minutes) and seeing if you like that. As for me, I give this show a 6/10.

Ao Oni...

few shows manage to impact my life in a meaningful way, and yet this masterpiece not only did that but it managed to change my life completely.

It's truly an emotional rollercoaster of ups and downs, filled to the brim with comedy, tension, drama, horror, romance, and characters who evolve and adapt throughout the narrative. By the end of the series you've seen every character grow, to a point where looking back to the start they're almost unrecognisable. I would best describe them each, as a block of marble who are masterfully sculpted into perfect pieces of art.

My personal favourite episodes are the 4th and ... 12th (with the 4th winning out over the 12th by a slim margin)

Episode 4 takes a deep dive into the "antagonist"'s mind (I use the term antagonist lightly here as he could be seen as a protagonist in a way), showing us the viewer how the character thinks and feels. This is where I was truly enlightened. This episode without a doubt made me realise that this was no ordinary show, oh no... This was in fact a masterpiece.
Words alone could not even begin to describe how amazing this episode was in every department!

Episode 12 could be seen as filler by some, and while that is technically true it still plays an important role in the series. The episode takes place in an alternate world where the former protagonist "Mika" is hunting the former antagonists in a bizarre twist of fate. Yet again I wouldn't be able to express how this simple change of the formula makes such a massive impact. The only reason this episode doesn't beat out the 4th is that it's not technically canon to the narrative and has no impact on it.

In short, Ao Oni is truly a masterpiece that everyone should see!

If you are a fan of the game and are here because you wanted to watch an anime adaptation of it, forget it. If you just randomly happened to come across this anime and see that it has a horror genre tag, disregard it. This is a short, nonsensical comedy.

Story:
There isn't much of a story. It's three minutes long and is episodic. Four friends find themselves trapped in a haunted mansion with Ao Oni. Wacky, ridiculous goings on occur as we watch the friends get hanged, beheaded, eaten, etc., etc., etc..

Characters:
There's Mika, Takurou, Takeshi, and Ao Oni. All the human characters are in chibi form. ... Except for one episode in which we get some insight into the daily life of Ao Oni and one episode where Mika tries to confess her love, there isn't much character development happening. The people are pretty much there for the sole purpose of comedic relief while they get attacked.

Sound & Art:
Both are decent enough and do the job. Nothing spectacular about them.

Enjoyment and Overall:
I liked it and thought it was hilarious. In my opinion this anime is underrated but, admittedly, I realize that this show isn't for everyone

Anime Happy-Tree Friends. Literally all you need to know. Take the familiar formula of cute chibi 2 dimensional characters on a flat background that may very well have been drawn in Microsoft Paint, inject it with ultra-violence with no consequences or permanence, and then thrown in a handful of anime tropes and bingo-bango you've got Ao Oni. They are a quick watch but fairly entertaining in a Ebaum's World or Newgrounds kind of way. You probably won't be declaring it a masterpiece, but it may elicit a chuckle from sheer absurdity.

Also it is tagged as "horror." This seems inaccurate. The original medium was a ... game that i gather was a horror game, but this animated adaptation seems to have gone in a completely different direction I guess if were taken seriously for a single second the subject matter could be considered horrific, but the whole thing is nothing more than a series of slapstick gags. It is absolutely intended to be viewed as a comedy.

