Paradox Live the Animation

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Alternative Titles

Japanese: Paradox Live THE ANIMATION

Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 12

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Oct 3, 2023 to Dec 26, 2023

Premiered: Fall 2023

Broadcast: Tuesdays at 23:00 (JST)

Producers: Animax, BS Fuji, Tokyo MX, Avex Pictures, MAGNET

Licensors: None found, add some

Studios: PINE JAM

Source: Mixed media

Genres: Drama, Sci-Fi

Theme: Music

Duration: 23 min. per ep.

Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Statistics

Score: 6.86¹ (scored by 7,253 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #5015²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #3751

Members: 35,355

Favorites: 410

Available At

Official Site

@paradoxlive_TA

Resources

AniDB

ANN

Streaming Platforms

Crunchyroll

Anime Digital Network

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May be unavailable in your region.

6.86

Ranked #5015Popularity #3751Members 35,355

Episodes: /12

Synopsis

In a future where hip-hop reigns supreme, skilled rappers put on shows known as Phantom Lives. There they turn their powerful emotions into captivating illusions for their audiences through the usage of "Phantometal"—a material that reacts to the rapper's DNA to create the fantastic imagery. However, usage of Phantometal causes rappers to relive past traumas and painful memories in so-called Trap Reactions. Depending on the strength of the rapper's emotions, these reactions can be debilitating and even affect their psyche.

After disappearing without a trace 10 years prior, the legendary CLUB Paradox mysteriously returns to announce the start of a new Phantom Live competition called Paradox Live. With 10 billion yen on the line, four established groups—BAE, The Cat's Whiskers, cozmez, and Akanyatsura—are invited to take center stage. Though wary of the strange circumstances, each of these groups have their own reasons for throwing themselves into the competition. Unfortunately, the path to glory may be more ruthless than they could imagine.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Edit

Background

Paradox Live the Animation is an anime adaptation that is a part of the Paradox Live mixed-media project by Avex Pictures and GCREST.

The Blu-ray was released in six volumes from December 22, 2023, to May 31, 2024.

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Yatonokami, Kanata

Main

Kobayashi, Yuusuke
Japanese

Yatonokami, Nayuta

Main

Toyonaga, Toshiyuki
Japanese

Faulkner, Anne

Main

96neko
Japanese

Sugasano, Allen

Main

Kajiwara, Gakuto
Japanese

Yeon, Hajun

Main

Murase, Ayumu
Japanese

Natsume, Ryuu

Main

Hanae, Natsuki
Japanese

Masaki, Hokusai

Main

Toki, Shunichi
Japanese

Suiseki, Iori

Main

Kondou, Takayuki
Japanese

Maruyama, Reo

Main

Yano, Shougo
Japanese

Kanbayashi, Youhei

Main

Hayashi, Yuu
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Kurashima, Youichi

Producer

Mukaitouge, Kazuki

Producer, Planning

Andou, Naoya

Director, Episode Director

Nagasaki, Yukio

Sound Director

Edit

Opening Theme

"RISE UP" by BAE, The Cat's Whiskers, cozmez, Akanyatsura

Edit

Ending Theme

	1: "BaNG!!!" by BAE (eps 1)
	2: "Every Day Every Night" by BURAIKAN (武雷管) (eps 2-6)
	3: "Fadeaway" by Rooftop Friends (Shiki Andou, Nayuta Yatonokami) (屋上のトモダチ) (eps 7)

Reviews

Dec 26, 2023

Omarumba

Recommended

Paradox Live - let's set our hearts on fire with music, just don't take it literally!

If you're even a little bit interested in Japanese hip-hop, you've probably heard about such a great project as Paradox Live, aka Paralive, created jointly by Avex Pictures and GCREST recently, in 2019. The project is essentially a rap battle between members of different teams, voiced by 29 (so far) voice actors including Gakuto Kajiwara, Ayumu Murase, Natsuki Hanae (Tanjiro Komado and Kousei Arima), Yusuke Kobayashi, and many others. The teams themselves, as well as their members, have their own characteristics, song styles, history, but the most important thing that ... unites them is hip-hop.

If you believe the mainstream version, hip-hop started in Japan in the early 1980s and was, like in other countries, "freedom music". If you look for a correlation between the anime industry and hip-hop, the first thing that comes to my mind is the series Afro-samurai Fuminori Kizaki by Takashi Okazaki, where at the expense of hip-hop style to the viewer more clearly shows the concept of anime. Hip-hop in Paradox Live is the basis, it is around him all the musical teams and it is this musical genre is very fond of all the participants of this project.

