Tokyo Magnitude 8.0

It’s summertime in Japan! No more pencils, no more books, no more senseis dirty looks... This is especially true for seventh grader Mirai Onozawa, who’s elected not to take any summer classes, and as a result, she gets to have the whole vacation to herself! Unfortunately, her parents aren’t so lucky, and they still have to spend that time working, meaning that there are no plans for the Onozawa family to take a fun trip this year, like several of Mirai’s classmates are. Her newfound freedom comes back to bite her in the ass when her mother assigns her to take ... her little brother, first grader Yuuki Onozawa, to a robot exhibition in Odaiba, which he’s been looking forward to attending for months up until then. Poor Mirai trudges her way to Odaiba, carrying her little brother in tow while lamenting just how lame her life is, and while she does manage to have a little bit of fun there, she’s all to happy to get out of there when it’s finally time to leave and go home. She lets her brother go off unsupervised to use the bathroom and pick up some drinks, and she waits outside for him, tweeting about how much she wants the world to just break apart.

No sooner does she post this message than the legendary city of Tokyo is hit by a massive magnitude 8.0 earthquake, shaking the convention center to it’s foundation and causing a catastrophic amount of death and destruction to the city. By hanging onto the guard rail outside of the center, Mirai is able to safely get a clear birds eye view of the damage, but her brother i still inside! with the help of gold-hearted motorcyclist and struggling single mother Mari, Mirai find Yuuki, and the three of them get out just in time as as the first of many aftershocks hits. They’re out of the convention center, but they’re not out of the woods yet, as they’re still miles away from home, blocked off by seemingly endless destruction. Together, the three of them must traverse the ruins of a great city, encountering people who have lost everything as they strive to hold onto what little they have left, but with danger at every corner, aftershocks striking when they least expect it, and no means of contacting home, do they even stand a chance?

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 was produced by Studio Bones, and it was a pretty solid effort. I honestly don’t have anything to complain about with the animation here. There’s a lot of walking and talking which really doesn’t require that much money to keep up in terms of quality, and the extra money clearly got poured into the heavier action scenes and a few very beautiful art pieces, none of which last nearly long enough to truly appreciate their eye candy potential. There are a few moments that feel a bit undercut, like they had to go cheap to compensate for a more complicated visual down the line, but they’re few and far between, and they never really last long enough to matter. The bulk of the budget was most likely spent on the earthquake itself, which often looks so viscerally realistic that you could swear you were actually there, trying to survive it alongside our young heroes. The running animations, along with all of the practical effects like rubble falling, dust flying through the air and people bracing themselves against each impact lend the series a truly harrowing feel.

I’ve never been to Tokyo, and I don’t know much about it’s geography or infrastructure, so I can’t really speak as to how accurately it’s portrayed in this series, but the level of detail in the architecture is breathtaking. It’s almost a shame to see these buildings collapse and crumble, because it feels like they put a ton of time and effort into drawing them as intricately as they did. They took great strides to make everything look as realistic as possible, so not only are the buildings themselves thoroughly designed, but the destruction as well is truly awe inspiring, creating an appropriately post-apocalyptic mood that I normally only see in video games that actually DO take place in a post apocalyptic setting. There were parts where characters would be poking around inside of a building, and I was half-expecting a zombie or even a Clicker to pop out. This makes the sense of devastation and isolation feel real, bringing a heart-pounding level of immersion to the ravaged wasteland that Tokyo’s become.

The characters are about as realistic in proportion as Bones characters can possibly get, with the only real fantasy element being the giant eyes of all the children in the story. Aside from that, characters are believably proportioned, with heads the appropriate size in comparison to their bodies, uniformly dark colored hair and normal, almost boring looking clothing. They do look a bit cartoony when juxtaposed against the more realistic backgrounds, but that’s a nitpick. The lighting changes noticeably to match the time of day, at times hitting a beautiful twilight glow, and there are certain moments where the color mix is just exquisite. A few of these scenes are strongly tied to some heavy spoilers, but the one example I think I can give you is when Mirai, Mari and Yuuki stop by a shelter, they sit by the edge of a small pool, and the reflection on the surface is a blend of colors that Mirai compares to stained glass windows, and she is not even slightly exaggerating. It’s very good looking show all around, but you might want to watch this particular scene a few times through.

