Mushikago no Cagaster

Netflix heard the silent cries of no less than 0 people to make a new CGI anime, but thankfully it turned out pretty decent in my opinion. Not the CGI though. It’s a nightmarish display of the show’s low budget and most will look at it with disgust. But the pleasantry of not having watched worse is not true for me. What I’ve seen from the early 2000’s is enough to make the CGI in this show look rather good in comparison. With other words Cagaster of an Insect Cage could’ve been so much worse in terms of visuals.

But what’s the show about? It’s set in a post-apocalyptic future where humans have started transforming into man-eating insects. The remaining people struggle to survive in fortificated cities that work as their own countries. 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. But I think the show should've been longer to expand on the world and characters even more. 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 has as much use as a knife in a gunfight. The character could’ve also needed more time to flesh out, but overall I found most of them to be quite decent.

Kidou is a young man with a troubled past who found his purpose by fighting the insects as an exterminator. He is determined to stop letting his emotions take over as his job also includes killing the humans who are undergoing a transformation into insects. He has dedicated his whole life training for that purpose. Until one day he accepts the mission to escort a young girl named Ilie back to her mother. She felt like a very shallow love interest in the beginning. But she is a crucial part of the second half and her backstory is one of the show’s most engaging parts. Giving her more depth at the same time.

Most of the supporting characters lacked depth however but since most of them have very little contribution to the story it’s understandable. But I do think they could’ve explored the villains motivations more to make them memorable.

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. The visuals are this show’s biggest downfall with how cheap it all looks. The robotic and stiff movement of the characters didn’t help but to be fair the action scenes were alright. 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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The fact that Cagaster of an Insect Cage does not have a higher rating is a serious injustice. It brings me great pleasure to be one of the few who might actually understand the masterpiece behind this anime.

Story: 10
Art - 8
Sound - 9
Character - 10
Enjoyment - 8
Overall - 9

Starting from what is considered "bad" about the show, the 3D CGI may put off a lot of people, but that is easily overlooked when considering everything else the show has to offer. Personally, I also believe Cagaster of an Insect Cage is one of the few shows that pulls off CGI extremely well. The Cagasters are big and creepy, and the large 3D models only help to solidify the creepy atmosphere that the bugs carry around them. By taking advantage of the CGI animation, the fight scenes are well choreographed and have an insane amount of detail to them.

Music is something that can make or break an anime, especially when it plays during crucial moments. You won't really remember Cagaster's OST after watching the show, but you will definitely notice it while watching. It is one of those soundtracks that perfectly adds to the show when it's most needed, while not standing out in any way. The soundtrack fills it's role well, but no more and no less. However, an OP and ED song that pan in during important cliffhangers at the end of an episode are all an anime needs to hype. If you haven't already, I highly recommend listening to the OP and jamming out. It is an absolute banger of a song!

Now for the real review (Spoilers from here on out!):

Cagaster of an Insect Cage's story and writing design are what truly makes this anime so great. When analyzing how well put together a story is, I take a look at the technical aspects of the writing and the weight that previously planned plot points have. Much like Violet Evergarden (another amazing anime), Cagaster uses the first few episodes to build up the characters, by introducing Ilie and the characters that revolve around her past, as well as Kidou's history of becoming an exterminator we get an idea of how the setting and antagonists react to them, and why their personal reasons for doing what they do. When people talk about "character development," they refer to how much a certain character has improved individually. But when I talk about character development, I look at how the characters and their relationships develop with each other, and how those relationships can affect their morality. SPOILERS: When Kasim died, we see just how much he cared for Naji and the other children. He blames himself for destroying their home and helps them as much as he can to make up for it. As an individual character he is finally able to be forgiven, and dies with contentment. However, the relationships he had with both the children and Kidou are where the writing design truly shine! The way his death affects the children push them to move forward past their clutches of the destroyed community, while for Kidou it has the opposite affect. As Kasim died by turning into a Cagaster, Kidou was forced to execute him due to his job of being a heartless exterminator. They were close friends, but Kidou still had to do it, for the sake of Kasim. Kidou grants him peace, while taking on the hatred of Kasim's loved ones for killing him. This reminds Kidou of his role as a cold exterminator and decides to pursue being a killing machine once more.

