Your Forma

In an alternate 2023, the Your Forma, a miraculous "smart thread" technology initially developed to treat a massive outbreak of viral encephalitis, has become an integral part of daily life. But these convenient devices come with an invasive drawback—they record every sight, sound, and even emotion their users experience.

For electronic investigator Echika Hieda, diving into peoples' memories via the Your Forma and hunting for evidence to solve the toughest crimes is all part of a day's work. The problem is, she's so good at what she does that her assistants literally fry their brains trying to keep up with her. After putting one too many aides in the hospital, the top brass finally furnish Echika with a partner on her level, a brilliant yet cheeky android named Harold Lucraft. Does this unlikely duo have what it takes to resolve their mutual suspicions and avert a deadly technological infection from sweeping across the globe before it's too late?

(Source: Yen Press)

Hieda, Echika Main

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Lucraft, Harold W. Main

Ono, Kensho Japanese

Bigga Supporting

Touyama, Nao Japanese

Carter, Lexie Willow Supporting

Saitou, Chiwa Japanese

Chernova, Darya Romanovna Supporting

Nanase, Ayaka Japanese

Kleemann, Benno Supporting

Hayashi, Yuu Japanese

Fokine, Ivan Lukich Supporting

Okamoto, Nobuhiko Japanese

Totoki, Ui Supporting

Endou, Aya Japanese

Nikolai Supporting

Toki, Shunichi Japanese

Chernova, Elena Alexavna Supporting

Shogawa, Hitomi Japanese

Kang, Yue Producer

Sudoku, Yuuki Producer

Iwata, Kouki Producer

Satou, Yuuhei Producer

Reviews

Jun 28, 2025

Anime-Isekai-God

Recommended

Seeing all the people writing these negative reviews truly shows their lack of understanding of this anime and what it has to offer.
Honestly, out of any anime that came out this year, this by far is a hidden gem, a masterpiece, I will say for that what it is, even though it is not very popular, I'm happy as it is.
For what we believe about robots, you can say that this anime is inspired by a classic movie called I, Robot to a degree where a certain robot is, act and feel like a human, even dreams like one, and shows emotions that ... a robot normally will not feel and or show.

This is what one can say is Harold, our robot who is the partner to Echika who goes around and about helping law enforcement with crime, diving deep into the minds of people to uncover the mysteries that lead to such fate. Be that to uncover the truth, finding suspected that may be related or just about anything above. All of which is by diving through your memories. Honestly, without spoiling it,
I 100%
recommended anyone to watch this anime to the very end, I know some may be judging they anime given about the poor reviews that is plague this anime on this site of people who cannot understand what this anime has to offer, but if you love a detective, sci-fy, character development, seeing a robot that has a mind of its own, can make its own decisions without being bound by any laws that will only be known by two people, and also to add that this anime is very gory then this is the anime for you. This will be a 10/10 for me

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by Anime-Isekai-God (25)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Jun 25, 2025

Marinate1016

Mixed Feelings

Your Forma is the most stereotypical light novel adaptation of all time in that it completely removes everything that made this series award winning and beloved, replacing it with a highlight reel of some of the best parts of the books while removing all of the context and foundation that made those parts so good. I mean, they don’t even start this show adapting the first book for crying out loud. How do you adapt a story and don’t start with the beginning? Going straight into a secondary arc without establishing why I should care about the characters, their struggles or the world is a ... recipe for disaster and I’m sure that’s what turned 90 percent of people off from this. Funniest thing is, I haven’t even read the books yet. Even as an anime only, I can tell this was a horribly butchered adaptation. The scores and weekly discussion threads only confirm that this was very poorly done. It did start getting good in the last 4 episodes or so, but with so many other things to do, I can’t fault people for not continuing with this. For what it’s worth, though, I actually didn’t find this completely horrible. I do like the setting, many of the themes and I’m sure once I read the books, I’ll be more invested in Harold and Echika’s relationship which is the foundation of the series. I struggle to recommend this show as it is, though, unless you just have some time to kill or you’re a massive fan of the LNs and want some of the big moments animated. This was disappointing.