Episodes 4, 12, and 13 are the only ones worth watching. At my least critical, I might include episodes 5 and 11 with those on the account that they mildly amused me, though I will still likely forget them a week after I've written this review. If you've stumbled upon this series of comedy shorts because of the following the original freeware Ao Oni game has gained, that's really all you need to know. Those are the only episodes of this show that I might consider clever, and even then, not by much. Most of the humor in these shorts is very stale and predictable, ... and this problem can primarily be attributed to the characters, because they really aren't characters. They're each a single personality trait combined with a cluster of stereotypical horror character traits. In a freeware game where the focus is on the scares and the atmosphere, this characterization is forgivable. In a comedy series, it ensures that the punchline of each joke is heavily predictable and that the characters never form any meaningful chemistry. The story is largely just meant to be a vehicle for the comedy, and is thus also not worth talking about. The music is completely forgettable, the lone exception being the repeating strings that play whenever being chased by the titular monster in the original game. This track has been seared into the mind of anyone who has experienced the Ao Oni game. Even though it's really only a few seconds of music repeated over and over, it coneys a sense of panic well and manages never to get old or annoying. Thankfully, it's not overused in the series. It and the show's simple but effective art are the only things I can imagine remaining the same in the alternate universe where this show was a comedy masterpiece. Overall, if you REALLY have to see all of the semi-decent anime in existence, watch the episodes I listed above. If you're nowhere near that obsessive, skip this series. The good episodes aren't worth wading through the crappy ones, and even on their own, they never get more than a brief small chuckle. Just look up "Ao Oni Funny Moments" on YouTube and you'll probably get dozens of videos that will make you laugh more than all of the episodes in this series combined.

This was a complete subversion of expectations. If you’re looking for a horror-type thriller, this ain’t it. If you’re looking for a remotely serious show, you’re out of luck here. This all being said, this show made me laugh harder than almost any show I’ve watched in a long time. I went into it with the low ratings in mind thinking it would be a so-bad-it’s-good horror show, but I got a short and sweet comedy experience that leaves me with a smile on my face and wanting more.

Story - There isn’t much of a story. Every episode is only a couple of minutes. I ... appreciate the show being so similar in presentation to a video game, always ending in a “Game Over”. As a video game adaptation, it really trails off from the source material, but also plays with it in creative and funny ways. Anyway, to rope everything back to topic, the “stories” in every episode are short, sweet, and inoffensive.

Art - I enjoy the art in this show a great deal. The way the Ao Oni and it’s… family members (?) are animated and presented visually are quite funny looking, in a good way, of course. The main human characters themselves are also animated in a simple, yet effective way. I do however wish they maybe used the main characters’ detailed design, maybe in the last episode or something. Other than that, art is solid and inoffensive. Even the gore is done tastefully somehow.

Sound - I am in love with the fact that the show uses the short looping violin sting from the video game whenever Ao Oni shows up. That, plus the rest of the sound design being solid, means that the sound design never really dips below being good.

Character - I enjoy almost every character in this show. Even though some characters are more forgettable than others, they all have their defining personality traits that make them all memorable in their own right. All of the Ao Onis are funny, I especially enjoy the muscular one for some reason. As for the human cast, Mika probably has some of the most memorable moments, followed closely by Takurou. Hiroshi is a funny character, for being a stereotypical “nerd” type. Takeshi is the most forgettable, but he still has funny moments and I wouldn’t like the show any more if he weren’t in it.

Enjoyment - Every single episode made me laugh at least once, usually way more. Nearly every joke lands. The absurdity and speed of the comedy fits so much substance into so little runtime. For being under the horror genre, the show is insanely fun, and not exactly horrific.

Overall - I wish more people knew about the show. I wish the genre listed wasn’t so misleading. I wish the show was longer. I didn’t get what I expected when going into this, but I got something arguably better with an enjoyable experience that I haven’t gotten anywhere else thus far.

I'll start off by saying that this is my first review and that it's by no means a troll one.
So Ao Oni, even if you're not an Horror RPG fan you probably have heard of it, but what about the anime ? is it any good ? is it scary ?
well, it's a parody, and actually a very good one, they actually did it pretty well considering the length of the episodes (around a Minute and half if we don't count the opening and ending), they were seriously funny, so don't come here expecting something actually scary since I don't think it'd work at all ... if they tried to make it a horror anime, so I'm glad they decided to actually make a parody, and this also teaches you a valuable lesson, women are scarier than monsters.

Overall I enjoyed it, it was short and fun, not what I expected but I sure as hell don't regret watching it, sure I can see why some people might not like it, comedy is subjective, I can totally see why some people didn't like the jokes or expected an actually serious show, but if you have a darker sense of humor I couldn't recommend this show more..