I don’t really have a lot to say for Koh Otani’s musical score. It blends into the show so well that you barely notice it unless you’re deliberately listening to it, and when I play it out of context, it just comes off as a little generic... Not bad by any means, just the same kind of score that I’ve heard in a million other anime. My personal disconnect with the material might be why I have such a hard time feeling any emotional impact from his work on this project, and if so, I guess that’s on me. It does it’s job. I had a very similar reaction to the opening theme, Kimi no Uta by Abingdon Boys School... Weird name for a band, unless it’s actually a music class that’s responsible for this song... Played over what I’m assuming were production sketches from the developmental stages of the series. Once again, it’s fine, but doesn’t really stand out in any way. I actually strongly preferred the ending theme, M/Elody by Shion Tsuji, which had a really Indie feel to it, even though it’s visuals were just photographs of Mirai and Yuuki walking.

The English dub is a little on the mediocre side, too. That’s not to say it’s bad, I actually think Luci Christian pulled off an exceptionally strong performance as Mirai, all things considered. The character does very little but complain and act like a sourpuss for the majority of the series, and Luci’s grounded, subtle performance made her sound like a long suffering teen who thinks she’s over the world, even though she clearly cares about her family, and she managed to bring a deep sadness to the character whenever she needed to. Tiffany Grant played the younger Yuuki, and while she proved she could be just as unrecognizable in a child role as Christine Auten has in the past, she didn’t have much to work with out of unrestrained happy-go-lucky loudness and the occasional crying. I’ve never found Shelley Callene Black to be the strongest emoter... Unless she’s playing a really strong or cold role, I’ve always found sort of a wall of insincerity in her way... So I think I would have enjoyed better casting in her role as Mari. Greg Ayres and Brittany Karbowski also pop up here and there, playing extras and one-shot characters, but they’re hit and miss.

So here’s the thing. There are a lot of things we anime fans have in common in the way we judge anime, and there are a lot of values and standards that most of us share, but if there’s one that I’ve found to stand out in particular, it’s that we all seem to love a good tear jerker. I always see people giving exuberantly high ratings to any anime that gives them that incurable emotional illness, “The Feels.” If an anime makes you cry, it’s an instant masterpiece, regardless of whatever problems it may have had throughout. I know I’m not the only person who’s noticed this, because there are a lot of anime that have taken advantage of it to compensate for other major issues in their stories, effectively using shameless tragedy porn to grab people by the hearts and string them along for an easy 10/10 score that’s pretty much guaranteed to them, and if you complain about the logical or ethical fallacies that people have missed or just straight up ignored, they criticize you for nitpicking, saying you’ve gotta watch the series with your head and not your heart, or that you’re thinking too much, just turn your brain off and have a good time.

The backlash for some of these titles can be devastating, like for people who saw through the epic romance of Sword Art Online, but for most shows, emotional manipulation can lead to large and highly defensive fanbases. Clannad makes them cry, so who cares about the blatant harem aspects, or the fact that it all centers around a reprehensible deadbeat asshole? Who cares about the fact that the characters whose deaths you’re crying over are written so badly that you feel worse for the person losing them than you do for them in the first place? Who cares if stories like Angel Beats and Steins Gate don’t make any sense ,and are full of game breaking plot holes? It’s the feels, damn it, the feeeeeeells! Which is why, when get around to watching a show that’s been touted as heart breaking and emotionally powerful, I normally approach with caution, lest I be tempted and eventually let down by another predictable, cliched title that confuses tragedy with drama. So where does Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 fall in my rankings?