One of my best buddies has been begging me to get on this series for so long as we basically have the same taste. I ended up picking up the first book over a year ago, but haven’t got around to reading it yet. When the anime got announced I thought it would be a nice opportunity to see what all the hype was about and get the usual LN promotion that seasonal anime adaptations are, but this was just not good promo for this series at all. I’ve done YT videos on why LN adaptations are usually bad, but this was beyond that. It felt like such a neutered story, I don’t know who this was made to appeal to because fans can’t be happy with this, nor would newcomers really be motivated to go out and read it. If I didn’t know several people who praised the books already, I probably wouldn’t spend anytime going to read this either. At its core, the story is interesting. Futuristic setting with thought provoking philosophical questions such as what makes humans, well, humans, the value of robotic “life” and it tackles some interesting criminal investigations. The problem is, it’s hard to really care about anything going on in this story until the last 4 episodes with the “nightmare” serial murder case. Everything happens so fast and the character development feels non-existent other than for Harold, paper thin story depth.. it’s just.. not very good. I did like Echika and Harold’s relationship just because of their cute moments and I’m a romance guy, but it feels shallow at times and like it needed more time in the oven. That can’t really happen in a series where the two leads’ relationship is foundational. And again, I know Light Novel adaptations are usually just promo for the books, but this was exceptionally lacking.

If you do choose to tough it out, the last arc of this season was actually really good. It was brutal, emotional, had more character development than the previous 8 episodes combined and better paced. One of the best murderer mysteries this year for sure and honestly bumped the score up for me. It really makes you wonder why they didn’t bring that sort of energy to the start of this show and just give the adaptation some love. I’m not going to blame the studio, that’s a production committee issue, but for the life of me, I don’t know what they were thinking. You can tell this series is really interesting, it just feels so watered down and barebones.

Production wise, it’s decent. I like the subdued color grading, the character designs and the OST is amazing. The way they show the brain dives where cyber inspectors can literally go through the memories of suspects or witnesses to help solve cases is amazing too. If you recall ID:invaded, it’s sort of similar, although not as invasive(pun intended), but it was a cool concept and one of the highlights of the show. The animation is decent to good, but the voice acting was actually great. It’s hard to go wrong with Hanakana and Ono Kensho. Both were great as Echika and Harold respectively and part of the reason I loved their relationship so much.

This wasn’t great, but I did personally enjoy some aspects of the series. I’ve also never dropped anything and rate purely on enjoyment, so I’m a bit different than the average person. I think for most people this is going to be a skip and just read the books sort of thing. Personally, I don’t regret watching it, I regret it not being up to the caliber of the books. Again, even having not read them yet, seeing the praise they’ve got and more importantly WHAT they were praised for, allows me to say this doesn’t accurately recreate that magic, until the end. The last few episodes did really hook me. Had enough interesting things in this to just make it worth the 13 week commitment, but a lot of squandered potential.

Your Forma gets 6(would be 6.5 if MAL allowed decimals) out of 10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by Marinate1016 (433)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Jun 25, 2025

KANLen09

Not Recommended

Your Forma — I smell a future so great, but its crafting is so "intentionally" bad.

Ever since the early days before the dawn of the millennium, the sci-fi genre has had the distinction of being a "no strings attached" affair, where mutually exclusive events and circumstances go hand in hand to create a vast, diverse world that's full of intrigue. You have your Psycho-Pass, Ghost in the Shell, and many other stories like it, but also contributing to the genre are cyberpunk works that range of the likes of Blade Runner to The Matrix. Both of these combined would give you the subject of the ... show in question: novelist Mareho Kikuishi's Your Forma, and how (in my opinion) the show was crafted for its anime adaptation is a severe case of "buyer's beware and/or remorse" that the consensus finds themselves being confused and out of touch from the overall direction that the small screen took.

