Mushikago no Cagaster

Netflix heard the silent cries of the masses to make a new CGI anime that looks as cheap as one would expect. But outside of that, it’s actually not bad, maybe even... good?

Set in a barren post-apocalyptic future where most of the population has transformed into giant CGI monstrosities in the form of insects. The remaining population struggle to survive in fortified, self-governed cities. Where the people live in constant fear of their neighbour or loved one turning into an insect-like form and devouring them. To stop the insectification from spreading, there are exterminators who take care of the pests. One such exterminator is Kidou. A young man with a troubled past who found his purpose by fighting the insects. That is until he gets the task to escort a young girl back to her mother, somewhere in the dangerous wasteland.

The setting is the show's most prominent characteristic and the first half is used to develop it. It dragged a bit but the second half became more enjoyable because of it. The insects are set-up as a real threat to the people, and they are taken with the seriousness they should. However, there are a couple of things that tells you otherwise. For example, in the first half we spend most of the time in a city that’s protected by a massive wall. But since most of the insects fly, it’s pretty much useless. Some parts like this could've been better explained, although with only 12 episodes of runtime I’d say they did well enough. By the end it’s wrapt up nicely and the characters are well realized.

Kidou is a man who pushes people away from him to not grow attached. As his job could mean having to potentially kill a person close to him. Almost his whole life has gone towards his exterminator mission, which has taken its toll on him. But it starts to change with the arrival of Illie, the girl he decides to help. She felt like a very shallow love interest in the beginning. But she helps Kidou grow as a person, and is a crucial part of the second half and her backstory is one of the show’s most engaging parts. They both have a certain level of depth to them that sadly the rest of the characters don’t have. But since most of them have very little contribution to the story, it’s understandable.

The soundtrack didn't stick out much and it's contribution wasn't all that memorable either. But the voice acting made up for it. Kana Hanazawa is back bringing diabetes to our ears and I think she and everybody else voiced their characters well. Making the characters feel more believable.

All in all I found it to be quite decent. Mostly because I liked the setting and it went on at a rather smooth pace. But also the main leads, who were more engaging than I expected going in. The visuals are this show’s biggest downfall with how cheap it all looks. The robotic and stiff movements didn’t help but to be fair, the action scenes were handled better. It's definitely not a must watch by any means but give it a chance if you’re interested. If you are not enjoying it and/or the CGI hurts your eyes then you should pass on this one.

If you would like something better with a similar premise then watch Nausicaä if you haven't already. If you for some reason would like to watch something shittier then watch Island of Giant Insects.

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I'm sure you've heard the expression never judge a book by it's cover, but that's what I intended to do when I first glanced at this anime on Netflix. From the screenshots alone I thought I wouldn't enjoy the animation and art style and was going to skip watching this, but I decided I had enough free time and started episode one. Next thing I knew, I was hooked.

The story starts off slow in the beginning, so you have to be willing to wait a few episodes in before it begins to get interesting.

The fight scenes, between the bugs and humans aren't as intense as you would expect, but the sound and voice acting is top notch and helps the scenes flow smoothely.

The is a wide variety of characters, but overall the development of Ilie, Kidow, and the rest had me emotional and guessing what would happen next after each episode. Overall I believe you would be able to rewatch this anime several times and discover something new.

I would recommend this anime to anyone who is willing to try something new, and hopefully you too will discover this gem of an anime on Netflix.

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Story:
30 yeras after apocalypse, where new disease caused 1/3 of human kind turn into nasty, bloody and huge insects - we meet with Kidow. Kidow is an insect exterminator that in the opening scene happens to be escaping from a huge swarm of flying worms. When he strives to survive from that swarm he finds out that despite him and his friend - he's not the only one person trying to escape. Unfortunately for the other escapists - the car droved by them meets with accident in which driver dies. It turns out that these car passangers are father and daughter. Father dies - begs our MC to deliver his daughter to her mother and that's how the story begins.

Kinda cliche i have to admit, but later on in the story it turns out that that's not some random kid and her father wasn't some ordinary father. Saying something more than that could be considered as a spoiler so let's just skip it and say that despite on focusing on the kiddo abilities - the plot is also about creating a strong bond between Illie (that's kiddo name) and Kidow.

Nothing outstanding about the story, however there are some stupid moments like one character dying for at least 2 episodes if not more and saying that it's his end for tenth time already.
5/10

Art:
*KNOCK KNOCK*
-Who's there?
-It's Netflix CGI again, surprise!

