Tokyo Magnitude 8.0

This anime is really bad.

I watched this anime and suffered through it's entire 11 episodes.

First of all I think some explaining is needed. I live in Chile, and I experienced three earthquakes of over 8.0 in the last 5 years. I have a niece 12 years old now, and in 2010 she was frozen solid with the 8.8 earthquake, she didn't move unless told to do so. This anime LIES about how people react to earthquakes.

Story: 3

This show follows a couple of brothers and their amazing adventure in an all-too-shaky japan. How they UNREALISTICALLY live through all the aftershocks and find out that friendship ... and family bonds are stronger than 10.7 megatons of energy.

Little tsundere-chan happens to have tremor immunity, because after standing in a dancing bridge, she walked head first inside a crumbling building.

The land shook too much for a 8.0 earthquake, and Japan being Japan, it's highly unlikely for their buildings to be that poorly built.

That is NOT how people react to these events. Children like tsundere-chan end up traumatized and the odds of rebellious shit are null.

HEY THE EARTH JUST SHOOK HARD ENOUGH TO DESTROY BUILDINGS AND BRIDGES, LETS JUMP INTO THE WATER. really japan?

I also loved how people were free to walk wherever they wanted, almost as if there were no institution to keep public order.

Art: 6

Bones did a "meh" job, though the CGI sometimes made background people look like zombies.

Sound: 3

Aww come one! That is no way near to how an earthquake sounds... SFX's were unnatural and didn't fit whatever was going on. Aside from music, sound sucked.

Character: 4

From the hyper annoying little brats to the extremely irresponsible lady, characters gave off a feeling of "I don't give a fuck about earthquakes". No, really. I insist, children become a bundle of stress and panic. If aftershocks are too strong, they may develop tremofobia, which happens a lot with kids. But tsundere-chan was fine enough to bitch at her little brother, that, ladies and gentlemen, is not stress nor panic nor fear nor related to earthquakes, that is being whiny.

K KIDS IMMA GO LEAVE U GUYS ALONE AND BRB!!... really lady?

Enjoyment/Overall: 3

Among the debris of high school comedies and unoriginal harem anime that we find dumped at our feet every season, there is normally one or two series which look salvageable. Perhaps they have a premise that sounds interesting or an unusual art style. It may even just look like something that won't be filled with tsunderes and panty shots. For those who find themselves feeling dissatisfied with the majority of anime on offer every season, these titles provide a sense of hope. They are like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

But there is a downside to these shows that seem ... to promise so much, and that is that sometimes they fail to deliver. What sounded like an interesting premise has become nothing more than a change in setting; the eccentricities of that peculiar art style have been overlapped by substandard animation. We have escaped the torrent of lingerie, but still have to contend with that annoying tsundere character.

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 suffers from all of these faults to varying degrees, and it is an almighty shame, because it absolutely was not inevitable. While the emotional tale of two children caught in the middle of a natural disaster of an unprecedented scale will be enough to take in some, those who are not easily swayed by sentimentality will find themselves searching for the substance here, and be left feeling incredibly disappointed when it fails to materialise.

The problem of Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 is twofold: the first is the nature of earthquakes and disaster relief; the second are the leading characters, the pre-teen girl Mirai and her younger brother Yuki. These two forces alone are largely responsible for the complete collapse of the show.

The idea of a series which has a realistic take on an earthquake is one that would seem enticing to most; so often are stories of natural disasters exaggerated for dramatic effect that the idea of portraying them as they are in reality is quite refreshing. However, the reality of earthquakes is that they involve somewhere between ten seconds and two minutes of sheer panic and terror, after which they subside completely, barring the occasional aftershock or delayed building collapse. After the initial danger has passed and you've made your way to safety, it just becomes a matter of waiting to be rescued.

