First review! yays
I decided to write this review as of episode 6, the point at which I lost all interest I had in this anime. This thing is one of the most frustrating things I've ever watched, and it's closely battling with "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" for the first place in the category of worst anime I've somehow managed to finish. And I will elaborate my opinions as it follows, one part at a time.
Story: 2/10
I am going to do something that the creators of KnK were unable to accomplish in what concerns the storyline, which is explaining things. I don't even know where to begin with this.
The plot? Where the fuck is it? Plot holes are one thing, but this is ridiculous. I was too angry trying to understand why what is happening is happening instead of enjoying the kind of overused but fairly potent overall concept of this anime. It had so many "BECAUSE ANIME" moments, I had to take up a notebook at episode 6 and start writing them down.
This anime was so uninteresting it became the handsfree activity I would do while eating, rather than the show you would grab food to watch.
That one filler episode with the fruit monster who squirted smelly juice kept me alert, nonetheless. What. The. Fuck. This episode was a big fuck-up by content, but the ending was striving for cheap old american sitcom endings where the characters get dragged back into the humorous but troublesome situation due to their collective stupidity which only adds to the comedic effect. Ha. Ha. No.
And who needs a filler for a 12 episode anime? Comedy was trying to be shoved in by force anyway and the behaviour of the characters was just questionable.
Here's a selection of these "thought-inducing" BECAUSE ANIME scenes:
-at some point, the water in the sewers two characters were fighting in caught fire BECAUSE ANIME
-main girl finds STACKS of albums with photos of her in the main dude's apartment but also finds a hint for her upcoming birthday present that would clearly only feed the guy's maniacal glasses fetish but still, she is stricken by romance, completely disregarding the creepiness BECAUSE ANIME
-main dude aggressively rides the scooter through the snow, on a background of unfitting battle music
At episode 11, I could have stopped watching it and everything would have been fine, because the focus was so heavy on the romance between the two, the plot and the existence of the other characters were actually ditched completely. It really did feel like the anime ended right there. Which would have made the series better, in my opinion.
Art: 7/10
The design does look pretty but nothing unusual, really. Too pretty and "slice of life" for what it's trying to be, in my opinion.
The animation is mediocre, except for that one episode where they randomly included motion-capture for the dance of the characters. Not very aesthetic.
Sound: 5/10
Mediocre. Mediocre. Mediocre. Sometimes even unfitting (refer to the list of questionable scenes in the Story section).
Characters: 2/10
They were flat, inconsistent and their behaviour made no sense at all in certain situations.
We have the moe, shy protagonist, Mirai Kuriyama who has a blog and becomes omgbadass when challenged even though she has proven to be completely useless in previous stress situations. Yet Mirai's concept is overall interesting, as "teh gurl wif sord frum blud", but her personality could have been shaped better than that of a cute rodent with bipolar predator unexplained outbursts.
There are two perverts in this anime, BECAUSE ANIME. One of them, Akihito Kanbara, has an eyeglasses fetish and a mom who sends him hologram cards, changes the colours of her eyes with every skimpy outfit she wears without a reason, and has some sort of fulltime job as a furry prostitute. Besides that and their mother-son relationship where they chose to make even moments like him beating her and her yelling about abuse humorous, there is really nothing else to this character. Oh yes, and he is half-human half-shade BECAUSE ANIME.
If that guy was disturbing enough, the other pervert, Hiroomi Nase, gut-clenchingly, has a little sister fetish. And he also has a fetish for his little sister. Incest is so humorous! But as if that was not enough, he must be part of this family of cool cats, where his older sister, Izumi, is overpowered for no reason -pretty much like Mikasa from Snk-, and his little sister, Mitsuki, is stereo-typically a tsundere for her older perverted brother. Yet, they all act superior, their arrogance being directly proportional with their age.
Then there are filler characters, like the cat-girl and the traditionally-dressed lady who both had shapeshifting abilities BECAUSE ANIME, the creepy guy who just appears and is creepy (and sometimes explains things without a reason to no audience whatsoever), the teacher who likes to drink and has relationship problems, and Sakura. The traditionally-dressed lady also had some vast knowledge of what was going on and could turn into the mammal version of a nine-tailed leupluredon, again, because you know why.
Sakura was probably the most annoying character in this anime. She was playing the role of the mandatory quiet character who never has emotions, except she also spontaneously tackles people feet-first like a fucking retard. She had about three moments in the anime where she acted kind, warm and friendly and none of them were explained so I am only guessing she is supposed to have some unexplained mental illness. Justifiable by the fact that all the people she cares about being either taken away from her or dying while everyone else disregards her almost completely.
Enjoyment: 1/10
Mostly frustration. I tried to make it seem interesting since it is so short, but I could not.
Overall: 3/10
This anime is a couple of shards of good ideas in a container of 12 episodes that is then stuffed with cotton filling just for it to be there. Essentially, this anime remained in the concept stage and published that way, without any work put into developing the story or the characters whatsoever. It tries to be a dozen different genres at the same time, while virtually doing nothing useful with the amount of time it has.
The frustration factor is the high potential this series has despite minor unoriginal aspects, and how much half-assery got mixed in to create something superficially aesthetic but of no substance.
