Jun 20, 2016
Mayoiga is a somewhat schizophrenic anime. Sometimes it try's to be a Psychodrama. Other times it tries to be a Perma-Death Mystery/Horror. Both times it fails, Sometimes literally. I feel if it had stuck to one concept, it could have been amazing either way. As other reviewers have said, this anime is the epitome of wasted potential.
A big issue with this anime was its huge caste of characters and how their characterization was handled.
The show follows just two of the thirty characters closely, half-way develops 13 more, and leaves the rest as a bunch of mooks that no one cares about. This would be
...
fine if the show stuck to it's initial Mystery/Horror Presentation. The partially developed characters could be used to create and maintain tension. But they aren't used. They get introduced and then are just kinda... there. This is particularly annoying when random characters become interesting or sympathetic, only to then be ignored for the rest of the show.
Half way through the show takes a 180 and tosses out any mystery elements it had, and goes full psychodrama. By then though, we don't have enough well defined characters to make a psychodrama work. The Half-Defined characters who are still just glorified paper cut-outs take center stage and it stops making sense and falls apart. It's disappointing here because the show touches on some of the most terrifying features of human psychology, but is never able to explore them. Had the show spent more time with the 4-6 arguably most important characters and left the rest as background fluff, this psychological approach could have worked gloriously even without the mystery bits left in-tact.
To touch on art and sound, as far as art was concerned it was good, but didn't particularly impress me or add a whole lot. I think I would give it a somewhat better score if the story it was supposed to be complementing was more focused on mystery and horror, but it lacks the meaningful symbolism needed to really bring the psychological aspects of the story to life, despite ample and obvious opportunity.
I was disappointed in the sound department. Granted, The Voice actors were clear and believable, and soundtrack wasn't terrible, maybe even a little catchy at times...
It was the sound of the monster...
Just... Such an important part of the story... and the sounds that it made were just aweful. They Were Generic. Uninspired, and at times didn't fit. It just smacked me in te face every time I heard it.
Strangely, despite the issues with the story, characters, and sound, I still enjoyed watching this. There's some decent humor, gloriously bad puns, and genuinely tense moments. Sure, said moments don't generally resolve in a satisfying way, but at times the way the devolve can be outright absurd can be considered comically bad, if you're into that kind of thing.
All in all, I don't regret watching this. It's a mess of an anime, but I enjoyed the ride at least.
I don't know if I'm completely comfortable recommending it, but if you literally have nothing better to do, and have appreciation for bad, cheesy entertainment, go for it. You just might enjoy yourself.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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