Spending several episodes on ‘waiting to be rescued’ would of course be incredibly boring, and the creators recognised this. For this reason the children set out on the highly perilous and ludicrously impractical task of making their way back to their home, inconveniently located on the other side of one of the world's largest cities, which has just been struck by one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded. However as unlikely as this story seems, this is not the least of TM 8.0's worries: because even though it gives the cast a goal to work towards it still doesn't provide them with anything interesting to do on the way.

There are times where we break away from the dullness of the main story, but sadly these are no more satisfying than the main plot. There is the occasional brush with danger, where an unfortunately timed aftershock will strike as the cast are stood underneath a swaying lamp post, are walking around carelessly inside a structurally unsound building, or just happen to be walking underneath a suspended grand piano... oh, what a rotten bit of luck.

Alternatively the distraction will be minor sub plot. This will invariably take the form of a side story involving people the main characters encounter, and is always aimed at making the viewer realise that no matter how big you think your problems are, there is always someone worse off than you are. Some might say that a story about two young children separated from their parents by an earthquake would have already achieved that goal, but for some reason the writers decided that the point really needed to be hammered home; probably because otherwise people might notice just how uneventful this show really is.

The experience of watching Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 feels somewhat similar to a being a passenger on a long car journey, a resemblance made all the more uncanny by the two annoying little children that accompany you throughout its run: the annoyingly self-centred preteen brat called Mirai, and her eternally optimistic young brother Yuki. Let us be grateful that this is one journey we can stop whenever we feel like it, without having to apologise to Grandma.

While the series does not have a 'narrator' as such, Mirai takes the role of the main protagonist, and acts as our eyes and ears as we make our way through what was formerly known as Shibuya. Immediately this presents us with a problem, because unless you're a twelve year old yourself or are amazingly conscious of how you behaved at that age, then you are going to find it incredibly hard to identify with Mirai; and harder still to sympathise with her.

What's so remarkable about her character is that she manages to remain her vain and selfish old self throughout the show. Almost unmoved by the catastrophic event she is stuck squarely in the middle of, not to mention the suffering all around her, she struggles to find the time to worry about anyone else for any longer than two or three consecutive scenes. It is hard to ignore the conscious effort being made to portray her character as human underneath all that self-absorption. That it seems so improbable only amplifies the problem; it's not hard to picture a twelve-year-old acting conceited, but to behave that way during the aftermath of a major earthquake?
Surely there is a point when instinct takes over, when the shallow front crumbles to reveal the scared little girl who is just old enough to recognise how powerless she really is amidst the chaos all around her? It's all just too much.

While Mirai's character is annoying, she does have one redeeming quality and that is that she is not annoying as her younger brother's character. A little boy so filled with naivety and youthful optimism that it reaches out and pokes its finger down your throat. His very presence irritates his sister and she makes no attempts to hide her contempt, but Yuki doesn't bat an eyelid. He continues to talk, laugh and smile through it all, never once letting her nastiness form so much as a crack in his perpetual smile.

While his character is much more believable than Mirai's is, because while it seems unlikely a preteen who is entirely aware of her situation would be able to distract herself enough to be self-conscious, the idea of a post-toddler not appreciating the gravity of the situation seems plausible enough. The problem is that while it is believable, it's still incredibly irritating. It all makes sense, but it's not in the least bit intriguing.

Our two little darlings may be the leading roles but it is the guardian angel figure looking after them who is the true star of the show. While she is perhaps a little too idealistic to be believable, watching her is at least bearable. Her name is Mari and like all strong women she is a single mom who runs her own business. Needless to say these qualities make her not only dependable and quick-thinking, but also give her that caring instinct necessary to make someone go out of their way to help two lost young children. Of course, as the series progresses we become more and more aware of the imminent danger faced not only by Mari's young child, but also by her elderly mother. And of course, this does nothing to weaken her resolve to help our heroes or indeed to attempt to save her own family. It's a lovely thought, but sadly not one that seems terribly realistic.