Let's back up with what Your Forma is all about: a sci-fi mystery of a suspense story that's set in a world filled with humans and androids, though its theme is set on the latter as the robots are able to dive into people's digital memories to solve crimes. These androids are dubbed Amicus Robots, who aid their human counterparts, whom they have the technology known as Your Forma: a "smart thread" miracle drug that's supposed to treat the symptom known as encephalitis, or in simple speakeasy terms, the inflammation of the brain that's caused by bacterial infection or an autoimmune response. However, the widespread use of the system has rendered the technology a mainstay for all humans, though its drawback is quite the intrusion of recording every part and parcel of life. Compared to regular humans, the Amicus robots have only one law imprinted: the Law of Respect — to respect, obey, and never attack humans.

With both technologies, the humans' Your Forma and the Amicus robots have a mutual partnership, especially given the context that's serving for justice, as seen through the MCs of Cyber Inspector Echika Hieda and her assistant Amicus robot, Harold W. Lucraft, being part of their country's police division to solve cases and any threats that come their way.

Clearly, the work having won the grand prize in the 27th iteration of the Dengeki Novel Prize back in 2021, it must be a compelling work to bring to the small screen. And this is where, sadly, the anime adaptation falls full frontal flat towards its audience by alienating them from how the original source material was done, as compared to the many steps its staff team took to make this adaptation possible.

Taking a page from the courtesy of Anime News Network and their interview with director Takaharu Ozaki:
In his context, Your Forma is a metaphor for that of our current-day society as a whole, and he even calls the "cyberbrain" technology something that's more akin to a smartphone than a true cybernetic brain, something that's pretty much relevant given the slop that we're seeing with AI these days. That being the trigger for the once in-house director of White Fox (who helmed Fall 2017's Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou a.k.a Girls' Last Tour and the Goblin Slayer series) to take on this project, and the foretelling that he could concoct a story out of this, is quite the interest he has here.

The thing is, the LN's serialization was ongoing at the time, and since there wasn't a clear-cut direction for the staff team in which to take its story, in whatever sense of the word, the decision was made rather to focus on the core story drama between Echika and Harold as people in a cyberpunk world and having to deal with the complexities of their own being. This was (and IS) to be the focus of the anime adaptation, utilizing the bare minimum of the original source material as possible in terms of its sci-fi element and terminology, something that's always consulted with the original author, Mareho Kikuishi, himself. In the end, the purpose of the anime is to tell its story and similar themes by always bringing the direction to characterization first and foremost — the core theme of being able to distinguish who's human and who's the Amicus.

This, however, would turn into the single BIGGEST problem, not just for LN readers, which soon spread towards the entire anime and anime-onlies in general. If you feel like you're confusing yourself the hell out of this show. You're not alone, because by the grace of somebody's decision, the anime decided to excise Volume 1 of the LN and proceed to adapt the rest of the story through the lens of Echika and Harold. This would NOT be a bad thing if it's slow to begin with, but the core fact of it is that if you cut out THE VERY FIRST VOLUME of the series, the beginning notes of the show, where most new fans would be garnered from, are quickly being put off by the jankiness that soon becomes its anomaly, which is akin to watching later episodes rather than the 3-episode rule. This is just some heinous level of bad "planning," especially when Volume 1 is used to get the audience acquainted with Echika Hieda and Harold W. Lucraft's introductory notes and how THAT would shape the rest of the series to follow.