In an attempt to become closer to Lazarus, Kidou spent most his life practicing extermination techniques and destroying his own humanity in order to kill more effectively. However, when Lazarus reveals that he is still reluctant to exterminate and his own morals, Kidou feels betrayed. This is also seen in Franz and Acht. Franz wishes to understand his deceased father and goes to extreme lengths to do so, while Acht struggles against himself and whether or not he is a human or monster. All three of these conflicts are mirrored in another character or more.

The entire moral of the story and where the real juice stems from, is the hint of humanity, morals, and the past in the characters. Lazarus' indecisiveness passes onto his son, Kidou. At least, it should have. Kidou lies to himself constantly, as one would need to in order to kill monsters that were once humans. To throw away your humanity in order to do so, and for what? To become closer to somebody that is already dead and who betrayed your morals right before dying? Kidou faces these problems and this dilemma of whether to be held by his past and something he no longer believes in, or to change for the future after regaining his humanity through other characters, like Kasim and his legacy.

In the end, Franz and Tania are finally reunited in death while their eternal love is reflected in Kidou and Ilie's own relationship. Very early on in the story, Kidou mentions meeting a god who saved him. The entire show we are tricked to believe this is Lazarus, but it can actually refer to Acht. Somehow Acht must have impacted Kidou's own morals back them, but Acht also had to been affected. Their fateful meeting stems deeper, as Acht searches for Kidou to kill him. Acht struggles with being a monster, and so it would be fitting for Kidou, an exterminator, to be the one to kill him.

What I'm trying to say is that everybody's fates and morals are all affected and intertwined with one another. This is something that is very hard to accomplish well, especially because it requires copious amount of planning from the very start.

All the characters find their own resolute meaning to life, after being crushed by their morals and dilemmas previously. By meeting the characters needed to do so, they move forward in life with a different meaning than the one forced upon them by their past generation. Infact, in many cases their resolution is also the answer to the past generation's problems. Ilie is an insect queen, while Kidou is an exterminator who kills insects. This ironic contrasts of characters and how when Franz finally realizes his love for Tania, Kidou himself realizes his own love for Ilie. Through his battles between Acht and being influenced by Ilie's own struggles, Kidou finally decides to move past his lie of being a cold exterminator, and gives a new shot at being human with his newly kindled love for Ilie.

There is so much deep mirroring and contrast in each character's own morals that I can't even begin to fathom. All in all, Cagaster of an Insect Cage is what I would call an, "experience." It is truly an experience which will change the way you view yourself as a human and the things that make or take your humanity.

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Story: Just another Epidemic apocalyptic cliche story, cities trying to survive because a mysterious disease affected humanity, while there's an edgy main character and another main character that loves the first one, who is shrouded my a mysterious past related to the disease. 5/10

Art: The famous Netflix CGI, even tho not the worse CGI out there, still terrible. 3/10

Sound: Fairly good, probably the thing I most enjoyed, good sound track. 7/10

Characters: They are just pretty much lifeless, bad animation, cliche and mostly annoying. The only character that made me give two points instead of a round 0 is Maria. Oh, points for not having overly sexualized woman as well, the only one that fits this criteria, should be sexualized, as she was a prostitute. Good job. But they are still bad. Did I say they are bad?

Enjoyment: Well, I do like the genre, so I just kinda watched to the end and enjoyed more than I should. 5/10

Overall: Pretty bad, but still a more-or-less OK for people that like the genre, if you don't, just don't waste your time.