It's not all a shambles though, because the artwork for Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 is of a reasonable standard. As a product of the Bones animation studio, it shares similar qualities to their other work- although the animation takes a noticeable plunge when compared to their cinematic works, which though hardly unsurprising or unique to this studio, since these are their most prominent titles it seems to become more noticeable. The backgrounds are fairly well detailed, although it should be noted that the promotional artwork is misleading in this respect. The animation is solid but alas, it does not attempt anything interesting either.

The soundtrack however fits the show like a glove; the opening and ending theme is precisely the sort of music we would expect a pre-teen like Mirai to listen to, in other words Japan's answer to Linkin Park. The angsty sounding pseudo-metal, aside from being incredibly irritating, utterly fails to capture the seriousness of something as catastrophic as an earthquake. And if anything, this only emphasises the main story's failure to do so.

As for voice acting, well I can tell you that the two main characters from the show are children. I believe no further explanation is necessary.

Reflecting on the points that have been brought up over the course of this review, as well as its overall tone, it should not come as much of a surprise that I did not think much of Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, and have gone to great lengths to justify that position. However while that may explain my overall perspective on the show it perhaps does not adequately explain why I dislike it so passionately. This was alluded to at the beginning of the review, but I would like to elaborate on it further before I conclude.

Irrespective of the quality of the finished product, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 remains an example of something interesting; it shows a new direction for anime to take in the future. As it turns out, on this occasion it was a failure, and ultimately it failed to provide anything 'new' at all. This is the fault of the writers, who failed to make the best possible use of the great opportunity before them. Nonetheless, it has proved to be a success and TM 8.0 has managed to win awards and many fans.

Do I think that it is worthy of such praise? No I don't, but I am very happy that it did, because it opens up more opportunities further down the line. If more animation studios recognise they can dare to be different, then they will. And from there it is simply a matter of finding the creativity or the talent to make something truly worthwhile.

At the same time, the fact that TM 8.0 was not something great is the source of frustration, because while further opportunities may exist further down the road, at least one opportunity to make something fresh and exciting has presented itself, only to be squandered to provide some Land Before Time rip-off for twenty first century Japan.

And just like real earthquakes, we can never quite work out when the next one is going to strike.

This anime isn't very good, not good at all.
I found this anime while searching for sad anime, looking for an anime that will actually be sad, but this anime doesn't come even close to it.
Basically, an 8.0 earthquake hits Tokyo, buildings fall down, people panic, normal stuff you would expect. Then we have our main characters, who are:
Annoying girl: complains about everything, gets mad at everyone for everything for no reason, denies the basic fact that the world around her has changed and wont open up to anyone unless something big happens
Yuuuuuuuuuuki: Annoying girls little brother, serves as a source of annoyment for ... annoying girl, basically is the only one pulling the plot forward. Likes robots, his family, and deals with everything annoying girl throws at him. Is like a walking rubble magnet.
Biker Mom: This random lady the kids run into both before and after the earthquake, wants to get home to her daughter, but travels with the kids because of a promise she made them.
Biker moms daughter: Is she alive, is she dead? Better worry about it but not really do anything to solve the issue
CGI background character 1-1000000: Background characters, whenever the camera zooms out far enough you can see them in all their zombie like movements
I will say i was pretty excited for this show after the first episode, the earthquake was well done, got me excited for what the series had to give me, then it was just downhill from there. Every time the yuuuuuuuuuuki isn't in danger an aftershock happens, some buildings fall down, but nobody dies, which is the problem with this anime, NOBODY IMPORTANT DIES (well unless you can make it to episode 10.....), and what should feel like sadness for the ruined lives of all these CGI background characters just ends up being annoying because you can only put yuuuuuuuuuuuki in so many life/death situations and have him live before it starts to drive you crazy.
All the characters make stupid choices. My favorite was after the huge earthquake and everybody got out of the mall and crowded under that giant building to get out of the rain, like nooooooooooo that thing wont fall as well, don't worry about that.....
The artwork was its best feature, and that is saying something for a show that was 60% CGI. I cant even remember a single musical note form this series, and i finished it less then an hour ago, so whatever music was in there is so forgettable it might as well have never be composed.
All the major plot points in the series are just done wrong, everyone that would have advanced the story forward by dying stays alive, which just makes the whole series drone on without giving anything interesting to watch, when you hit the major plot twist at episode ten you are already so annoyed at the mixed up way they showed what happened in the first place that it is nothing more then annoying.
I guess annoying girl does grow a little as a character, but not by much, by the end the only thing different about her is that she doesn't blame everyone else for her problems anymore. Biker mom jumps to conclusions, resulting in an aggravating five minutes of grave crying that actually feels emotional until you realize what actually happened.
Overall I learned two things from this anime, 1: birthday cake should be round, and 2: dont run into buildings when your series has a tendency to use a lot of aftershocks, it never works out for you
This anime isn't even so dramatic that it is funny, it is just bad. Giving credit where credit is due it gets a 3/10, but that's it.