The announcement of the anime adaptation was at the end of the second live concert Dope Show Paradox Live, and later the whole cast of creators became known. The series was created by a small studio called PINE JAM and directed by Naoya Andou, who had previously worked on episodes of some anime and on the music video Hi-DRIVERS! 2022. Paradox Live at the time of writing this review was divided into two story phases, this show is just about the first phase, with the main characters being the members of the four teams.

About the plot. Humans discover the metal "phantom metal", which in the not-too-distant future hip-hop artists start using to create charming illusions related to their emotions, for this they use accessories containing the very same "phantom metal", which has its own DNA. What is the toll of using illusions? Side effects, up to and including the death of the one using them - that's the price, quite impressive, but there's no way to stop the servants of their creativity. As I mentioned earlier, the anime depicts the first stage of Paradox Life. Several teams battle each other in battles after the mysterious return of CLUB PARADOX for a huge amount of money and the right to get a duet with the legendary vanished group. There are four hip-hop teams, and they are:
— BAE, a trio who perform songs in three languages: Japanese, Korean, and English. In general, the anime seems to have no protagonists, as all the teams and members are equally important to the project, but the BAE members do get more screen time, especially Allen and Hajun. Ann stays on the sidelines as a good mate.
— The Cat's Whiskers are a foursome whose line-up is more reminiscent of the title of a Russian TV series called Two Fathers and Two Sons. They differ from the other teams in that their hip-hop is combined with jazz, and their overall style is darker and nocturnal. In addition, all members work in the bar 4/7, where they mostly get together.
— cozmez is a duo of marginalised brothers, Yatonokami Kanata and Nayuta, who, like BAE, get a lot of attention. Their songwriting style is cheeky, talking about the harshness of their life in the slums and their difficult childhood.
— Akanyatsura is a five-piece team who call each other family, and are members of the Suiseki Clan, a yakuza group. Their music is more fun and lively, similar to street rap. These guys probably get the least amount of screen time than the others.

Seeing in the genres "music" don't rush to please your musical soul, this anime touches on deeper themes, as it still has drama in its genres. Even though the anime is part of a music project, this show is still not about the music, but about the stories of the characters. Yes, you will see and hear performances, but prepare yourself - there are few of them, less than in other musical anime like Love Live or K-On! The anime does a great job of showing drama, but the creators devote an entire episode to revealing some characters, and a measly minute to revealing some other characters, so it doesn't feel like they're all equally important to the story. The characters have drama in their story, and hip-hop, as a free genre of music, helps them cope with it, and the "phantom metal" effect, thanks to its peculiarity, becomes a powerful weapon for viewers and listeners.

Another advantage of Paradox Live: The Animation is 2D graphics, which turned out to be colourful, despite the fact that the show was created by a small studio. However, 3D during the performances leaves much to be desired, it would be better if it was not there at all. If it was not so noticeable during the performance of The Cat's Whiskers, it was obvious during the performance of Bad Boyz by Akanyatsura, which Pine Jam did not handle very well.

Although there isn't as much music in this show as I would have liked, it was cool and varied. Paradox Live is strong with tracks, it's hard to argue with that. The opening intro "Rise Up", performed by all four bands, sounds great despite the different styles of the bands, all the members sound unified. The closing sequence, "Every Day Every Night" by Buraikan, shows the greatness of the legendary band from the first episode.

Despite some shortcomings, the show is a great addition to Paradox Live that will delight fans and not only them, Taku Iwasaki has done his job well. Personally, being not the most ardent fan of the "music" genre in anime, after watching this project I liked it, even now, w hile typing this review, I have headphones in my ears with the BAE track playing.

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Oct 30, 2023

i-like-this

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (4/12 eps)

Epic Cyberpunk Rap Battles of History.

Whenever an anime has “the Animation” as a part of its title, I immediately brace myself and assume that the anime will be bad. However, Paradox Live the Animation completely blew my expectations out of the water with its first episode.

Set in a cyberpunk future, rappers use accessories that can create almost magical illusionary phantoms linked to their emotions to enhance their performances. Unfortunately these “Phantom Metals” have the nasty side effect of subjecting the user to intense versions of their past traumas possibly destroying them psychologically.