I was pleasently surprised and disappointed by this series. It's kind of like a "Pop Team Epic" for horror. The characters seem to look and act like how they do in the game (even though Takuro is protrayed nicer than in the game) and are pretty spot on. Story-wise the shorts aren't always the best in quality. While some are genuinely funny, some are really bland and unfunny. The ending was surprisingly scary, and really came out of left field. It was a welcome surprise. The animation was well-done and super cute. It's not the best short "comedy" one-shot series out there, and I ... wouldn't recommend it to anyone who hasn't played the game, but it's a decent show.

I watched this as a joke because I'm familiar with the game, manga, and live action movie, not to mention the episodes are shorts, so you can finish watching the whole thing within an hour...... But WHY? Why does this exist? The animation is poor, the story tries to be funny but it comes off as cheap, and after about 3 episodes in the voice acting just sucks.

Save your time and eyes, once you've watched about 3 episodes you've seen all that this anime has to offer. The anime tries to make a joke of the game and characters by having them die in ... each episode in weird ways. It's supposed to be comical but comes off as cheesy. The animation honestly looks like something that can be done with a cell phone app.

I honestly want to know just how this anime came to be lol.

Something brought me back to 2012 youtube with its rpgmaker horror craze, Ao Oni being probably one of the biggest names among them. When looking up the most recent version of the wiki, imagine my surprise that there are numerous new games, a couple of movies, novels, and anime based on it! So I recently gave this anime a watch.

Honestly I think people are being too harsh on the series overall. Most reviews I see either give it like a 10 or a 2. That's not to say that this style of comedic shorts are for everyone or that every joke hits the mark, but ... it's not horrible by any means. In fact, I found the silliness mixed with dark humor to be very enjoyable, and the short run of each episode meant that the jokes themselves largely didn't overstay their welcome. Overall, I had a really great time.

What I do have a major criticism of, however, is the media player/translation effort used for the final episode, episode 13. I was watching the series on Crunchyroll (I have a free account there; that company has soured my taste for it enough that I wouldn't consider paying) and got to episode 13 and suddenly English subtitles weren't available. Only what looks like Spanish. I couldn't find a proper, working player for this episode, on Crunchyroll or not, that loads, plays sound, and is subtitled in English at the same time. Such a high bar for quality I had, I know. At one point, I ended up "watching" episode 13 by moving the track bar through the still frames so I could basically read the anime like a manga. It majorly brought down the mood for what I consider to be a delightful horror/dark comedy short series. In the end though, I switched my platform from PC to Crunchyroll on Roku and that seemed to resolve the issue. I'm still left rather annoyed, though.

The team behind Ao Oni The Animation knows Ao Oni has this burlesque quality to it, loves it, and it shows. Do you like Ao Oni? Do you like sh*tposts? Then you'll enjoy this very short, silly anime.

It features the game's characters with more sterotypical personalities, but in the sense that it makes them easier to grasp in a short amount of time. There is no overarching story - this a series of jokes taking place in the Oni's mansion.

The ending theme is surprisingly catchy and the monsters are funny. Only downside was the intro, which was a little too long for something that is ... always the same except for its last line.

So, I knew about the original game this anime was based off for years, having watched multiple let's plays of it and planning to do my own series on the game in the future. It's a pretty basic story, four friends going to try to solve an old mystery of their town in a way that basically makes it feel like a Scooby-Doo episode that has an ACTUAL monster rather than a disguised person, but has it's scary moments and has always been rememberable to me.

This anime, however, takes it in a more comedic route. And honestly, I'm perfectly okay with that, but I don't ... think it's for every fan of the game. It's basically putting the characters in these scenarios for crude humor, as multiple times they get killed in various comedic ways. Art is okay, not much to say on story as it's episodic and each episode's only three minutes, and the characters are about the same as their game counterparts; Hiroshi is the skeptic, Takuro is the hot-head, Mika is the token "girl" character, and Takeshi's still a coward.