Spoilers alert:

Am I the only one who got really annoyed by the fact that a 20 years old guy and a 14 years old girl ended up in a romantic relationship? I know it's a post-apocalyptic scenario, so "theoretically" they don't follow the same ethnics than our society but what the hell man, it just don't add anything to the stories at all, what the hell man

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My last thought for this series: weird. The beginning of the spread and causes of outbreaks still unknown, or rather i must believe unexplain. Yet the story start with new era of the insect-human hybrid called Cagaster, so why go to past to study the reason? Thats what the author believe for this show. After the outbreaks, all scientist just gone crazy, and think to control Cagaster by making some of the queen. What a story, i shall say weird. Why need queen? Th bug move individually so why need colony, and more over why need the queen? Idk, too simple, so the show just make the whole story parts feel unrealistic and failure to the logical senses.

I can't blame more. This is how the show pointing out the drama near the end of the world full of the huge insects. Even the little girl and a lame guy acts like, they both can easily lived together forever. Because they just saved thousand times by plot armour, which is somehow make me sick. More over to the whole millitary and leader parts of the story. Or even to the technology. Since this is the future, i dont see nice tech for the tanks, even M1, M4 tanks were too dumb for this future, man. I know human in crisis, there. However, when they can create huge megapolis cities like City E 01 (by now), or even the past city like E 07 (demolish and being an insect cage, and the City of Far East (gone as an insect cage), why dont they bring the tech to the weapons only creatures to distinguished the bugs? The millitary here were just a dull and a complete useless, because they are too traditional to even called as a future people.

Those logical failure really irked me at the end, especially for the SciFi elements. Sighed. They even cant explain to that thing, in well performed, or rather i called it, an ignorance. They still believe to the audience, that the tech only for the Franz ideologism, which is a bad plot for the good story. Sadly for the people on that era, they be induced to go back to the stone age again, and fight the whole huge insects horde with only Ak-47 and dumb tanks. Even some people only use knife? Just crazy story telling, there. Facepalmed.

I may complain another parts, because too many shitty confussion confict happen everywhere. Especially with the fact that this series adheres to the understanding of insect colonies, such as bees, and so. The confussion questions, like, why Tania was only the only queen appear? Why the colony only happen when human created them? Even the reason of controlling the Cagaster feel nonsense and unacceptable. Ffs. If this series still hanging for the simple adventures and survival show of the wild worlds full of insects, i kinda make this show some nice scores. But, with the mess to the story sections, i kinda negate all of the possitivity. Hell, even the drama romance between young lady with the late teenage can not save my point for bad review. However, since im a good people, i make an exceptions.

Especially if this included for my favourite VA HanaKana, i will never give such a bad review for my beloved lady, never. Then, for the sake of that, and even plus to the nice sound tracks and backsound, i give this plus 3. So my final blow goes to 7 points per 10.

To the details, as states above, the story sections got my worst summary. Even i shall take my 1 for that story shit. This is serious. Next for the sounds music, its good, rather i say 8 maybe. To the art, tho, since i dont really quite enjoy the 3G animations, i give 6 for my maximum point for this show. Characterization feels dull and boring to me. So i create with no more than 7 for the series to show my respect for Ilie cute moments and HanaKana choice of characterization. Ah, too long for me to listen the angelic sounds of HanaKana, lol. For that, the enjoyment shall be enough to put at 8 points for the max.

Thats all my short review summary. I cant give a long-run write while i am in a bad mood and stucked mind of writing. Gladly this is over so i can continue to watch another show. And i hope for the future show, can deeply dig this topic more until its over. Can i?

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I enjoyed this anime, although the art and animation could be lacking at times, the story kept me engaged and the characters did as well. The most interesting characters did not get enough screen time in my opinion, but the main characters were also interesting and their backstories were cool to watch.

The main problem I have with this anime, although I enjoyed it, was the animation and sometimes the plot was a little cliche, but I did enjoy it overall and these things weren't enough for me to stop watching it.

Overall, I would recommend for a quick watch, and it was enjoyable enough that I would want to watch it again, and look forward to new episodes that will hopefully come out later on.

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Mushikago no Cagaster is a decent show, but doesn't elevate to anything incredible. It's clearly trying to ride the Attack on Titan craze, which unfortunately just makes me think of a better show. That said, the monster designs are great & the animation is solid. The effects work is a highlight for me.

The music is great all around, I'll definitely be revisiting the ost in the future.

