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Firstly a disclaimer...THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

Now Inuyashiki is a show I had fairly high hopes for. Having a very cool plot point, and interesting start, I was prepared to sit through the 11 episodes to see how the anime could expand on this fairly unique idea. Sadly, 11 episodes later, I felt like it was all a waste of time.

Plot: The story had potential. The idea of two humans being turned into robots, and having completely opposite motivations gave me the idea of death note with more of a focus on robotic powers than shinigamis. One decided to be a psychotic murderer, while the other ... wanted to help save humanity, such a great idea! Unfortunately, their conflict seems to be almost sidelined for most of the show. There is no elegant game of tag, no detective-type work, no real awesome combat scenes. Instead, we have something that feels like a shock/horror flick at times, and then completely flipping to a slice-of-life in others.

The world felt completely weird, and unbelievable. There were countless moments where I felt like these people were all just scripted, because their actions or reactions were just not realistic whatsoever. I say the word realistic lightly, because this is an anime involving alien robotic powers, killing people through electronics and other crazy stuff. But, even with my suspension of belief, the people of this anime's Japan feel utterly stupid at times. There were many moments that felt like they wanted to showcase similarities between this world and the real world, and perhaps create a message from it, but it never really turned into anything meaningful.

Perhaps one of my biggest gripes is with the inconsistencies and lack of explanations. Firstly, we have this old man who is actually only in his 50s and seems to be called a grandpa despite his kids only being of high school age. There's no logical reason behind his rapid aging beyond 'plot'. Next, we have two persons that happen to be in the same area in the park one night. There's no explanation as to why. Apparently the aliens crash-land but leave no trace of an impact. The young guy somehow figures out every single one of his powers in no time, while the old man can't seem to do anything without passing out first. The police seem to have the hardest time tracking down Hiro despite him not really moving around much, and not making any special effort to stay hidden.

Ending spoiler: Despite both of these robots having advanced simulation abilities, Hiro fails to realize that his self-destruct won't be enough to destroy the asteroid, forcing Inuyashiki to cleanup the remaining portion of the asteroid.

There are plenty of other issues with the show's consistency but those are the more egregious ones that I remember.

There are little to no explanations as to how these robotic powers work, especially with Hiro's ability to fire some invisible projectiles (allegedly) at people through an electronic screen. We're shown these scenes in a fairly normal world, and expected to just accept it ... because it works™.

I also got tired of seeing people crying about every single thing. On one hand, you have people that seem to be complete sociopaths, laughing and tweeting about the most upsetting things; and later you have scenes of endless crying which I found really hard to get emotionally invested into.

Art: To be honest, the 2D portions of the show were the only ones I could really appreciate. The CGI wasn't awful but it certainly didn't add to the show, and just felt like they made the show feel even cheaper.

Sound: The voice actors did a good job overall, very few complaints here. The soundtrack was fairly non-existent, but I actually really enjoyed the opening and ending songs. I would genuinely listen to them on repeat.

Overall Inuyashiki is a show that I wanted to be better than it turned out. The plot had a lot of promise, but it never delivered. Halfway into the show I began to lose interest in the characters, and started to question the myriad of plot holes and inconsistencies that had begun to spring up. By the ending, I wished I didn't bother to watch.

4/10