18if

5/10

Growing up is never easy, we all have our struggles along the way. Knowing that it will all be worth it eventually is what gives us the courage to persevere to adulthood.

18if tells the stories of multiple teenagers struggling with real-world problems in a very abstract fashion. Emotional turmoil is depicted through young women struggling to find happiness in the life they've been given; whether it be bullying, the weight of parental expectations, ostracizing, etcetera. These stories are played to resonate with the audience across 13 episodes, with varying degrees of success. The times it succeeds are rare but worthwhile indeed; even if as a ... full package it does not come together into a cohesive whole. Each episode of 18if has a different director and focuses on different themes; some of them are better than others but overall the show is superb at nothing and is frequently mediocre. Occasionally the art style might change from episode to episode, but it never reaches a good level of quality that could be compared to other episodic shows. If I had to label it with a genre I'd say it's a Drama, Horror, and Psychological; from time to time 18if dabbles in Romance, which felt uncomfortable to watch because each episode the protagonist tries to woo the new lady introduced. I understand that 18if is a multimedia project, but I'm writing my review solely based on the content of the 13-episode animated series. The content that fills those episodes is quite lacking so I can imagine the additional content expands the universe and further develops its characters.

The plot revolves around Haruto, a mysterious young man, and his struggle to save young women afflicted by "Sleeping Beauty Syndrome". The disease is brought on by severe emotional stress and it makes the afflicted person falls into a coma; once in the coma, the person can create an idyllic dream world as a method of escape from the harshness of reality. The concept is an interesting one indeed, the dream worlds sometimes were impressive in how they were able to describe what the afflicted character desired from life but didn't have in the real world. Only about half of the episodes develop the characters through the worlds they create, the other half just tries to weird you out as much as possible with little to no development on the characters. It felt like most of the directors didn't work together to write 18if's story cohesively, but instead, they vied to make the most memorable episode. For example; one of the better episodes takes inspiration from the genre classic "A Nightmare on Elm Street", Haruto delves into the subconscious of a girl who was mentally scarred by a horrific crime committed against her and she now kills criminals out of anger by invading their dreams. They may not have explained why she was able to kill people through her dreams, but that didn't bother me because the episode achieved its goal at deconstructing a character in an unusual way. On the flip side, there was a stink bomb of an episode where Haruto awakens in a world that resembles a children's storybook, visually and narratively, the episode has almost no relation to the main show other than the main character's name was still Haruto. There were a few episodes like this that felt like a viscous self-indulgence of a single director who appeared to have little interest in the show's narrative, which is sad considering some of the other directors put a lot of work into making episodes that contribute to the story.

The source of 18if's most perceivable issues is the fact that there is little connecting each episode until the finale. The first eleven episodes seem to be written individually from one another, so don't expect to feel much plot or character progression until the last two episodes. When the ending comes it revisits the major characters and recaps narrative highpoints in a way that I believe was meant to be satisfying… but it honestly just highlighted how messy and disjointed the story, tone, and characters are. The R+ rating comes from the conflict with the dreamers, the violence was sometimes gory; as a side note, there is a bit of profanity in episode 9 that is meant to be comedic but comes off as repulsive, thankfully it only happens just the one time. The script is usually passable, but occasionally it is so bad that it conveys a totally misguided message to the viewer. An example of this issue is in one of the more standard episodes that follow an ice skater who is pressured by her parents to succeed as a performer. The pressure she is faced with causes her to become afflicted by Sleeping Beauty Syndrome, once in a coma she creates a world where she can be a normal girl and live life without her harsh parents, which feels like an interesting and relatable escape for a suffering person. The episode is solid up until the end when Haruto arrives and tells her to go back to being an ice skater because it is her "destiny", which was appalling considering this concept betrayed the entire message of the episode and it went against her wishes. Most episodes weren't ruined by confusing writing like that one was, but the few that were misguided definitely stand out as an example of how to ruin a good short story. Many of the segments were tropey, with predictable scenarios and archetypical characters, but I was able to forgive this aspect easily because each episode brought a new theme to the table.

