THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
Sometimes, Anime Companies takes the risk to try something different. It may fail or it may succeed, but sometimes, they skyrocket to amazing fame and glory, they even set the tropes for many work to come. The Impression the manga fans gave me about Akame ga Kill before it started that it is a unique and excellent shounen Manga and the Anime adaptation is very likely to be the new trope setter for future shounen works. Now that I have watched all it's episodes, here are my opinion on 2 things:
1 - Do I find it unique? hmmmmmm, yeah, sort of.
2 -
...
Do I find it excellent? Absolutely NOOO. (I talking about the Anime, since this is the Anime's review and I didn't read the Manga).
Here is why I think so:
Story: 3/10
Characters: 2/10
Well the story can be simply summarized as follows: "Evil Government doing evil things to poor citizens so The heroes stay in the shadows and take every chance to kill the villains. After many sacrifices, good defeats evil".
To be specific the story focused only on 2 things:
1 - "Evil Government doing Evil things".
2 - "Many Sacrifices".
First, (about point 1) it was easy to notice since the first episode that the villains in this Anime seems to be ... Stupid. They do evil because they enjoy doing evil or they do evil because they are too retared to understand the difference between evil and good. only 3 exceptions were found but they aren't given enough screen time in order to be explored, anyway they were still as stereotypical as ever. What is worse is that the plot keep showing off how evil the villains are by making them meaninglessly do thing to show how evil they are. e.g. there was a scene where Esdeath was uselessly talking about how a flower can be used in torture.
Second, (about point 2) the Anime tries to force a dark tone by killing off some characters frequently. this caused a severe problem; most characters were not given enough time to show any development, thus their death had no meaning too. It was like the death of some stranger in a car accident; you may feel sorry for him but you quickly forget about him because you know little about him.
Those characters who had enough time to develop, either didn't get enough screen time or were just too simple and stereotypical that there was nothing to explore about their personalities. All Akame ga kill characters lack character development that they can only be used as unimportant side characters for a better story.
Akame ga kill has misused the following cliches:
1 - Death flags: the past of a character is usually revealed shortly before it's death. this was not emotionally effective because of the horrible lack in character development.
2 - Legendary Exclusive Weapons/Abilities: the Imperial Arms had a negative effect on the story. It's unexplained and suddenly revealed trump cards made the battles hard to take seriously as the tension can't be built if we know that the battle can be turned by some magical ability that is made up on the spot. And due to the huge number of Imperial Arms, they felt more of plot devices to for the author to use in twisting the plot without worrying about how logical the twist is. Everything can happen MAGICALLY.
Akame ga kill tried to avoid the following cliches:
1 - Talk no Jutsu: the villains in Akame ga kill don't change sides just because they heared the sound of our protagonist's pure heart. Unfortunately, the author broke this cliche by making the character so stupid that they can't change. Due to the lack of development, the villains are evil just for the sake of evil or stupidity, so they can never change as the only aspect they have is being EVIL.
2 - Plot Armor: ..... Ahhhhh, I understand that the mass killing of characters was meant for making a lot of tension, but did it really kill the plot armor? I mean, how can I feel enough tension when the battles felt so stupid, Trump Card This, Trump Card That, they even had girl with guns poping out of her throat. Sometimes characters felt like they were dropping some chances to give their opponents some time to counter just for plot convenience. If the author want to keep a character alive all he need to do is to add more bizzareness to the situation so that he can slip the character out safely.
What about the protagonists? They were as stereotypical as ever. The main character that believes in justice and wants to protect their Nakama, the super-skilled silent one with dark past, the tsundere, the pervert, etc.
Another problem is the revealed past of the characters, they vary from the ones that are so unoriginal that I can't bear to watch them any more like Akame's and Esdeath's, and the ones that seem interesting but are unfortunately left very vague that I can't effectively reflect them on the character's present like Chelsea's and Najenda's. And of course, there is the main protagonist's past that was just "404: Background not found"... No problem anyway, may be there was nothing interesting in it.
My main problem with Akame ga Kill is the wasted potential. I loved the setting so much which why sticked to it hopping for something enjoyable (I want my wasted time back T_T). Some characters has shown very good potential but it was blown in the wind like useless dust. (e.g. Esdeath contradiction in believing that it's ok for the weak to be killed and her love for Tatsumi who is obviously weaker than her, and Bols who had loving and caring side, and was self-conscious about his evil deeds, yet continued going down this path)
In conclusion, Akame ga kill showed good potential but was brutally murdered by it's weakly written plot, misuse of cliches and weakly developed characters.
Art 5/10
the visual side of Akame ga kill was average. while some scene were well-drawn, most action scenes were horrible. e.g. most of Akame's scene were like as if she teleported and everyone in the path between her initial and final position have been slashed. I must compliment the two final episode as the animation were much better than the whole series. the character designs were plain, generic and sometimes out of place, especially Akame who was wearing something like a school uniform in a medieval setting.
Sound 6/10
I liked the openings and endings, and some of the background music were good but nothing really special.
I can't really comment on the voice acting because I'm not a Japanese speaker, but I think that they were able to give the intended emotion through their voice tone.
Enjoyment 2/10
I think this is one of those Anime shows that can be enjoyed better when you don't think much about them. I tried to use this technique to enjoy it but I couldn't, the sudden tone shift were ruining it, the action scenes were horrible, the whole series was just boring.
Overall 4/10
Overall, I can't recommend it to anybody, even Bleach is more enjoyable than this IMO.
Jan 29, 2015
Akame ga Kill!
(Anime)
add
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
Sometimes, Anime Companies takes the risk to try something different. It may fail or it may succeed, but sometimes, they skyrocket to amazing fame and glory, they even set the tropes for many work to come. The Impression the manga fans gave me about Akame ga Kill before it started that it is a unique and excellent shounen Manga and the Anime adaptation is very likely to be the new trope setter for future shounen works. Now that I have watched all it's episodes, here are my opinion on 2 things: 1 - Do I find it unique? hmmmmmm, yeah, sort of. 2 - ... |
