Platonic Chain

As a girl - I love this. If you give this a different rating than 10/10 you are objectively wrong and you should never ever try to consume Japanese media because this is a piece of art.

first of all, the opening is just the fucking best. the music slaps, and the characters are lovely, so what if it's a bad CGI? fucking Berserk 2017 looked worse than this.

the storyline is a bit bland, I might have to admit that. but there's a valid reason behind that: if the story was more difficult, your rotting brain wouldn't be able to appreciate the beautiful art of ... it all. it's also the reason behind the longitude of each and every episode - which counts 6 minutes. but even the "shit plot" (as you anime watchers might call it) gives us girls a vision of the world and what it truly is like. that we can meet a guy twice on the same street a year apart and that it's totally not creepy and weird and that it's in fact just a coincidence, a fate even. and that we should totally give him our socials because he's a nice guy.
in my opinion, this anime is for pretty girls because only pretty girls can understand the topics this anime talks about on a deeper level (unlike you stinky LoL players with greasy fingers)

I think if they had a bigger budget, this anime would be better than Naruto or One Piece.

I only mark this as mixed feelings because I recognize some will not appreciate it. But there is a specific audience that should enjoy this. Don't compare this anime to any other modern anime, because it's just comparing apples to oranges. This is a historical artifact and should be enjoyed as such. A lot of people will complain about the CGI art style, but given the hindsight of 20 years - it's awesome. I think it's perfect for this anime; lifeless, creepy CGI animation was this thing that was everywhere for a very short amount of time until everyone finally realized it was totally ugly ... and then it was really only relegated to those straight to dvd children's movies that were rip offs of disney IP. So I think it shows us exactly where this show was coming from in history, it situates you perfectly in the early 2000s. It reminds me of watching code lyoko as a kid. A time when I had no idea how terrible and cruel technology would become.

Platonic Chain is the writer's personal prediction for where technology could have gone in the future. The website "PlaChe" is like an all seeing eye, that invades the privacy of everyone using security cameras that are seemingly everywhere in shibuya. Using facial recognition technology, it can attempt to find your long lost lover or your estranged father for you. Each short episode is generally about a specific feature of PlaChe and how the main characters (cute Shibuya middle schoolers) use it. It's very entertaining to compare the technology of PlaChe to what is truly possible today, in 2023. You have this ability to basically stalk people and find their exact location, using security camera footage mainly. Information they did not give up willingly. Today, if you wanted to find someone, you would likely just find them using information they willingly put online. It would be harder to find someone's exact location, but for those who incessantly document their lives on social media, it's certainly possible. I don't have an exact thesis about this show yet, I'm not saying it's some type of groundbreaking commentary on technology and society. It's mainly just interesting to reflect on this time before everything went so wrong.

It's extremely hard to judge Platonic Chain. It provides one of the most dystopian premises of all time, and yet it centers itself around the general mundanities of teenage life in Shibuya, with the same kind of tone you would have in most other slice of life comedies. It has a very unique sense of humour that sometimes lands and sometimes doesn't, but either way you will have fun. Each episode is technically 6 minutes long, but the actual episode content is only 3 minutes once you subtract the opening and ending. Within those 3 minutes is batshit insanity.

If you know how much I hate ... CGI animation, you might wonder why I like this anime so much. I hate Berserk 2016, I'm not the biggest fan of Dorohedoro, so why this? I love that this looks like a forgotten Dreamcast game. I love the soundtrack so much. The various openings and endings are all in my playlists. The fact that this takes place in Shibuya and makes actual reference to things and events in Shibuya's landscape and history is also a plus.

It gets kind of dull after a while, but this is definitely worth the watch if you wanna see some truly inspired shit. Doing research on this anime is hell. Trying to find out things about it as a non-Japanese speaker is truly a challenge. If you find anything new, let me know.