Well, unfortunately, talking about the lauded ‘big tragic twist’ at the end of this series is gonna take us to some heavy places, so let’s instead start by talking about something more basic, the story and characters. This series is about three people trying to survive a natural disaster, and pretty much nothing else. There’s no real depth, there’s no real message, it’s just a straight journey through the devastated town to get back home. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, there’s really nothing wrong with a simple or shallow story, and it does have a strong concept, even if it’s not really trying to say anything with it. Even the worst concept can be carried by great characters, so let’s see who we’re working with on THAT front. We only have three major characters, with plenty of other named roles popping in an out of the story before being ultimately forgotten, and since those main roles consist of two children who we presumably wouldn’t want to see die and an adult risking her life and chances to make it back home just to watch over them, we could easily form a serious bond with our survivors.

Our main character is of course the tween-aged Mirai, with her little brother Yuuki serving as costar, and they’re total opposites as far as one being extremely positive and the other one being extremely negative, and the story treats them both like crap because of it. Mirai is the negative one, and she is constantly getting shit dumped on her as a result. She’s sour, she’s poutty, she’s ungrateful, and it feels like she’s constantly getting punished for it. A note to any aspiring writers out there... If you don’t like your main character either, then either develop them or make them likeable, don’t splatter hot food on them. You probably think I’m exaggerating, but the most development or nuance she gets is that she occasionally shows concern for people, which, congratulations, you’ve just surpassed the bare minimum of not being a sociopath. You’ve proven you can stop bitching long enough to cry and worry about people, that doesn’t give you a free pass to be the less interesting version of Grumpy Cat.

And then you have her little brother, the happy go lucky Yuuki, who takes things to the other extreme, being positive and acting upbeat for at least 95 percent of his screen time. In fact... Wait, how mean do I want to get with this? Screw it, no holding back now. He has all the personality and emotional range of a puppy. The only thing about him that makes him even remotely relatable beyond the bare idea of childhood is his love of robots, but aside from that, he’s more of a McGuffin than a character. I can’t really talk about my biggest problems with him without giving away some very heavy spoilers, so instead, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to spend the rest of the review just calling him Mirai’s puppy, just to see if it ever becomes a problem. Mirai has a puppy that she took to Tokyo for some reason, it walks around making unimportant barking noises, feeling way too joyful for the situation, worrying about his other humans that he hasn’t seen in a while, and constantly running off and causing trouble. He’s a fucking puppy.

And then you have Mari, who... honestly, I really wanted to like her. She’s saintly, mature, responsible, she takes two children into her care without a thought for her own well being... But I can’t, mainly because I don’t believe her. No, I’m not calling her a liar, I just don’t believe in the existence of a person like her. I don’t think I’m stretching things too far when I call her a Mary-Sue, and if you think I am then PLEASE, tell me what her flaws are. Even if you can believe in her as a person, and that she basically adopted Mirai and Yuuki for their trip home, why stop at them? Why form this three person group, and then just stop there? What makes those two kids so special that she doesn’t want to invite anyone else to join? They meet other people on their journey. They meet other CHILDREN on their journey, but no, it’s the three quakesketeers, because the idea of a single mother joining forces with two unaccompanied minors in a fight for survival is more marketable, I guess. And yes, I seriously wish they’d added more people to their group, because obviously their dynamic as it is does not work for me.

If there was ever an anime that badly needed a larger cast, it was this one. Rather than just three characters and a bunch of small cameos from other people, I kinda thought we’d get a much stronger exploration of the earthquake and it’s devastation if the series were more of an anthology piece, switching back and forth between different characters whose paths would occasionally converge. I’ll admit that I cared a little about Mari getting home to her daughter and mother, but when it came to Mirai and her puppy(See? I told you I’d do it), I honestly found myself wondering what it was that made them so important, than anyone else, while I couldn’t stop thinking about the elderly couple who lost their grandkids, or the woman with a stuck stroller, or Mari’s scavenger friend. Mirai gets depressed over her inability to talk to or console her friend Megu, so how about just letting her do it? It might have actually been interesting to see. And of course there’s Kenta, the boy Mirai’s age which obviously means he’ll briefly serve as a love interest. I could have seen more of his exploits, although like the others, we never see him again after his appearance, meaning he might as well have died offscreen.

