But 5 episodes in, my this expectations was crushed. What could be a classic anime became a trainwreck And by the time I was ended, I realized that this was one of the most wasted potentials in any media that I saw.
Art/Animation: 10
The art is astounding. Zankyou tries to be different from your typical anime. The art is not "cute" and "bright" but gives the sense of "seriousness" and being "gloomy". Mappa's animation in this show is film quality. Even the CGI looks so good.
Sound and Direction: 10
Yoko Kanno and Watanabe is in charge of this. And you know its good. The music is memorable and the application of these music on these scenes (First episode, flashback scenes, the bike and ferris wheel scenes) were amazing.
The technical aspects are god tier right? Nothing could go wrong right? However, the
Characters: 6
Story: 4
This sections are related in reviewing Zankyou. Why? The story did not permit for character development. Yes the scenes, soundtrack, animation is great. But what you get is only eye candy and eargasms. Yes, the themes of Militarization, Illegal Government- Sanctioned Experiments, Misplaced Nationalism and the Coming of Age of troubled (Very troubled) teenagers as was touched. But I felt I was watching a soul less series, without any characters I could cheer on or story to become interested to.
Nine and Twelve: They seemed so interesting during the early episodes, building a sense of mystery around them as they build up the "Sphinx", their public persona as a terrorist duo. However, as the story continues, we nothing about their motivations and we couldn't even sympathize with their morally ambiguous actions.
Liza: MOE BAIT? She really does nothing to the story, except FUCK THINGS UP. Does she humanize Nine and Five? No. As they reveal nothing to her about their origins nor motivations. Twelve just relates to her as she is a social outcast while Nine sees her as a baggage holding Twelve back.
Five: Is Five even a character? She's seems just a plot device to make someone equal to the protags. Her actions seems poorly justified and unrealistic, breaking the realistic vibes the series attempted hardly during the earlier episodes.
The only character that I could relate with is SHIBAZAKI. Shibazaki is your detective who was demoted for being too brilliant. This gives him motivation during the whole story to try to uncover the root cause and the motivations of the protags. He wants to prove to himself and others that the things he did before the story was right.
Enjoyment: 10
Although the story and characterization were shit, I really enjoyed the series. Zankyou was a breathe of fresh air- it was different and promising. I was excited for every Thursday in anticipation for each episode. Without any original manga or light novel, discussing it with friends or in the internet speculating the next episodes or the characters motivation was enjoyable for me. I really really want to import the OST and Volume 1, as I really enjoyed out the hell of it and was the most played songs in my playlist and the early episodes as god tier episodes
When I watched Rail Wars this seasons, I knew its a low budget anime and set my expectations low. Glasslip was my disappointment of this season as it made really no sense coming from a respectable animation studio.
But Zankyou is different. Its frustrating to watch how an anime that could easily be a timeless classic with its animation, soundtrack, direction and art , rate 10/10 and became the Cowboy Bebop our generation coming from the same people (Watanabe and Kanno) became a wasted potential. They could have made it at least 20 episodes for more room of character development or a good anime film removing unnecessary subplots summarizing Eps 1-4 and 10-11 and Zankyou could have been a timeless classic.
