Jun 30, 2014
Mekaku City Actors. An adaptation of a very entertaining and popular franchise, Kagerou Project. Though the franchise, manga, and music videos are itself very entertaining, the anime is a huge letdown. From lack of character development, some plot holes here and there, and the lack of explaining the story until the very end are all of the major flaws of Mekaku City Actors. Despite the large amounts of flaws I've pointed out, there are a lot of good things included in the anime (Note:This is my first review)
Story - 7
As previously mentioned, SHAFT's execution of story in Mekaku City Actors was decent. SHAFT's way
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of executing the story mainly consisted of going to each character's point of view for 1/3 of the episodes, mostly showing their personality and back story. Then for at least 3 episodes, SHAFT takes time into making episodes that explain some more back story, and then go more in depth into explaining central ideas of Mekaku City Actors, which contribute to the plot's progression. However, SHAFT does it in a way that, well, you know it's SHAFT, but in an extremely rushed way. Probably due to the small budget. Anyway, for the last episodes, it resumes regular Point A to Point B plot progression, while revealing some really important events that happened to the character's past. The story itself of Mekaku City Actors is actually really good, with a lot of feels and plot twists everywhere. It's just SHAFT's poor story telling that makes it hard to find those feels and twists.
Art - 7
Mekaku City Actors's art style is very simple, yet very elaborate and artistic, along with excellently animated backgrounds. However, the only reason I rated the art 7 instead of 9 or 10 was the various parts in some of the episodes were animated very improperly, rushed, or were filled with cringe inducing scenes. Especially the beginning of episode 9. We don't talk about episode 9.
Sound - 10
An anime with an OST produced and composed by the very person who wrote the songs and manga. What's not to love?
Character - 4
While I'm not going to go fully in depth about the characters, most of them ended up not changing much even after the end. Only the characters that had a lot of influence over the story (i.e the characters that helped everyone live in the end, instead of dying a very painful death. Not that any important characters die.). But what kept my rating of the characters 4 instead of a 1 was the past events that happened in their lives. As they were revealed when I was watching the episodes, a little piece of my heart died each time.
Enjoyment - 9
Even though Mekaku City Actors is heavily flawed in a lot of places, I usually tend to overlook a lot of flaws in anime, and look at what's really important: The inner values. The music accompanied the feelsy and action parts of the story very well, the feelsy parts themselves made me attached to the characters, and the ending made me feel satisfied, albeit it being rushed.
Overall - 7
Mekaku City Actors is an anime made by SHAFT; A studio that told the story by mostly explaining central ideas of the story. This way of story telling makes viewers to try and connect the dots, and try to form the story in the viewer's minds. And dat OST tho.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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