Even though the story is episodic there are three consistently present characters; they are Haruto, Haruto's guide/mentor a scientist who appears as a cat dressed as a detective in the dream world, and Lily, a girl who's only part of the story is to be a deus ex machina in the dream world. Sadly, the three leads rarely got development. The most interesting character of the three was the scientist who searches for a cure to the "Sleeping Beauty Syndrome" for his afflicted sister. I rooted for the scientist more than the protagonist because he had actually had a motivation to be a part of the conflict; whereas Haruto was impossible to identify with, becoming a completely blank slate at the start of each episode. As I said before, the visuals vary from episode to episode but they never are at the point which I would call above average. The music is for the most part standard. A bewildering opening starts off every episode and it does a good job at preparing you for the demented scenarios that will inevitably ensue. It has a really unusual EDM style song that I liked quite a bit but I can understand if someone wouldn't appreciate its funky style. Each episode has different outro credits and none of them are outstanding.

When I reflect on the time I spent watching 18if I remember the good moments more than the bad ones. While it's a mixed experience for sure, I definitely think the turnout leans slightly more to the positive side. Taken in bite-sized chunks I could imagine someone finding a great deal of enjoyment in this series. However, I’m reviewing it as a whole completed product and it, for the most part, failed to engage me.

There's 3 things this anime has:

-different art style ( didn't dislike it or love it)

-good sound

-The capacity to make you want to kill yourself trying to understand why you're still watching it

Just, don't watch it, for your own sake, it's one of the worse 24 minutes per ep anime I ever saw, I watched it cause I was bored and ended up even more bored so had to write this to feel a little more alive

You are left in the dark to what are all those different stories till the end, maybe I wanted to know what was going on, but the finale is just ... bad and the true reason behind it all is horrible

I don't usually say negative stuff about the series that i watch, but I must say a few things about 18if.
I sound pretty mean and maybe i just didn't get the point and the plot, but this is what i have to say

In the whole series I was confused as f*ck...
9 Episodes , and nothing important is explained so far. It's like watching spongebob with drugs and blood and don't make sense at all...
And someone take the f*cking license of these drivers, they are all blind.

Story:3

It has some originallity but there are so many unexplained things that you get confused and lost. It's really ... slow and some episodes are boring. Also every episode has a different plot and don't follow the previous one...

Characters:1

There are only 3 characters that exist in every episode and they are all boring
The main character finds everything normal and doesn't care at all. The girl isn't explained(I don't know if they will say what's the matter with her in the last episode, but so far they don't say anything).The cat is the best character from these 3 but he is still kinda boring.

Art:5

Now the art is actually original and interesting. It's just not my style, i find every character ugly..
The op is pretty good though

Sound:8

This is the best thing about this series. Nice op, different ending everytime, and nice soundtrack overall. Only the Voice acting was a bit out of place some times

Enjoyment:2

The best thing for me was the op, then i would get bored.

Overall:3

You can't make a good series with only good soundtracks and art styles... In the whole series i was bored and confused... I wouldn't recommend it but maybe i just didn't get it

So I started watching 18if because I heard it was artsy and had a different director for each episode. And while there are 11 episode directors for this 13-episode show—and there are even some episodes that could be considered . . . good?—this show is ultimately very, very bad.

Note: review contains very minor spoilers.

TL;DR: Anime sourced from sh*tty mobile game is also sh*tty, but episodes 3, 7, and 10 are worth watching alone if the show’s premise tickles your fancy.

18if could have been good. There’s some real heart tucked deep down inside, and it tries to address big, relatable issues that real people face: bullying, ... disability, death, eating disorders—you get the idea. The problems with 18if arise when you consider how poor quality much of it is. It feels like every aspect of the show suffers in some respect, so much so that it’s irredeemably bad in my eyes.

The most obvious place to start is the animation. It starts out passable, with some interesting perspective shots and camera movements in episode 1. Some episodes are fine; I didn’t have much to complain about through episode 3, for example. At that point, it would be a solid 6 out of 10, maybe higher (episode 3 is pretty good-looking). On the other hand, many later episodes reuse things often and have very little animation overall. Off-model characters and weird movements are common in the latter half of the show. The long and short of it is there are simply no real outstanding pieces of animation to be found.