And as far as the story goes, all I can really say is that stuff happens. The earthquake itself is probably the only thing that’s ever foreshadowed(Aside from the tragic twist, which we’ll get to in a minute), and the rest of the anime is just the three main characters either moving in one direction or resting, all while being shaken by aftershocks so plot-specific that they honestly wound up being predictable more often than not. Even my first time through, I called about half of them a second or two before they happened. That’s not to say that there aren’t some scary moments, or that I never felt my pulse race, but even the most terrifying moment, the collapse of a certain monument that’s been featured in a ton of anime before, is ruined in retrospect by the realization that Mirai and her puppy clearly graduated from the Prometheus School of Running Away from Things. It’s a story about survival at it’s core, and while the characters are weak, it does at least manage to tell a story about survival, which is just about the least that was required of it.

So, the story is bland, it doesn’t live up to it’s potential, and the characters we’re supposed to be rooting for are less interesting than the one shot characters we never see again. If there’s anything that can save this anime, it’s the big tragic twist that everyone and their mothers praise the gospel about, right? It’s that element to the story that makes it emotionally powerful, heartbreaking, and a true masterpiece of anime tragedy, right? Well, okay,let’s examine this, and I’ll try to do so with as little spoilers as possible. I will admit that yes, the tragedy is setup really well. The catalyst is subtle, most people either won’t notice it or will just forget it over the course of then ext few episodes, and there are just enough clues that I can safely say that someone on the writers team was at least trying to respect the viewer’s intelligence. As the clues get bigger, that unsettling feeling of dread creeps in, and the big reveal is built up, and when it’s finally time to lift the curtain, the other shoe drops... or does it? DUN DUN DUN!!!

Yeah, I’ll be honest, I was actually feeling very forgiving of this anime right up until they tried to make a plot twist out of it. They made so many bad decisions surrounding it, at least from my perspective, that I’m honestly not sure how to start, or how to even broach the subject. I guess I could start with the fact that they made a twist out of it in the first place, adding a layer of smugness to it that kinda takes away from the sting of it. I can’t really get emotional over it, because I can’t stop seeing the faces of the writers, saying “Hah hah! you didn’t see that coming, did you? Look at how smart we are! We totally got you, didn’t we? We made you think it didn’t happen, but it totally did! You fell for it, didn’t you?!” Honestly, no, I didn’t fall for it. Even my first time through, I saw through their act right from the start, because I’m not an idiot. I’ve seen this exact plot twist before, and I’ve seen it done so much better. Shyamalan did it better with The 6’th Sense, Goosebumps did it better with The Ghost Next Door, Scrubs did it better with Brendan fucking Frasier, and From the New World did it so well that the reveal hit me like a punch to the gut.

If burying the tragedy under a plot twist doesn’t telegraph to you just how manufactured this tragedy actually is, well, this part’s going to be REALLY hard to talk about without spoiling anything, so instead of talking about it directly, I’m going to talk about some heavy spoilers from Clannad Afterstory and the Studio Ghibli film Grave of the Fireflies. In both of these shows, the emotional highlight involves the death of very young children, but while one is considered an enduring masterpiece by audiences and critics alike, the other is considered by at least half the people who view it as shameless tragedy porn. Keeping this in mind, what separates the emotionally manipulative from the genuinely poignant? Well, in Clannad, the characters we lose... Both Nagisa and Ushio... Aren’t characters we’re supposed to identify with. We identify with Tomoya, so when he loses these characters, we’re supposed to feel their loss through him, and that’s just about the least dignified reason to kill off a character... A death where they aren’t even the focal point. To make matters worse, she just died so she could be brought back to life, like Brian Griffin. Thanks for nothing.