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 is billed as being a high drama and terrifying look of a strong earthquake hitting the Tokyo area. And surprisingly the series is incredibly boring and shoddy.

The first signs of trouble come for a really poorly written opening theme by Abingdon Boys School is a strangely written and arranged song. Set against a bunch of stills of ruined cities fails to set any kind of tone or mood which is something a series does. The song feels like it would be more at home in a shounen adventure series instead of a serious drama.

The biggest pitfall with the series ... is the incredibly bland characters. You have the main character Mirai with a very obviously symbolic name who's going through typical adolescent angst in the start of the series when everything is fine and dandy. Apparently she's so angsty that she makes a conveniently trimmed wish for the whole world to just be destroyed right as the quake hits. Wow forced writing much? And even in the middle of the disaster she still seems to hold onto her teenage angst. One scene I recall is when she's talking to her brother who makes a comment about their mother with Mirai replying "It's her fault we're out here." Really? Your parents could be dead and you still want to be a bratty little teen?

Next is Yuki the little brother who frankly was so forgettable I don't even know what to write about him, other I remember him being surprisingly calm and chipper, something I wouldn't expect for a kid his age in a very stressful situation.

There's also the woman who's helping them get through named Mari. And what I recall of her was she was frankly a little to happy and a little too calm most of the time. Many times she references to having a little girl at home. I get she's there to keep calm and help the young children through this but really not a single discretion shot to show that she might even have the slightest bit of concern that her little daughter might be dead.

If there were any other major characters then they sure weren't memorable in the short span that I watched.

Art and animation wise the series looks good and clearly has some good production values. However I can't help but think their should be far more destruction than is depreciated. The series claims to have closely researched and worked with those who prepare Japan for earthquakes but seems like it might be sketching on some of said details. An 8.0 quake is nothing to laugh at they're destructive and deadly. We've seen what a 9.0 can do in the past year along with a destructive Tsunami which was absent in this. Of course in fairness, Japan is already a highly vulnerable country to earthquakes so maybe their infrastructure is far more resistant than I'm giving credit for.

The music by Ko Otani is also a bland and forgettable score. I don't recall a single memorable musical piece in the entire work and the ending theme is nothing special either.

TM8 is boring and overrated with a decent cast of actors but largely laughable and unbelievable characters.

For the past 7 episodes I thought that if I could withstand Mirai's character, it would be worth it in the end. Turns out I couldn't stand it any longer.
Maybe because she's just 11/12, but she is extremely bratty and ignorant it makes me so frustrated. She is so stuck up and rude especially during such a hard time like during an earthquake. I thought that she would change later on in the series but it's still unbearable to witness.

Other than the fact that I want to throw her off a cliff, the art just isn't in my taste and I don't really see ... where this anime could change...? It's like the same things are happening I suppose, nothing really new.

Thought this show would be interesting as it had a solid premise and a good overall score (it was at an 8 at the time of this review). Unfortunately, I was left disappointed. I feel like there’s so much they could of shown when it comes to what life is like after a major earthquake, but instead the show decides for the two child leads to have awful communication skills and just leave the group whenever they feel like it which would then lead to 5 minutes of the person/people left behind looking for them. This is pretty much all that happens in the show. ...