Art goes hand-in-hand with animation, and similarly, the art style suffers in many episodes of 18if. 10 of 13 episodes look pretty similar to each other, with some differing color palettes thrown in here and there. It doesn’t look awful, but it’s simple and bland. It gets the job done. I was probably just expecting more. However, episodes 3, 7, and 10 provide different experiences that contrast the comparatively boring rest of the show. 3 just looks good: it provides a more traditionally good-looking, modern anime style, and it does it well. 7 is probably the wackiest for anime: the main cast are in entirely different bodies, and it sort of looks like 3D crayon models, but it's good and colorful and bright. 10 is more dreamlike in style, and is in fact the most dreamlike episode by far, which is good for a show purporting to be about dreams. It has some interesting animation going on, and is easily my favorite episode. So overall, 3 episodes of 18if make the other 10 look pretty bad.

Now seems as good a place as any to start talking about the plot. In short, it’s bollocks. It doesn’t make sense; it’s contrived. Episodes 1 through 10 are episodic stories focusing on a different girl’s dream world she’s stuck in, and how our main character Haruto gets them out. Each girl has a problem in the real world, and that manifests somehow in the dream, and Haruto helps them get over it. If that were all, that’d be fine and dandy; you could leave the nitty-gritty details to your imagination, it’d be a weird dream anime, I would rate it a 5 or 6, and I wouldn’t be here writing this review. That’s not all, though. 18if also tries to tie all of these stories together and put together its world with rules that support it. The problem is that it’s shoddily done. Details about Haruto’s power to enter dreams are forgotten about; some girls manifest different unexplained powers that affect the real world; the dream professor can do a lot of unexplained things because he’s “been researching the dream world;” an evil antagonist group is introduced but then doesn’t do anything; a ghost shows up in real life and is ultimately unexplained; and there’s a giant world-ending plot twist that is solved by friendship. I could go into more detail, but MAL technically doesn’t want spoilers in reviews and this is probably too long already. From what I can tell, the overarching plot was made up on the spot to try to fit everything together and force a conclusion in the final 3 episodes. To play devil’s advocate is to justify these issues with something akin to dream logic, and I guess I can’t argue with that, except to say that “dream logic” is the laziest excuse I can think of to explain away your entire show.

What I imagine people enjoyed the most about 18if are its episodic themes/morals, like the episode on “doing what you’re good at,” or the episode about revenge, or the two episodes about bullying. I’m here to say that while the subject matter is serious and does affect real-life people in real ways, the way each episode covers each subject is rather simple and straightforward, with no room for nuance. It doesn’t help that Haruto usually has some hand in solving the problem, as if it can’t be solved alone. I just can’t help but feel like the creators wanted some mature issues in their narrative, so they just added each issue and resolved it in one episode no matter what. Examples of note include bulimia, trauma, disability, two instances of bullying, and three instances of self-harm. To me, it cheapens these issues somewhat, especially because they are solved in the dream world, not in reality.

Looking at the characters, nobody really stands out above the rest. Lily is secretive, the professor is more annoying than he is funny, and each girl has her simple motivation(s) and issue(s). I can easily point out which two are below par, however. First, the antagonists are stupidly simple and poorly written, with almost no motivation. This is the group I mentioned earlier, who are introduced in episode 11 and end up being completely irrelevant. Second, our main boy Haruto is simply inconsistent. Often, in order to help the girl of the episode, he is altruistic; he’ll hang out with her, try to work out her problems, and generally be friendly. Other times, he’s apathetic and is just there because he has to be. The most jarring example for me was between episodes 2 and 3, when Haruto goes from assisting one girl with a violent crime to sitting on a bench nervously with another girl. Additionally, it feels like most of the girls have some level of attraction to him, and in at least 2 cases there are romantic undertones between them. He just doesn’t feel like his own character, but instead like a stand-in for the character traits required for each episode.

The sound design in 18if is passable most of the time. I’m not a huge fan of the OP (I expected more music after the drop, but nope, turns out that was just the end of the song), but each of the 13 EDs is fine. All the voice acting is acceptable, I’m not going to be picky about sound effects in dreams, and any incidental music went unnoticed. That is, until episode 12, when there’s supposed to be a prominent vocal track from one of the characters which is drowned out by gunfire, other characters, AND the instrumental part of the song. Also her lips didn’t sync properly. Aside from that, sound was pretty average overall.