To be fair, Setsuko’s death in Grave of the Fireflies is also in service of another character, her older brother, but the point isn’t to make you sympathize with him, nor is it to draw cheap tears just because it wants to. They’re not trying to make us feel bad for him, so we’ll ignore all of his flaws... We know her death is his fault, we know HIS death is his fault, and it carried a powerful message that Japanese youths at the time needed to hear. This isn’t a fireflies review, and I’ll let you do your own research about the Japanese crime wave of the late eighties and the bubble economy that wound up popping, but suffice to say, Setsuko and Seita didn’t just die because people remember tear jerkers... There was an actual point to it. There was no point to the tragedy in Tokyo Magnitude 8.0. There was nothing in that story that warranted a sad ending. A story has to earn a tragic ending when it’s characters are struggling against fate, but they ultimately fail due to their own flaws and the harshness of reality.

The tragic ending in 8.0 ultimately comes across as false because the characters, and by extension the story, never earn it. They don’t struggle, they don’t grow, they don’t have arcs, and the constant bad luck getting thrown their way often just feels like pointless cruelty from the writers, who have nobody but themselves to blame for writing a story that features little more thought than moving game pieces from point A to point B. It feels like a drama or action series, right up until it swings into Tragedy territory because it damn well wants to, and the fact that it has to hide under a hallucination gimmick so ridiculous that the hallucination has to tell the person having it that they’re a hallucination, we’ve officially entered territory so pathetic that I honestly would have taken a ‘ghost’ reveal more seriously. So did this big, tragic twist tug at my heart strings? No, but I’d be lying if I said I felt nothing throughout the series. It had it’s moments, and while I found that oh-so-celebrated twist to be pointlessly cruel, I did get a little choked up at certain scenes that took place AFTER the reveal was over. Like I said, it at least did the basics of a survival story competently enough.

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 is available from Maiden Japan, a child company of Sentai Filmworks. It can also be viewed on Hulu.

Despite my griping earlier, I don’t hate this show. It’s tolerable enough, even if I take some serious issues with it’s writing and it’s pathetic attempt at an undeserved sad ending. Do I think it should have had a happy ending? Well, it might not be as popular if it had gone that route, but it would have at least felt more true to itself. Of course it would have had to consist of much greater character writing to support this change, and for those of you who think I’m asking too much of a show whose cast is mostly comprised of children, I could point you towards plenty of titles that featured well written and interesting child characters... There’s Lilo and Stitch, pretty much every incarnation of Fullmetal Alchemist, the aforementioned Grave of the Fireflies... Actually, you know what’s the perfect example of this? If you want to watch a series about two young siblings, one positive and one negative, facing danger and uncertainty as they try to make their way home, but both of them are fleshed out and have definitive personalities, check out Over the Garden Wall. For now, though, I give Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 a 5.0/10.

***There will be one mayor spoiler in this review so don't read this if you haven't watched the series yet.***



I have never been this conficted by an anime before, I think 5 Centimeters per Second came pretty close, but I have a part of me which absolutely loves these 2 series and I want to think that they are among the best of anime. But then there is that part of me that just happens to see every small mistake or flaw and judges way to hard for that. I can't help it. It just happens.

With 5 Centimeters per Second it was probably because I ... expected too much out of it. While watching I thought there was going to be this major event that would crush my feels, but it never came. It was after a couple of days after finishing the series that I understood why it was so great, It left you with an unfinished feeling and you couldn't do anything but feel bad for the MCs.

