Summary in short: Mayoiga is a prime example of a series that COULD'VE been interesting, COULD'VE been engaging, and COULD'VE gotten a much better reception. This series became, however, a prime example of a series worthy of four cours of episodes shoved into one. As a result, the story felt contrived, the mystery elements existed purely in ultimately pointless shock attempts and being unable to connect with characters, the viewer could care less about more than half of the cast, and the entire package just felt flat.
Story: 2/10
TL;DR: With too few episodes, you can't relate to the cast members, the end of the
...
story comes off as random and contrived, and you can't logically deduce what's going on. The series tries to advertise itself through various weak techniques to be something it's not, resulting in a sour resolution that leaves the viewer unsatisfied.
Long Version:
I knew from the start that I was watching a story by Okada Mari (writer of Another). As Another is an infamous animated example of a horror//mystery/thriller series gone comedy, my expectations were lower than usual for a series of the genre. Even so, the premise of Mayoiga interested me greatly: a bunch of screwed up people stuck together in a village that no one can find. It's the perfect setting for a massacre! Unfortunately, horror wasn't a tag for this series, so I'd just have to live with the suspense of people possibly getting killed off screen. Even more unfortunately, I didn't get that either.
Mayoiga's story suffered from two primary aspects: lack of time and improper presentation. With the series introducing a cast where (almost) everyone has some type of psychological scar that resulted in them literally running from the real world, the series automatically set itself up for over 30 episodes assuming you dedicated an episode per character. With such a huge cast, it takes a lot of time and episodes to get the reader to sympathize or empathize with them. Apparently this was an understood problem, since the series basically ignored most of the characters and combined them as an angry and paranoid mob for most of the story. It would have been smarter to NOT introduce most of the characters at that rate.
Secondly, the presentation was completely awry. After watching the first episode, I was honestly confused how it WOULDN'T be a horror series. We have a bunch of crazies stuck in a village with apparently a monster, and one character has already possibly been knocked out. With only 12 episodes, how could this NOT be horror when half the cast needs to be killed off to make time for the main characters? As the series goes on, we encounter creepy camera angles, spontaneous sound effects, cliche lines, and facial expression shots that attempt to make us wary of the "dark side" of the series. At the climax of each point of tension, however, the series just lays out a character backstory, shift in character relations, or a pat on the head telling us everything's okay. The final three episodes attempted to wrap up the series in a sort of moral that I honestly enjoyed. It was just done so poorly so randomly that it's completely off-putting. Had I had 60+ episodes to really learn about each of the characters as they attempt to live within the confines of this abandoned village while avoiding the monster that won't enter it, I could actually buy the end of the series and say I felt something from this series.
Art: 7/10
TL:DR: Everything was placed where it should be. CG had it's decent moments and it's horrible moments. Other than CG, the art probably won't stand out either in a good or bad way.
While the art was nothing fantastic, it wasn't horrible either. Some people may dislike the radical character designs, but I appreciated how each character was so easy to identify; I knew every character's name by the end of the first episode, a rare feat for me with a cast of over 30 characters. While the color palette and overall design made the series feel a bit dated, characters rarely if ever had anatomical issues and no character was so extreme it was off-putting. I appreciated the CG at times, I hated it at others. The biggest issue with the CG is that it was almost completely limited to the Nanaki and the bus, resulting in a weird effect that could possibly be intentional but feels for the most part uncomfortable. I very much enjoyed the range of facial expressions throughout the series, something about which I was expecting greatly due to the psychological nature of the series.
Sound: 5/10
TL:DR: OP didn't fit the mood of the series, ED was hindered greatly by its accompanying visuals, and OST was generally unnoticeable. Love the voice acting.
I'm the type of person who hates skipping the OP and ED of a series. I only lasted two episodes before I starting skipping both for this series. Mayoiga's OP is upbeat, emotional, and driving; an exact contrast to the mood of the series. I plan to acquire the OP, as I enjoyed it. When watching the series, however, it only made me realize just how slow and uneventful Mayoiya was even at its "high tension" points. The ED fits the series much more, as it was quiet, simple, and slow. Unfortunately, the visuals were even more quiet, simple, and slow. Providing only still images of around three characters per episode, there is nothing to engage the viewer to watch the ending unless they really like the song.
The OST gave me a better impression than the title songs, but still had little impact. Only one particular soundtrack, the track played in the most tense parts of the series, comes to memory. On the other hand, I never felt annoyed or distracted by any of the tracks. Overall, the soundtrack did its job to keep away the awkwardness of a silent background while failing to provide any significant influence to the mood of the episodes.