I think everything else I want to say doesn’t really fit together, so here’s some miscellaneous topics I still wanted to cover. I somehow got through all of that review without mentioning the clusterf*ck that is episode 9, so I guess I’ll just say that episode 9 is comically bad, and might be worth a watch because of that? I also tracked down and played the mobile game that this show is based on, and let me tell you, it is the most garbage Puzzles and Dragons (PAD) clone I’ve ever played. Not only does it not innovate much beyond the basics of PAD, it also has poor translations, is buggy, gives very little free stuff to the player, and doesn’t even have any cool looking units (in my opinion, I guess).

To sum up: 18if is, for the most part, poorly made. I would call it Very Bad, so according to MAL adjectives, that means 3/10. However, if you’re intrigued by the show’s potential, I highly recommend watching episodes 3, 7, and 10 as stand-alone stories. They are pretty and interesting by themselves, and would easily score between 6 and 8 individually. Just don’t think episode 9 is the same beast. Because it isn’t. It has the dick-genie.

I've found this anime pretty boring, and I didn't like it at all.
The first episode seemed pretty good, and I really hoped for an interesting story. They showed a lot of things that seemed like an interesting story-line. And then, in the next chapters, the story was completely left behind to focus just in showing different characters, which I couldn't relate to because they just appeared for one episode.The drawing style changed tremendously from episode to episode, just like the protagonist's personality. Each episode seemed like from a completely different anime. Lily, one character that seemed really important in the first chapters, doesn't even appear ... in most of them.
All the plot is developed in the last four episodes, when they suddenly remembered that an anime episode's are supposed to be correlated. The plot comes from nowhere, is rushed and lefts a lot of questions unanswered. New characters and a whole organization are introduced, but the reason why they are there in the first place is never explained.
Finally, the anime ends with an open ending in which absolutely nothing is explained, and it only leaves more questions.

Though I found 18if entertaining enough to finish in entirety, I probably wouldn't recommend it to a friend.

The art is the most memorable feature, with episode ten being my personal favorite. Each episode varies in style, something that I genuinely and thoroughly enjoyed.

In terms of characters, I felt there was a lack of depth - even to our main, Haruto, in spite of having had plenty of time to flesh him out for the viewers. In fact, there were some major inconsistencies to his personality. Each of the witches' seemed to develop a near blind infatuation for him which, as a woman, I found particularly ... annoying.

The story itself was rather anticlimactic. Understanding though I am of the world having been dreamt up (anything can happen in a dream, right?), I still felt that some of the occurrences were a bit of stretch - like the writers were grasping for a way to wrap it all up.

Ultimately, it was just okay. The idea is good, in theory, but art alone isn't enough to make a show satisfying.

Disappointing?

The only reason I stuck to the end was because I liked the main character and wanted to find out what happened to him, but the ending left a sour feeling in the pit of my stomach, meaning I find it hard to recommend the series on that aspect alone, particularly when I as a viewer found myself asking why. Nothing regarding the plot makes sense, but the series feels so much like someone took concept from Angel Beats, Little Busters or some other similar Anime series and spat it back out without thinking about what draws viewers to these series. It's just not there, ... and one might say that's a twist - but when you throw away the draw of the genre, is that really a twist? I don't think so.

The artwork in one regard I'll admit works - the changing of art styles, yet the person in charge did nothing towards picking the right style for each dream world making each fall flat. In fact, the characters themselves are flat until one gets to their plight, and parts end up left out. For example, the first episode is about a girl who makes everything cute,but acts like a spoiled brat to get her way, yet this is the exact opposite of her real life character. Which might work, if it weren't for the fact we're simply told things about her. Later episodes - let's just say they get worse, but plot wise they make less and less sense regarding motives.

Yes, I get the argument that dreams themselves don't make sense and weird thing can happen, but I think this is used as an excuse to excuse anything and everything, because there is still a limit to how bizarre one's dreams will get. It doesn't really try to be anything.