With Tokyo Magnitude, however, it was something different. This anime isn't 11 episodes long, it's only 5. Episodes 1 through 6 were so boring and unrealistic at times. I had a horrible time sitting through these. Then it got kinda interesting... but not really. They played the 'character-is-dead-but-she-doesn't-realize-yet' card. I can't recall where but I have definitely seen it before and not just once. Then there was all the other stuff like the general slow pacing, low budget, terrible CGI used in the backgrounds. How everyone reacted/acted during the earthquakes and aftershocks was nothing like how real people would react. People in Japan should know what to do with earthquakes since they have lots of them. But these people seemed to have no clue at all. You can't afford to move around like everyone did and you certainly don't go by boat. Mari was really irresponsible at times just leaving them alone or not paying attention. Other than that it was just your standard earthquake story. I feel like they did nothing special with it. The only moments that really got to me was in episode 1 when she send a text that said: "The world should just fall apart", and maybe when the bro died. I have shed tears before for other series like Clannad, Sakurasou, Angel Beats, Ping Pong the Animation, Tengen Toppa, Gintama, but this one didn't get me that far.

I do want to credit TM:8.0 for the mellow atmosphere it builds at times. Mirai as a character is pretty interesting too. She is at that age where the whole world seems like it is against you. I don't dislike that. We all have that age or those moments where we feel like she does. By the end she steps away from that point of view and changes for the better. The series also shows you that people will mostly only think for themselves in times of despair and chaos.

Nonetheless it's a beautiful story for the whole family, much like a Ghibli/Disney movie but not as great as those. Back when it aired it was one of the best of the season because a lot of the things airing were just generic fantasy light novel adaptations, moeblobs and ecchi-harem oriented stuff. This most likely helped the series to score so high in the rankings on various sites/lists. I will say that this one is still much better than most stuff airing the last couple seasons but I'd only give it a strong 6 to weak 7 outta 10.

Story: 5/10

Standard earthquake story.

Art: 5/10

The character designs were pretty standard, backgrounds (CGI) and animation were mediocre at times, low budget is probably the cause. It was quite distinct from other art. Felt kind of refreshing but not really.

Sound: 7/10

No complaints but no special OST to remember.

Characters: 7/10

Mirai was interesting even though a lot of people argue about that. She is just a vulnerable teenage girl which is at that age where you think everything is against you. It is kind of nice to see yourself back when you where that age. Other characters were nothing special. Mari was a good person but acted irresponsible at times.

Enjoyment: 5/10

Episode 1 was probably the best setup/best entry for the series but what came after didn't surprise me at all.
Episodes 2-6 passed me out. Episode 7-11 were ok I guess. I almost dropped the series.

Overall: 6/10

Fine. Nice to watch on a rainy sunday afternoon but wouldn't want to watch it again.

/!\ SPOILERS /!\

Tokyo Magnitude starts very well, but ends bad enough. It is assumed that this anime is a recreation studied after "extensive research" (put it at the beginning of each chapter). So far so good, the first 4-5 chapters shows you the consequences of an earthquake and situations that could happen and it's like it warns you of what can happen to you and tells you what to do if you happen to be in such a situation, but starting of half-series all this begins to become a personal drama and deepens in the life of the protagonists. For example, when they go home ... to one who knows Mari and tell a little about his life (when Mari meets her husband and the story of Yuuki and the robot geek). Or the very stupid "drama" of when they find the bodies of an old woman and a girl in a shelter and it is already assumed that it is Mari's family, without removing the blanket from her face in order to identify them, so that three minutes later, Mirai and Yuuki find the true relatives who were alive. That is, you get a absurd drama that three minutes is solved. Hello? And also when Yuuki dies and Mirai sees his ghost (or whatever). I thought at first that it was a product of his imagination because he ended up in shock but he is put back into another drama that could have been saved because it is a RECREATION, not a drama of "h my otouto dies". It seems that in the end Yuuki is a ghost and not a product of Mirai's imagination, since when she leaves not to return, she is fading and saying things that Mirai does not understand. I mean, ghosts in an anime about earthquakes? Then they put some scenes of moments of the life of Yuuki trying to make you cry, making a cheap drama, more than anything because at no time it is said why it dies. Does he die from sunstroke (this was mentioned but not confirmed) and the child does not complain? Any child would complain and if it is so heated he could have said to stand in a shade and drink water (which they do). Come on, that his death does not make sense, they get to dramatize and sympathize with the viewer.