I'm not a CGI fan (i doubt anybody is) however i've seen many worse CGI anime and this one isn't that bad. I mean it's still bad but as a CGI - this one is okay.
6/10

Sound:
I have no complains there. Music was good, voice acting was the same.
7/10

Characters:
They are bad. Kidow is a typical edgy boy that turns out to not being edgy behind the edgy mask later on. However, some of his actions are so stupid that it doesn't convienced me to like him. Actually not only Kidow actions are stupid. There are many stupid characters in the show. Like a scientist that claims that science is his top1 prority so he doesn't have any remorse to use his family in experiments. But then later on you see in the flashbacks that he actually cares for his family only to find out later that he really don't. Then again it turns out that he actually does. But maybe he doesn't? I don't know myself. I doubt any of the viewers knows. If some of the characters aren't stupid then later on it turns out that they're not interesting either. It was barely possible to me to name more than three of them after show ended.

Oh, I almost forgot. In the first couple episodes there was one awesome death. It was really well made. It was only a shame that creators didn't focused more on dead character and didn't postponed his death to late series. I didn't cared when he died because it happened too soon. Kinda wasted potencial that death was, but what can I say? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
4/10

Enjoyment:
Despite stupidity, bad characters and CGI animation I've got to admit that it was still enjoyable. Not to the point that i'd sink in but it's a good show to watch when you have nothing to do, not much time and don't want to think much over something. Just sit down, watch it and forget it.
6/10

Overall:
5.5/10 but MAL doesn't allow to give halves so i'll stay with 5/10

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This is my first review, so it might be a bit flawed, but we all gotta start somewhere I guess. Here we go:

Story:
Mushikago no Cagaster, or Cagaster of an Insect Cage is a Netflix original, and takes place in a post apocalyptic world, where humans are facing extincion after a disease (or something idk) turns some humans into massive, human killing insects. And we watch as Kidou, an executioner who's job is to deal with infected people, and Ilie, a girl that kidou saves and promises to take to her mother, the story then goes on, and we get more dept into these characters, and also get intoduced to some other characters who also has some backstory that connects with the other ones.

The story is what caught my eye when I was scrolling through Netflix. I love post apocalypse shows, and the idea of there being giant killing insects that does it made me jump right into it. Sadly, most of the time they are mainly only seen for lore reasons, and we don't get to see as much action as I wished with them.

The story doesn't finish, which makes me believe that we'll get a season 2 in the future, and allthough I didn't get as much insect vs executioner action as I wish I got, the story was still very interesting and had some cool twists and backstories were for the most part fun and interesting. 7/10

Art:
Now for me, the art was super inconsistent. Characters are full CGI, while the background is mainly drawn, something that resulted in that characters looked completely off compared to the backgrounds. Now fully 3D characters can be done and look well if done right (just look at Beastars), but for me, not only did they often walk in a very weird, robot-like style sometimes, but often, they would look so emotionless, like, well, robots!

Luckily, the backgrounds look stunning and sometimes I would just look at it and be like "woah, that looks cool!" And fighting animations, are for the most part really well done and entertaining. So even though it stays very inconsistent, I still think it was alright in the end. 6/10

Sound:
Now I didn't really pay a lot of attention to the sound of it, and that's both a good thing and a bad thing. It's good because it means it fit the circumstances, but it's bad because it didn't really give me that much extra. I would've given it a 6, but it so happens that the opening song was actually pretty damn good in my opinion. It's like one of those "the more you listen, the more you enjoy it" type of song. So it lifts the sound rating up to 7/10

Characters:
Now, the characters for me were pretty basic, but still decent. Kidou is your average emotionless killer with a tragic backstory that then slowly start caring about people.
Ilie, is a bit up and down for me, I can't reallty say alot about her without spoiling, but she also has some backstory, but i can't say alot more.

Then there's the side characters. I won't say anything on characters that come later because I ain't spoiling anything, just trust me when I say most of them are allright/decent.
Jin is allright I guess, he's basically a treasure hunter with barely any screentime.
Mario is awesome, really cool, and funny character, not really what you expect but yeah, awesome 10/10 would reccomend.

There is also another character that we don't get to see until a little before half way I think, I'm not gonna spoil anything but he's a really cool character with an interesting backstory, I'm not gonna say his name, but you'll definetly know who I'm talking about if I say he's a bit different from the others.

In general, good characters. 7/10

Enjpyment:
Allthough I didn't 100% get what I wanted, I still enjoyed watching the show. Fight scenes and story was really nice, and allthough everyone looked like robots trying to act human, they still were able to give some nice face expressions here and there in dull situations that made me laugh. Nothing I went out of my way to watch, but it was fun. 7/10

Overall:
In the end, the show was pretty damn average, I really wanted it to be a suprise hit, and allthough it was good, it didn't offer a lot of the good stuff people want when they watch the show.

I would reccomend it, if you just wanna watch a nice, decent show with some nice story, fight scenes and, you know, INSECTS! It's not something I will force down people's throats, but if you come up to me and say: "I wanna watch this, what to you think?" I'd say: "It's decent, you should go for it" But don't expect something groundbreaking that sends you through the atmosphere, and you just wonder how something so amazing wasn't published before Feb 6 2020, because it won't live up to anything, it's decent, but nothing special!

I give it a 6.8/10, which rounds up to 7/10

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