_THIS REVIEW DOESN`T CONTAIN ANY SPOILERS_

Oh boy, where do I start with this anime... It`s quite...strange, but kinda in a bad way sadly.

STORY: Alright, I get what they wanted to do with the story, it had quite a potential given it`s dreamy settings where anything could happen, but they didn`t really use that. They focused more on the weird and confusing "artistic" factors without realising that the story is getting hard to understand and keep up with. I had a very hard time focusing on the story and it was really painful to me to watch it without dropping it. Quite boring as well. Also ... wtf was that Eve part? That was so stupid.

ART: Well, art was kinda solid, but there was one episode where art style completely changed to worse and that`s literally when I lost all the will to watch this anime. I really have no idea why they did that but oh well.

SOUND: Ok, this is the only thing that I really liked about this anime. Characters had nice voice actors and the overall sound effects were pretty dope. Also the opening was such a banger, one of my favorite anime openings, so a big + only for that.

CHARACTERS: The characters were mostly blank, all of the girls had some problems irl and the most basic and stroryless cute MC helps them out through dreams. I really don`t like how most of the characters get some kind of a simple background story but the MC is there like nothing. He seems like he`s the most side character out of em all. Also there`s that cat guy Katsumi who has pretty cool design but he seems absolutelly useless in all that as well, which bothered me since I liked him. The worst part about this all was that the MC was literally clueless what`s happening and almost didn`t question anything. Lily was supposed to be that mysterious character that helps MC in some cool magical way but the writers failed in that too. The designs of the characters, on the other hand, were pretty solid.

ENJOYMENT: Well, I didn`t enjoy this piece at all actually. I watched this anime only because Eve looked pretty dope to me but sadly she`s literally the worst character out there. It was very boring, painful to watch and my brain was overheating with every episode. I have so many questions.

OVERALL: It`s 4/10 for me. I really don`t know why some people would rank this higher, but I quess they understood this anime better than me. Absolutelly dreadful to watch. Do I recommend it to you? Absolutely not, unless you`re into some deep big brain time animes. But I do recommend you listen to the opening, it`s awesome.

for starters i would say teddyloid is a monster.
I prefer dark, strange souls, where sadness joins joy, like yin and yang. if an anime does not respect these things it does not even deserve my 8. we must say however that if an anime is made on a road, like for example Prison school which is based on ecchi, I do not use this criterion. however in this case 18if does not follow a single path, so ...

STORY: 3
-ok, the episodes are all disconnected from each other, the last three explain everything.
-the first 10 speak of strong concepts: such as bullying, revenge, suicide ... but ... in an undeveloped key; as if each episode were a 10-page book, and they only tell the first side, they talk about heavy topics without getting into the heart of the problem.
-ok, we are in a dream world, so the mind creates what it wants, but here we have a cauldron with senseless stuff inside.
-ok, all anime have something they want to make the public understand, and this anime has it too, but it's not enough to have it here and there, and then wash your hands of it
-the last three explain everything, but I didn't understand the story about what it is, what the moral is. eva, adamo, dio, eden, witches, haruto ... why?

ART: 3
I'm a fan of Ghibli art, pastel-like colors on paper, not too light like in "no game no life". I accept different styles; here they also used more techniques, but without impressing me.

SOUND: 6
as I said earlier in the three teddyloid songs (red doors, break the doors, salvation) I perceived something epic, which transcended me; as if a drummer demon enters a church and starts playing, while a solo angel guides those present to heaven through a vertical beam of light.
the rest did not seem like anything special, maybe I would quote "Too Late" Nene ft Inori Minase from episode 7

CHARACTER: 3
the cat doctor not bad. episode 9 the idol misaki with the transformation of him, amuses and excites at the same time.
the rest is ...... dots many dots without substance

ENJOYMENT: 4
if it were addicting I would have finished it in a day; actually it took me a year, I started again from the fifth episode after a 1 year break. so it wasn't fun to watch it.

OVERALL: 3
personal advice:
I would not recommend it to anyone even if you want to watch something without obligation (family guy)
I repeat, listen to the three songs of teddyloid anddddd enough