In summary, that of an anime that in theory is a studied recreation of the consequences of an earthquake (I repeat that they put a text at the beginning of each episode remembering it), starts very well but half goes completely by the branches and becomes An absurd drama. And that not to mention the lousy animation, that had been "pardoned" for being an anime that had instructive principles.

Sorry in advance for my bad english.

Story : 6/10
The story is pretty original, it gives us the chance to follow a girl that did not like this world anymore and hated almost everything, during the sad experience that is earthquake. I do not think that an anime have been made about that before, but the fact is that the story was really boring. I was waiting something full of emotions and sad moments, but until the end, there was nothing like this, just people that walk, eat and sleep, and do not really care about the others. You see people be saved, you see that ... people died, but you do not follow their death. I mean, clearly not enough. The start was interesting, the way that you are put in the situation is cool, but the middle is pretty boring, nothing is happening, and then the end is really not what I excepted from this anime. The story himself is good, but it did not focus enough on a lot of things that had a big importance.

Art: 6/10
Meh. The art was good in a lot of moments, the 3D moments were good as well, but in some moments, it was designed in a very bad way. When I say very bad way, I mean that I could almost have done better, and god know how bad am I in drawing. The environment was well drawn during all the anime, but in few moments the design of characters was horrible, and it hurts, really. And the art of the opening and the endings were disappointing. Only few images in black and white (not even more than 10) as opening, and some useless pics about useless characters on a black and white background as ending.

Sound: 4/10
You will sincerely get no good memories about this. The opening and the ending are very simple, it does not fit at all with the anime. Just a simple music, I really did not find the anime there, but more than that, the soundtrack was clearly average as well, it gave me no real emotions. Cool, there is a soundtrack, but it clearly gave me no feelings. And on this kind of anime, you wait feelings from the soundtrack, but at least, the voice of the characters was good, especially the one of the kid.

Character: 6/10
Ok, it wanted to have normal characters that could have been real. Put a little girl that is angry for no reasons, a kind little boy, some people that have no heart and could almost walk on little kids, some old person that help other people, and a simple woman that will help the characters that are too young to fend for themselves, and maybe you will get an anime with realistic characters, but no, it's not that easy. When you make kids face people that die, you can't let them be " meh, glad it's not me ", you just can't. And when you put a woman that supposed to protect the kids, you can't let them do what they fucking want. They are supposed stick together, but those kids always runaway to do useless things and the woman is like " ok cya dw it's not like there is earthquakes ".. No, you just can't. The characters were realistic, this is what was searched, but their reaction to the sadness of the earthquake is clearly not realistic, and what a shame for an anime about earthquakes to not be able to give real reactions of the characters about the situation.

Enjoyment: 5/10
I was really excited at the start of the anime, I was sure that I would have good moments watching this, but then, I was bored that the situation weas not moving forward, and that finally the main characters do not care about the earthquakes, they just want important people for them to be alive, that's all.

Overall: 5/10
Meh. Maybe I excepted to much from this anime, it was not bad, but not what I wanted. The start is good, the end will give feelings as well, but I did not want this anime to give me feelings by that way. To the end, you will just see the main character evolve through the situation. Yeah, there is earthquake, but to the end, I do not feel like it was the main subject.

This is my own opinion, but if you really do not agree with me, I will be happy if you share with me your felt about my review. And for the one who did not watch the anime still, there is for sure better animes, but the subject of the one is pretty original and you will not see it somewhere else, so give it a try, it's short, you will not waste your time.

