16bit Sensation: Another Layer

Konoha Akisato's love for bishoujo games—a type of entertainment focused on interactions with beautiful girls—has always nurtured her aspiration of becoming a popular artist. However, as Konoha secures her first job as a sub-illustrator at the game company Blue Bell, she confronts the harsh reality surrounding her favorite genre. In 2023, the bishoujo game industry is overrun with cheap, repetitive, and low-effort releases, with Blue Bell at the core of the problem.

After stumbling upon a vintage game store and reminiscing about the impressive titles of the past, Konoha suddenly winds up in the year 1992—just as the bishoujo game industry was beginning to flourish. Konoha struggles to accept her new circumstances until she joins Alcohol Soft, a small game company willing to employ her as an illustrator. Although she believes her skills from the future will propel her to success, technology and illustration are considerably old-school, and she must promptly adapt if she wishes to fulfill her dreams.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Akisato, Konoha Main

Koga, Aoi Japanese

Rokuta, Mamoru Main

Abe, Atsushi Japanese

Shimoda, Kaori Main

Kawasumi, Ayako Japanese

Uehara, Meiko Supporting

Horie, Yui Japanese

Yamada, Touya Supporting

Yamane, Aya Japanese

Gomikawa, Kiyoshi Supporting

Fukushima, Jun Japanese

Echo 1 Supporting

Tamaru, Atsushi Japanese

Haruhiko Supporting

Takahashi, Shinya Japanese

Ichigaya Supporting

Morikubo, Shoutarou Japanese

Echo 2 Supporting

Imaizumi, Riona Japanese

Oowada, Tomoyuki Producer

Nakayama, Nobuhiro Producer

Nagamine, Rieko Producer

Niikura, Toshiya Producer

Reviews

Mar 16, 2024

Syaf_Arief73

Recommended

Yeah, this is the most easy watching Time Travel series ever. but at the same point the plot is made very well that the watchers will not getting bored by the story.
The art style is cute and serious at the same time, it's not too "Moee" and realistic enough for an "adult cast" which makes it adorable.
As a Comedy series the animation is great, even with the TV version (Not BD yet)

Most people said the plot is a bit low at the end but it does not matter, as I said at first you will not get bored by the story. people just setting their ... expectations too high sometimes.

This show is recomended especially if you want to wipe out all of your weary and tired after working etc.
Plus the VA makes the Comedy incredibly hillarous, just love this show...😊🔥

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jan 5, 2024

denkisoda

Mixed Feelings

This anime seemed ambitious. The first half is an elegy for the bygone golden age of galgames, while the latter half is a paean to human imagination and passion. If the creators chose to focus and deep dive on either one, this anime would likely have been a better show.

For galgame enthusiasts, ep.1 is a nostalgic trip down memory lane, featuring names from the heyday of galgames: _Dokyusei_ (Elf), _Shizuku_ (Leaf), _Kanon_ (Key), _Rance_ (AliceSoft)...Aaaaaand the ending theme was composed by Shinji Orito from Key, with Lyrics by Kotoko (a pity that it wasn't sung by her!). As the main character, Akisato Konoha, time-traveled to ... the past, the audience got a glimpse of how the galgame industry progressed. Even younger viewers would find this part quite fascinating (at least I did!): How illustrations were done with a scanner and mouse in the era before Photoshop and tablets? How to achieve rich shading and texture with very limited color palettes through dithering? How did game developers react when transitioning from PC-98 to Windows? It reminded me of _Shirobako_(2014), which similarly depicited tons of domain knowledge about anime production.

Unfortunately, portrayal of galgame industry remained on surface-level and of very small scope. The first half of the show focused extensively on Konoha's soliloquy and interpersonal relationships, which became quite repetitive. The latter part, starting from ep.7, obviously attempted to explore the possibilities of the time-travel premise. While the efforts were commendable, the story was quite messy with too many questions left unanswered. For this reason, two parts of anime felt disconnected, despite all the foreshadowings the creators tried to put in.

Imagine you work in a declining industry that you are very passionate about, and you had the chance to go back to its golden age - what would you do? Create your own project? Transform a company? Or change nothing and simply enjoy the industry's prosperity as an observer? I believe all these angles could have led to interesting and plausible stories. The key is to make one choice, and tell the one stories with all seriousness.

The anime has other shortcomings as well. Konoha wasn't an adorable character to begin with - she was really loud and had a sharp voice which I couldn't bear with. Her behavior was so unpolished, which didn't align with a 19 y/o character with work experience. Starting from ep.4, the animation quality began to falter, sometimes resulting in weird distortion. And of course, the most severe issue is the plot as I mentioned above. Overall, I felt the anime squandered an excellent opportunity to build a story around galgame industry.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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May 4, 2024

six20

Not Recommended

16bit Sensation: Another Layer was disappointing. The idea of a show being a tribute to an early part of the anime subculture, the early 80-90s doujin games is a good premise. However when it was executed, it felt weak. It is not worth watching.

Animation wise, the show is fine. Konoha looks cute, Mamoru is quite handsome. The other characters are easy on the eyes and the show is fine on that regard.

Character wise, the show is also fine. Konoha does love games of the era she is supposed to enjoy. Her passion is infectious and game development team as a whole feel warm and dysfunctional ... yet competent enough to pass as something I would expect to see of an indie studio.

The soundtrack is okay, I definitely like Link ~past and future~. The rest of the soundtrack is okay and does its job fine. Nothing stood out as bad soundtrack per-say.

Storywise, this show fails on the last 4 episodes completely. The whole future being an incredibly bad butterfly scenario that has no rational reason, both using the show's logic and applying standard real life logic. This show is grounded somewhat in reality and the fact the villain is what it is kills suspension of disbelief very quickly. The rest of the show was just disappointing. I expected the show to go a lot more into game development not just have passion, dithering and voila you too can create your own "Clannad VN" or something. I admit my knowledge of 80-90s VN is bad, but I expected to learn a lot more from this show. I get that art is important to VN but shouldn't the routing have a lot more focus? It just feels like a generic create creative works series but the premise seemed to promise more.

Overall, objectively, this show is fine. It looks nice, the characters match what the show is supposed to get at and a soundtrack is good. However, I wanted more, because a show that should be a passion project considering the creator of the show was from that era should have showed off more of their trade to create those games from that era.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: 16bit Sensation: Another Layer Episode 5 Discussion Stark700 - Nov 1, 2023	45 replies	by callmethebigG »» Oct 18, 7:34 PM
	Poll: 16bit Sensation: Another Layer Episode 13 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Dec 27, 2023	111 replies	by Kristiwazhere »» Sep 18, 4:26 PM
	Poll: 16bit Sensation: Another Layer Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Dec 20, 2023	70 replies	by wildhood »» Sep 16, 2:40 PM
	Poll: 16bit Sensation: Another Layer Episode 2 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Oct 11, 2023	86 replies	by Timeline_man »» Jun 8, 10:00 AM
	Poll: 16bit Sensation: Another Layer Episode 8 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Nov 22, 2023	88 replies	by Trentsuki »» Apr 27, 12:19 PM