Jul 2, 2016
This anime gave me high hopes and then butchered those hopes while laughing maniacally. Many people complain that this is a Shingeki no Kyojin clone. I do not dispute that. However, in my view, this factor is not necessarily negative. When I entered this anime, I hoped for great art, and even greater action. At first, there was promise. But as I watched more and more, their initial potential disappeared faster than France during World War II.
Koutetsujou no Kabaneri decided that within 12 episodes, they will be able to fully develop characters, and plot at the same time. The result is a steaming dump
...
of utter garbage on both ends.
Characters are barely given any reasoning for their motive. For those that are given reasoning for their actions, the backstory is flimsy at best, and completely stupid at worst. Not only do the backstories not generate sympathy, they somehow managed to make me despise all of the characters. Somehow, they also managed to screw up unimportant characters. Characters with no backstories, ones who don't even matter, ones who we shouldn't even necessarily care too much about. This anime managed to make these characters act so irrationally, Scientologists would be shocked. As a result, my disgust is equally distributed among both the main characters and the filler characters.
On the other hand, Koutetsujou no Kabaneri also managed to make their plot an utter clusterfuck. Not only does the plot move forward due to some of the crappiest motives possible, the plot itself is fraught with plot holes. Kabaneri manages to ignore its very rules, and discard their previous statements in order to continue their story. Not much can be said about the plot, but just understand that an eight year old can probably come up with a more elaborate, or exciting plot than the one which was written.
Art and music are probably the only saving graces of the anime. However, it should be noted that the anime has a habit of taking still frames and shaking it in order to imply excitement or something. I don't know.
Ok, now there will be spoilers ahead. Its kind of a personal rant, but also a review on why everything is as stupid as it is, with specific examples.
Lets begin with episode one. In episode one we are introduced to Ikoma, the MC. He also happens to have a permanent scowl, be angry at everyone and everything, and also seems to believe that other people are assholes. He is not wrong on that at least. The people in this world are assholes, but more on that later. So Ikoma is hell bent on creating this badass new weapon which will allow him to destroy these uber zombies, that have super strong heart cages. These cages, it seems, can not be destroyed with normal means, which is why he needs extremely high penetration power. Remember this statement, its important later. Anyhow, his good friend, Takumi gives him an idea on fixing up his gun by adding more gunpowder. More gunpowder=bigger explosion. Who could have fucking guessed. So on this day, a train suddenly appears, after some delay. People are concerned, but for some reason, decide to open the gates. Ok. Lets talk about this. They are in a post apocalyptic world. Super zombies roam everywhere. Does it not occur to them to confirm the train is working and not zombie filled before letting it in? How were the train tracks built anyway? But lets just say they were hungover or something, and just opened the gates. The zombies come in, fuck things up. Ikoma remembers he has his super gun, and goes to get it. He shoots a zombie and it works. Yay. But he's bitten. Oh no. But then he remembers its a fucking virus which infects him, and he decides that he needs to prevent it from reaching his brain, so he starts choking himself. He does not realize that choking himself slows down the blood but does not stop it, but because of plot armor, the virus realizes its dealing with a badass, and shouldn't touch this dude, so it stops, turning him into a fake zombie. Once again. This dude just figured out how to stop the virus. It might be vital information and all, but maybe it just slipped from his mind during the attack. Ya know. One of the ways to save humanity. Moving on. We are also introduced to Mumei, a badass fighting half-loli. Kabane are meant to be scary ass motherfuckers that humanity doesnt know how to deal with, which is why they are stuck behind walls. Yet Mumei manages to mow down a ton using bladed shoes(apparently cutting off their head works now, whereas we were told that it needed to be heart cage), and shooting their heart cages with regular pistols. Seriously, what the fuck. Remember being told that regular guns don't work? Lol they work now, jk about that. Ikoma is a loser after all. She also manages to shove sharp stuff into their heart cages. To do so should be near impossible if most guns require multiple shots, but hey, plot armor amiright? I do have to say, Mumei remurdering zombies was interesting. If they just had her do that all anime, it would have been watchable without extreme pain coursing through me. Anyway, they get on a train to run away, but people become scared of Ikoma and Mumei, because they are kabaneri. They decide to go full retard, because having effective zombie killing machines as body guards isnt nice, and its better to just kill them off. Confining them makes sense perhaps, to ensure they're not bloodthirsty(which they are, but in a literal sense), but straight out getting rid of your only weapons? A pretty bad idea. Within the next few episodes, they decide to expand upon character. Mumei it turns out, had her parents killed when she was young, and then got turned into a person who believes the strong survive and the weak should die. She then goes through a mental breakdown, which nobody cares about, because all it does is take away from the action. Moreso, the flashback is so dry, and shown in such a disjointed way, that really, nobody cares by the time its finished. So soon, we meet our main antagonist, a dude named Justin Biba. He has pink hair, and he seems nice. However, he actually has a nefarious plan. His dad at one point left him to die after sending him to attack the kabane. Because of this one incident, Justin decides that he needs to destroy all of humanity, and all the innocent. His logic is so coherent he is able to convince creationists that evolution is true. So using this super logic. he manages to get a bunch of followers. His followers literally have no motive. Nothing went wrong to them(Biba's original band of men were all annihilated), they just decided that Justin Biba's pink hairstyle is too kool to not follow. So it should also be noted that kabane are able to become big black monsters. No specific explanation, we're just told that if you inject them with magic water, they somehow deny physics, and suck other kabane towards them. On the other hand, kabaneri are also able to use kamehamehas and emit energy from their body. No explanation here either, except plot told you so. If the anime bothered to allocate a tiny bit of their resources to explaining the abilities, perhaps it would not be an utter failure. We also find out that Justin Biba had the cure to being kabane. Just let it be ya know, the cure and nobody but Biba's people are able to find it. Oh. And Justin, after trying to kill Ikoma, decides that it is in his best interest to cure him. Lol no reason why. Jesus.
Yea, I am so done with this anime. Many might ask why I watched all 12 episodes. It was out of morbid curiosity. I regret every single second now. I had more fun writing this review than watching the anime. And this review is damn boring. So cheers.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