The great part of the sound and my favorite part of the series was the voice acting. While I have had issues really being able to enjoy the characters themselves, the voice actors did a great job amplifying the "template" provided to them. From the fantastic one-liners from Nanko to the vomit-inducing lovey-dovey talk of Manbe and Piitan, I think the seiyuu did the show a great service with their performances. I can't blame them for the poor use and development of characters, especially since the only thing making those flat and static characters enjoyable for me really were the voices. Good work, seiyuu!
Characters: 4/10
TL;DR: Cast size was significantly over-capacity for a single cour series, and the series' usage of said cast was poor as expected.
One glance at the Characters tab in MAL's page for Mayoiga shows the sad state of the cast in this series. In the first episode, we're introduced to almost every single character in the series in addition to some type of quirk or personality trait they have due to the nature of the introduction. But despite this, you only need to care about less than a third of them. Around 5 have true significance to the story, growth, or deeper character, another 10 only serve as motors for plot or directors for the remaining 15 or so that are literally driven by the plot to be taken out of the spotlight more. When I look at this series aside Durarara!!, a series that managed a large cast and gave them characters that meant something to the viewer with mastery, it's easy to see that those in charge of the series knew they needed to throw aside most of them to get anywhere with the plot.
While the tactic of creating centralized characters around which the others would function is a standard and practical option, Mayoiga failed to do it well. The fundamental design of each character in the cast is a very bland, stereotyped, and predictable. Anyone with some anime on their belt can use the physical appearance, lines, and behavior toward others to figure out the "template" of each character. The series tried to emphasize those traits by inserting as many random lines and camera shots on individual characters as possible, resulting in a stale appearance for all of them. With the quick creation of factions in the plot, the cast should have been generalized by their combined modus operandi rather than given continued individual moments in the spotlight. The best way I can explain how this series treated its cast was by trying to give them all participation trophies. Durarara!! had a total of 5 cours, and it still had to mitigate many characters to the sidelines for long periods of time. By attempting to highlight every character for half the series, a great amount of time was wasted and the viewer came to hate most of the cast.
On the better side, the characters that were highlighted had some good points. The psychological scars we were shown are mostly general issues, ones with which viewers could quite easily relate. If the series gave more time to the overall plot and to explaining each character's issues, I think the cast could have been quite loveable. Unfortunately, most characters are given more time yelling angrily than providing backstory, resulting in most of the cast being little more than cardboard walls who have petty issues.
Enjoyment: 7/10
TL;DR: I hoped for the full potential of the series, held severely low expectations, and enjoyed the little things.
I came into the series both with hope for a great time and understanding of its likely failure. Because of this, I wasn't bothered that much by the poor plot or character abuse. I look to the characters much more than a plot for enjoyment, and, with such a huge cast, it was impossible I wouldn't enjoy the series. Despite how bland most of the cast ended up, I found enjoyment in the small quips and one-liners many of the characters popped out, no matter how predictable or cliche they were. I fundamentally held on to the plot only because I was legitimately curious what was happening. While I expected the answers to be contrived, I wanted to know them nonetheless. As the art and music were around average, they didn't improve or hinder the experience. Half the time, I'm pretty sure I enjoyed making fun of bad characters while the other half I spent enjoying watching a character I hated run in fear or have a temper tantrum.
Overall: 5/10
TL;DR: While the plot was horribly executed and the characters poorly managed, Mayoiga completed its production with average art, animation, and sound quality.
While I don't think I could easily recommend Mayoiga to a friend, I do not think the series as a whole is terrible. The only real complaints I can make with this series are its contrived plot and poor usage of characters. For some people, that may be the death of the a series. I personally can respect that the series finished without production issues: the art, animation, and sound quality remained consistent, episodes were released on time, and they gave an actual resolution to the series. Yes, I don't like how the series ended, but it did, and that's more than can be said about most one cour series that have come out in the last 10 years. If you can sit down with friends, have a few too many drinks, and enjoy a fun time watching crazies be crazy, give Mayoiga a watch.
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Jun 19, 2016
Summary in short: Mayoiga is a prime example of a series that COULD'VE been interesting, COULD'VE been engaging, and COULD'VE gotten a much better reception. This series became, however, a prime example of a series worthy of four cours of episodes shoved into one. As a result, the story felt contrived, the mystery elements existed purely in ultimately pointless shock attempts and being unable to connect with characters, the viewer could care less about more than half of the cast, and the entire package just felt flat.
Story: 2/10 TL;DR: With too few episodes, you can't relate to the cast members, the end of the ... |