A few jokes fell flat for me, but all in all, it wasn't a bad time and did manage to make me laugh. Which is a good thing; I was in a pretty bad mood going in and it managed to fix that. The only "dud" episodes I had were episodes four and six, but that's probably because my sense of humor just doesn't match up to those.

If you watch this, don't expect to be wow-ed by it or anything as it's nothing special and doesn't have the same anxiety-filled tone as the game, but some might get a few chuckles out of it if they take it at face value and just use it as something to turn their brain off to for a bit.

Story: 5
Art: 6
Character: 6
Enjoyment: 7
Overall: 6

(Sorry if this wasn't a good review either, kinda my first one.)

Ao-Oni is one of the most well-known of RPG Maker games, as if you were to go and talk to someone about the best and the worst, you'll hear mixed reactions about Ao-Oni somewhere in that conversation, or maybe not. Some people consider Ao-Oni a great game, spawning other fan games to accompany that one, while some may argue how memorable and scary it really is. No matter your thoughts on the classic--the game had a large following with its fanbase and became very popular. Now, the main problem with the anime is not that the story structure is ... off and the pacing was off-beat as well (even though it is), but it lies in more of what Studio Deen is born out of. Like how Studio Bones is born with action and smooth animation in their blood, what Studio Deen has in their studio making blood was not picked out correctly for the making of what was supposed to be a proper adaption. Ao-Oni has been known for its sense of humor, and because Studio Deen is always on board to try and make a comedy anime, Hetalia being one of their biggest hits, and instead of making a horror anime, they followed through with the attempt to be as funny as Hetalia with similar episode structure and sub-par animation, and boy, did it hit hard.

Before I start, I should probably tell you--I haven't been a huge fan of the Ao-Oni games unlike a lot of people who have seen this anime. While I don't have the strong opinions of that a fan would have if they saw what happened in the creation of missing potential, I do think what I say will be truthful, and will hopefully help you decide whether to watch this anime regardless of my experience with the game itself. I don't know all the character's names either, and I can't really give much to say in terms of how the game plays out compared to the anime, but regardless, I shall begin my review as I dissect this monstrosity.

So, if I had to tell you the story of this animation--what would I tell you the plot was? Would you expect something dark or at least something a bit brooding, or do you expect an episodic misadventure story with no continuation, and barely follows much of the video game plot itself, and only scrapes part of what actually happens in the video games? Well, obviously, it's the latter, and on the other hand, it is also, unfortunately. The story in this anime is little to none, as we are given short exposition at the start before being thrown into the hell of an undivided and organized mess of episodic plots containing each scenario and the monster. While some could argue the handling of these expositions are necessary for newcomers, the way they are handled also hurt the diehard fans. The expositions start off with a dark scene that is supposed to be seen as something like the anime the fans would want, and then abruptly tricks the reader and tells them instead of it being the horror anime they once thought it was going to be judging from the start, is now a cheesy cliched comedy. The plot for each episode isn't interesting either, and each description I read was filled with uttermost translation errors and grammatical mistakes. While it isn't a formula, the plots aren't interesting or new--and the characters aren't fleshed out enough to make us intrigued to figure out how each character reacts to each scenario, except we are just given stereotypes like Tsundere to the female character, and nothing else other than that. The comedy is also flat, and unlike Hetalia, which had decent comedy, this anime has left me with a boring, straight face.