If anything, as Takaharu Ozaki puts it, putting characterization at the forefront would "make" the anime any better as a reduced, cut-content version of the LN, then I'm definitely having the vibes VERY off about the anime's direction. As much as I would like to get to know the other characters deeper, there is not one indication that tells me they've done their homework enough. From the police cases to the everyday mundane, both the Cyber Inspector and her Amicus robot assistant come into contact with friends, colleagues, and the like. Some (like Bigga and Darya) are easy to get along with, but others (like Inspector Fokine) are just merely surface-level contacts and have an interest in the same job. To be fair, as an anime-only, I know that the LN is fairly detailed on the characters themselves, but hell, can I be absolutely sure that whatever the anime was trying to depict, it just didn't do it for me to the point of just caring less and seeing the other support characters as plot devices for the big bads?

Having Geno Studio be onboard for works of this nature is not a surprise, given its parent company, Twin Engine, and the works that it has chosen to adapt since its creation back in November 2015: the studio's very first work, Winter 2018's mystery sci-fi supernatural thriller series Kokkoku: Moment by Moment, as well as Winter 2020's supernatural psychological thriller Pet. But yet, for Your Forma to be the studio's 5th work overall (and the latest in 3 years since Summer 2022's Bucchigire! a.k.a Shine On! Bakumatsu Bad Boys!), it feels more like the anomaly that Twin Engine is holding potential back for the former Manglobe successor studio to really shine. The overall production is fine and all, though I would not say that it quite hits the mark.

The music reeks of a decent sci-fi mystery craze, though I'd argue that it unfortunately doesn't stand out much in the way. And despite getting reputable Anisong artists in the vein of yama and 9Lana, they're good songs at that on their own, but the biting feeling within me says that they're just not as good as they could be, the gut instinct of reality echoes much of my sentiment that they deserved better.

Your Forma is one of those handful of shows where I dub, "Please give the show a second chance, despite its shortcomings." However, by the wisdom of director Takaharu Ozaki, author Mareho Kikuishi, and the staff team rearranging the LN to fit within the confines of the anime in terms of narrative, that's sadly where the formula falls apart at the seams. The taboo sin for sci-fi or mystery works in general is not to lose the overall nuance of the vast worldbuilding that allows people to slowly understand what its setting is all about, and for the anime to have missed quite the bullseye mark, it's just not a worthy adaptation from the get-go.

Damn, Your Forma's potential was there for the taking, yet it's the people in charge who do the bad job of depicting a half-assed true story that leaves out critical information. Just skip the anime and go for the LN (or the shortened manga) if you can.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by KANLen09 (744)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Anime Onegai's Subbed, Redubbed and Dubbed Animes by Third Parties

by Shakitonu31

46 Entries · 12 Restacks

Worthwhile Spring 2025 Anime

by BropixWuff

28 Entries · 2 Restacks

2025 anime watch list

by mostyda0992

40 Entries · 23 Restacks

Spring 2025 Simulcast List [Update 4/7]

In this thread, you'll find a comprehensive list of television anime acquired for simulcast release during the Spring 2025 season. Anime series licensed for hom...read more

Mar 25, 4:48 PM by Snow | Discuss (17 comments)

'Your Forma' Unveils Additional Cast, Ending Theme, Second Promo

The official website of the Your Forma anime series unveiled additional cast, ending theme, and the second promotional video on Wednesday. The television anime adapt...read more

Mar 19, 2:37 PM by Nioxys | Discuss (0 comments)

	Poll: Your Forma Episode 5 Discussion Stark700 - Apr 30	23 replies	by Treyv0n »» Jul 16, 6:02 PM
	Genuinely, what went wrong? jahver - May 9	17 replies	by Treyv0n »» Jul 16, 2:17 PM
	Poll: Your Forma Episode 13 Discussion Stark700 - Jun 25	32 replies	by JRoUKnoShoes »» Jul 15, 11:57 AM
	Poll: Your Forma Episode 6 Discussion Stark700 - May 7	15 replies	by JaniSIr »» Jul 8, 1:24 PM
	Poll: Your Forma Episode 3 Discussion Stark700 - Apr 16	26 replies	by JaniSIr »» Jul 7, 2:18 PM