The show follows hip-hop unit BAE made up of music lover Allen, rich ... boy Hajun and Anne in all of their non-binary finery on their journey to win 10 billion yen in prize money after accepting an invitation to participate in Paradox Live Battle along with three other groups. The three of them have a great dynamic and they’re really fun to follow. I wish the show just followed these three (that’s foreshadowing). Of course, there is a bigger conspiracy happening in the background concerning the Phantom Metals and the mysterious circumstances around club PARADOX which gives the show a darker tone than your usual male idol anime.

Studio PINE JAM has been on a roll with its anime output over the past couple of years and Paradox Live the Animation is no exception. With its colourful neon cyberpunk colour pallet that blends well with the CGI and its incredibly good art, animation and scene direction, Paradox Live is gorgeous to look at. Its first episode also has some genuinely good music numbers that go as hard as the animation. Overall, the first episode is phenomenal.

Unfortunately, where its first episode was akin to firing a rocket, episode two feels like the rocket starts to lose momentum, episode three has the rocket fall back to earth and crash and episode four is damage control. The show throws away almost everything unique it’s established for mundane nonsense you see in your average male/female idol anime.
Get ready for an episode centred around the philosophical debate over whether or not you need to be poor to rap well or episode three’s story about the hyperactive member of one of the other rap units looking after a cat complete with “Oh no! The cat is sick, but it’s night time and it’s raining outside!” and then the kid runs outside in the rain to the vet but he trips over his feet, gets wet from laying in the street and feels sad… and at the end of the episode, they do a shoehorned in music number because the issue has been solved thanks to the power of friendship.
This is disappointing because there is presumably a lot of set-up happening whilst these events are being pushed to the forefront, but I honestly couldn’t concentrate because I was left so bored. It doesn’t help that the rest of the groups who are also tagged as “main characters” are nowhere near as likeable or as interesting as the members of BAE.

Still, that first episode was genuinely a blast and if the show hadn’t failed the 3-4 episode test I give every new anime I watch I’d probably still be watching. If you’re someone who can sit through mediocre storytelling to get to the good bits then Paradox Live the Animation might deliver later on. You can even slam open my door, crawl up next to my bed whilst I’m sleeping, shake me awake and shout “Wake up and turn the TV on i-like-this, Paradox Live got good after episode four!” and I’d probably believe you. Until then, it’s not bad but unfortunately, it’s not as good as I hoped.

5/10 Mediocre

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Jan 7, 2024

denkisoda

Not Recommended

Preliminary (5/12 eps)

A promising concept, but a mediocre anime. If you are interested in the music itself (some of them were actually great), you might as well watch the past music videos from Paradox Live official YouTube channel - no need to waste time on this anime.

With high-quality character design and music already in place, the anime should have injected soul into the characters by telling great backstories - which arguably is the hardest part, of course. This show clearly fell short, trying to juggle the large number of characters (>10!) only led to flat storytelling that are difficult to empathize with. Despite a stunning ep.1, production ...

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Poll: Paradox Live the Animation Episode 12 Discussion IzanaSolos - Dec 26, 2023	30 replies	by xseandee »» Mar 10, 9:37 AM
Poll: Paradox Live the Animation Episode 11 Discussion IzanaSolos - Dec 19, 2023	18 replies	by Swiggy »» Feb 7, 12:55 AM
Poll: Paradox Live the Animation Episode 10 Discussion IzanaSolos - Dec 12, 2023	13 replies	by Swiggy »» Feb 4, 10:13 PM
Poll: Paradox Live the Animation Episode 8 Discussion IzanaSolos - Nov 28, 2023	22 replies	by Swiggy »» Feb 2, 12:55 AM
Poll: Paradox Live the Animation Episode 3 Discussion IzanaSolos - Oct 17, 2023	42 replies	by Tensai_kun »» Jan 17, 8:10 AM

Paradox Live the Animation

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Characters & Voice Actors

Yatonokami, Kanata

Yatonokami, Nayuta

Faulkner, Anne

Sugasano, Allen

Yeon, Hajun

Natsume, Ryuu

Masaki, Hokusai

Suiseki, Iori

Maruyama, Reo

Kanbayashi, Youhei

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

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Paradox Live the Animation

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

Streaming Platforms

Synopsis

Background

Visit MALxJapan MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Characters & Voice Actors

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

Reviews

Interest Stacks

Recommendations

Recent News

Recent Forum Discussion

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-