Most of the characters are well developed, giving a great sense of who they are and how they became that person. However, there's clunkers in the side cast that were blander than bread. Also, there's some questionable middle eastern stereotypes through out the whole show.

Mushikago no Cagaster isn't something you'll regret missing, but at 12 episodes it's an easy watch.

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This will be a SIMPLE Review. No full body paragraph essay here.

The animation style isn't my thing. It's awkward and could've been better BUT, BUT, the storyline was pretty great. I was I instantly hooked on it and binged the show. I liked the characters and the uniqueness of the story. The development between the characters were good. I guess the only 'negative' thing would be the animation. It wasn't good, period. Though if you can see through that you'll enjoy the anime. At first glance I was like 'what the heck is this' and I wasn't going to watch until some inner voice told me why not give it a try. So I did. You'll either hate it or like it. Either way it wasn't a bad anime.

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Ther moment I finished this series I ran to MAL expecting to find a review that could put into words the absolute MESS this anime was, but I was surprised to find overall positive reviews so here goes my pessimist review, for those not willing to lost their valuable time.

The story is as common as it get: an edgy dude with some talent, a semi-loli girl and an apocaliptic world. The twist: oh, zombies? No, that's boring, the problem here are... Insects! Genius!
It was kinda simple but it caught my eye and I decided to give it a go even if the animation was awful, I thought maybe it could be worth it or, at the very least, it could be something to just have playing in the backround while I did the dishes.
It was not.
The story is completely senseless, and I will not spoil you here, but in case anyone can judge this a spoiler, I'll mark it:

(potential minor spoiler ahead)

Basically at a certain point the "plot" becames clear and so does the "enemy's plan". The thing is... The resources and time needed for said plan... could've just... solved the plot?? It just had no reason and it would be very, very hard to make a solid argument to really deffend that ""plan"".

The "twists" in the story are not twists at all, actually, it would have been weird if they didn't happen.

(potential minor spoiler ended)

Generally speaking, the characters are lousy, superficial, irrelevant and not fun nor even cute. Maybe Mario was okay but that's it. But don't worry, it won't really matter cause the desing and animation are so bad that you could HARDLY tell a couple characters apart. They also pull a "oh I bet you didn't think this person was gonna come back like this" and you're just there like.. "who?? I've never seen this person fr".
Random things happen for absolutely no reason just to force "emotional" moments and the romance is as forced as the attempted sexual intercourse depicted. It was awful. Let's just say it makes you guess why they never really tell you the age of certain character.

All in all, forced plot, forced characters, TW for sexual assault, boring, predictable, ugly. There's not a single redeemable quality for this absolute piece of trash.

I never do such negative reviews cause I'm an old lady who feels guilt and thinks that, even if it was very bad, there was a whole team behind that trash who did their best. But a friend once said "that just makes it worst! It means a WHOLE BUNCH OF PEOPLE saw it was terrible and decided to go on anyway!".
So here I am, ranting, and hopefully saving you the time I will never, ever, get back.

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Decent show - if the description sounds interesting to you, give it a try.
Be careful though, maybe it's not another Hellsing, but many scenes might not be good for sensitive audience.

The concept is nothing really unique, however I think it's good enough to not feel bored. Events that happen are not that predictable to know the whole story after first episodes, so I find it decent.

Art is probably the only "the best and the worst" element in the show. The worst - because not everyone might like how it is made. The best - because it's consistent and if you like it, you won't feel disappointed at any point.

When it comes to sound - many great voice actors, good opening/ending theme, average music put in the background.

Characters - to be honest, it's hard to introduce many characters in 12 episodes. Because of the show length, most of them won't see any development - but I think it's understandable and the show isn't focused on development, but rather on the world itself and events that occur.

Enjoyment - first episode was not that entertaining, I did not expect it to be really engaging... But after few episodes it became really enjoyable, especially the second half of the show was really interesting to watch. Plot went in another direction than I thought, new facts were revealed and new characters appeared.


I do not regret watching it, I did not expect anything from this show and I am satisfied.

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