One of the few good traits of this anime comes with its length, as each episode is only around five minutes, which is good enough for my attention span so I don't grow bored while endlessly watching the series, but that doesn't help stop all the garbage the anime throws at us and pollutes the water with, metaphorically speaking. Now, what about the animation? The animation can only be summed up with subpar. While the color design rolls off the eyes in a nice way, the colors sparkling and making the experience a bit more tolerable, the animation other than that is nothing short of uninteresting. In comedy anime, good animation is important to make your scenes funnier, and if there is slapstick, you gotta work out talent to make the animation look neat. With what I can remember of this anime, the characters move like what would be similar to moving cardboard puppets with the leftovers of a popsicle stick. The animation isn't smooth, and while sometimes it does work effectively, other times it isn't anything special. The animation isn't anything eye bleeding, unlike something similar to Avenger, one of the ugliest anime I have seen so far, but only charm can save the category of animation. The colors and the decent art style is why it isn't below five, but other than that, this isn't a No Game, No Life or a Kill la Kill, folks.

The sound is nothing short of unmemorable and not special. I didn't even think there was music in the anime at first funnily enough, and whatever sound effects I can remember them doing was nothing more than piss poor. The voice acting is average at best, and you can tell they tried their hardest while voice acting the characters, but they really do just sound like anime characters. The Tsundere girl was given her Tsundere-like voice, and the others sounded just the same--very anime-character-sounding.

To make your comedy anime successful, there are three things you need to take a shot at in order to get good results. Characters, animation, and the literal jokes themselves. And, if your animation is shitty, and your characters are also one-dimensional, then your jokes will end up falling flatter than a plane in a plane crash if that makes sense. The characters can only be summed up in stereotypes in this game--and seem like lesser versions of the characters in the originals. Only imposters that make up a small part of their real selves. The kid with the glasses is supposed to be the smart one due to his glasses, and that is only much of his personality, and the Tsundere girl only has Tsundere in her personality traits, and the coward is the coward, and that's it--and the main character has literally no personality whatsoever. While it is a challenge to cram and flesh out character develop in five minutes per episode, the thing with something like Hetalia was that the characters were able to be developed through comedy as well in a clever way. While Hetalia is only a decent anime, they had already known how to be clever with their character personalities and the comedy. Hetalia had a fucking larger cast than Ao-Oni but they had better characters than Ao-Oni The Animation could ever pull off. If I had seen these characters being eaten or killed, my face would only light up with excitement as I just realized that this was the only exciting thing that could ever happen in the show.

P.S, the characters get eaten a lot and even that is uninteresting.

Overall, the reason why this show failed was because of Studio Deen's desperate attempt to try and create another Hetalia to gather more cash rather than invest into making something that everyone wanted. Instead of getting a realistic, well-made horror anime, we're given what seems to only be a shell. A generic anime that could literally go without the label of Ao-Oni on it. A generic anime that both disappointed fans and newcomers with the right mind, a generic anime that failed in almost every section of creating an anime, and a generic anime that I can't even be generous enough to call generic, but a steaming pile of shit.

Good job, Studio Deen.

This is the weirdest way to interperate a horror game from the early 2000s, in the best way possible. The comedy is fast paced and the episodes are short. Perfect for any zoomer erectus, tiktok rotted brain. What if there was an alternate universe where Yume Nikki or Ib got a comedy anime like this? Anyway, this anime is fun, nerds will say it isn’t “faithful” to the source material. Personally, a world where we get strange genre flipping interpretations sounds way more fun than the same story over and over again. Like taking the story and making something new out of what it gives. ... Because the original source material is pretty straightforward. Just a bunch of teens stuck in a spooky manshion and a monster chases them. Most of the teens die, one lives. There we go, endless content farm. No wonder the franchise is so huge in Japan.
All in all:
-Short program.
-Fun comedy
-Bouncy animation
-Actually laughed while watching it

(9/10)

This series of 3 minute Pop Team Epic style shorts is a hilarious take on the Ao Oni game series. You cannot treat it like you would regular anime. The humor isn't as universal, it's targeted more for the Japanese viewer. A lot of the jokes are just recreations of memes related to the game present only on the Japanese internet, done in typical Japanese comedy style. Those things might go over a western viewer's head.

The art style is not your every day anime. It looks more like a youtube animation, but it is executed well and is pleasant to the eye. I liked ... it.

It's a fun watch. Not for everyone. Definitely doesn't deserve such a low score.