Tokyo magnitude 8.0 is not about an earthquake. Don't be fooled. Though the sequence of events surround the aftermath of an earthquake and it's effect on its victims, this show is really trying to showcase a rebuild of a dysfunctional family structure based off of a one sided misconception by a "clearly" woke and "adult" daughter named mirai. (Message: Love your family or some shit idk)
I can see Bones tried really hard, but it flopped for me.

N.B.: There's alot of symbollism in this show: like for example the round cake symbollizing love, the robots and yuuki symbolizing hope etc etc. There's too much ... for me to dislike here,

Okay, I've never written a review before but I had to. The first half of this series was AMAZING! It chilled me to the bone, it warmed my heart, it made tears pour down my face like no other anime before it and I could not stop watching, I just loved it.

A certain scene about half way through really leads the audience on and causes great emotional distress for the main character and feel really cheap and really unnecessary. The worst case is presented, but then everything was resolved. I hate that, but it was forgivable. But, then the show began to drag for ... me and I ended up skipping longer and longer portions of episodes because everything was being resolved and there wasn't much danger or tension left. I got bored. THEN. The last two episodes absolutely RUINED it for me. The worst and cheapest and dumbest twist happened and I guess it was supposed to be emotional, but that is the moment I just quit. I originally wanted to give this anime a 9. After the mid point, I knocked it down to an 8. After the ending I had to knock it down to a 7. This anime is definitely a step above, but it's not THAT special. I am just very disappointed.

What could've made this one amazing?

A girl and her brother are stuck far away from their home, while an 8.0 series of earthquakes hits Japan. It's such a simple premise, but instantly something I gravitate towards. Think on the potential for a survival story, for a real questioning of people's morals, and a true analysis of the state of society upon a true, natural cataclysm. However, the series chose to be too hopeful.

I'm not one to desire only horrors unleashed on a series that attempts to be hopeful. It's okay if what it wants to tell, is about the good in people, in how ... petty problems don't matter much in the midst of a natural disaster, or bigger problems than a sibling's fight. Sadly, I couldn't buy into the story that much. Most of the concerns come from the pacing, and how dragged out some episodes are. For an 11-episode story, it could've been a million times better by removing 2–3 episodes, put that budget into bettering the animation, that intrusive music? Cut that stuff out. Let the silence reign free in a realistic story.

There's SO MUCH emotional manipulation with the music. Not to a point where a song enhances the scene, but it feels like the creators didn't trust a scene, and put the song so it filled out the emotion needed. There were tense scenes, filled with atmosphere, or a sense of sadness… and the song cut in, and I was out. It's like an intrusive reminder to “be sad”, “be tense”. Maybe the music was just not that good. Animation I can forgive a little more, since I get it. It isn't a super-inflated budget. It's an anime series that tries its best at what it can.

I do like the characters, though. Plotholes aside (Like the Mari abandoning a massive priority because “I'm human”), everybody is the embodiment of people wanting the best for each other in the middle of horrible times. It's a nice message, and every single person carries it effectively. The dialogue works, even if they repeat the names of each other so many times that it's exhausting. I'd blame that on the presentation again, since you can tell they're stretching the budget as thin as possible.

Every problem comes from the presentation, and the lack of a proper pacing. It feels like a flawed, 2000s little gem, and that sentiment happens a lot with series of that time. I can't dabble too much on other issues, when they all come from the same place. As a story, it worked, it did tug at my heartstrings, and it almost made me cry at times. Those moments save this from being mediocre, since the emotional core, and the themes on the ending make much more sense. It's a good ending, that's got enough boldness to stand out a little more.

6.8/10. Even if I liked the ending, a touch of more hopeful bleakness would've made this one a banger to remember.

*SPOILER (Not obligatory to read the next part)*

Imagine if Mari and Mirai were the last ones left. Damned to be together, since that's all they can do at this point. A mother with no children, and a child with no family. Fantastic ending if that'd been it.

*END OF SPOILER*