It almost seems like the writers knew that the show sucked so in the final few episodes they make an interesting decision, and while I won’t spoil anything, I feel like what they did felt incredibly forced (and also just happened out of nowhere?) and it was an obvious attempt to evoke a reaction out of the audience so they could have some sort of emotional response to the show and therefore feel tricked into thinking it’s good.

Additionally, the show felt like it was dragging on and getting boring in the middle portion of the show, despite this show only being 11 episodes long.

With that said, there were some stuff I enjoyed about the show. I grew to really like Mirai after I stopped taking her seriously, and there is some cool attention to detail in the latter half of the show.

I guess you could watch this if you had nothing better to do?

It's just so boring. It started out interesting depicting a middle school girl in a rebellious age where she is very cynical about life. She's contantly talking about how she doesn't want to do things, and is on her phone all the time. She has a younger brother who is very positive, making her feel like an asshole for being short with him all the time.

After the earthquake, even after going through so much she keeps the cynical/negative attitude way too long. In addition, the pacing became really slow. This show is only 11 episodes, but it could have been half that from what I ... can tell. Just a lot of side stuff that isn't that interesting/new. I actually dropped it at episode 6, but when reading a review of the special, which is just a shortened recap(maybe worth watching instead), it spoiled a future plot point. So, I powered through just to see how things played out. It for sure had some moments, but it's not worth it in my opinion.

I don't know how accurate the depiction on the earthquake was, but that's not too important for me. I enjoyed the first 2 episodes, and some of the scenes in the last few. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone, although I suppose it's at least unique.

Why are all the kids characters in this anime retarded?
With better characters this could have been a solid anime, because in my opinion the story itself wasnt bad at all.
But, Ive never seen a bunch of kids in anime written so poorly.
Mirai is the most obnoctious teenage girl with worst set of priorities- always bitching and whining about everyone and everything specially if its not relevant at the given moment for example before the earthquake their mum got them cake slices instead of a round cake for her birthday and that was a huge issue, i cannot stress enough how seriously this annoying teenage girl ... took that to underline it- after the earthquake a woman who helped them shared her little doughters birthday cake which thank gods was round, but even so Mirai still found a way to sting at her mum which they dont even know if is alive or dead at that moment, but oh no the cake was in slices so thats what matters here.
Mirai is practically useless, the only other character that causes more trouble than her is her little brother Yuuki who is always running off for no reason and saying the dumbest stuff and character wise is as deep as one of those toys who can say 3 meaningless, cliche sentences.
The theme is repetitive and I soon cought myself thinking- when will this be over or when will something meaningful happen?
I had such high hopes for this anime, because the premise is interesting and in my head i could already picture many ways it could unfold a unique kind of story from an interesting point, but it didnt. Its just trying to get 'the feels' by using little kids, few cenes of dead relatives and fear of losing those close to you, which can be a tear jerker and can provoke people to think unless you make characters two dimensional and they remain just like storm troopers in Star Wars- faceless and put there just to die in the background.
I do have to admit first two eisodes did get me hyped up, but thats probably because ive never seen an earthquake.

(Sorry about any grammar mistakes i might have made.)

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, as the title mentions, this anime series is related to earthquakes on Japan. The story is very good, because it brings up a story that most of the people didn't live, but the japanese people did. There was an earthquakes, a tough one, as the story explains. I did enjoy it a little, before I added it to my "dropped" tab in my list. Why? Well, because of the art. The drawing art is good... but they use too much the process of adding 3 Dimensional elements. When you're in those parts that you can see them as 1 meter away, you ... see the characters are typical anime character (with the author's original art) and if they are 2 meters away (or more) you see them as this strange type of 3D elements. This got me pissed off. "Why add those horrible very well noticable elements when the story is amazing? This screws the whole anime!".
For me, 3D elements look horrible in animes if they aren't very worked on.
However, it's on opinion.