Reviews

i'm not very fond of "dark" and gritty stuff. this is because my mind is disorderly enough as it is. so when i watched this i was in for a tiny bit more hurt than i wanted, but it also kept me entertained.funny thing to add is that this is also how i subconsciously cope with depression and anxiety, escapism and general avoidant behaviour. does it work? not really. does it keep me from commiting suicide? unfortunately yes.
anyway then i started reading the manga and only got halfway in or so, to the "correctional facility" part. my first piece of advice for those who plan on watching this and are cool with gritty darkness or whatever, is to READ THE FUCKING MANGA instead. seriously, the anime lacks a fuckload of depth. not only because it has an insufficient amount of episodes, but also it generally feels like this show is controlled by many puppet-masters (director, original author, manuscript-editor etc) and they were probably lacking in communication with each other etc.

shion has an especially dissonant personality compared to the manga. in the manga he comes off as a bit cheeky and a little less flower-y.


as far as i know this show also has yaoi/BL undertones, but that is not its main theme. the main theme is corruption. corruption of the human mind and how it affects society as a whole.

as for a sort of general message is quite unclear to me, i've never been good at reading between the lines, or let's face it, my intellectual capacity is insufficient.

despite this i'm going to speculate so that you, the reader, can laugh your ass off.

the plotline is quite similar to george orwell's famous novel "animal farm". where the victimized become the ones that victimize others. basically boils down to that a yearning for better living standards and more safety comes at a cost. in no.6, safety is guaranteed at the cost of personal integrity. outside in the slums it's the complete opposite.
the anime invites you to speculate over the definition of freedom, but doesn't give any answers. in the final scene we get to see people from the slums and no.6 walk towards each other, we don't get to see what happens after but as i said, i think that's the point.

to sum it up, this anime has a somewhat cliché plotline but adds in other elements (yaoi fanservice) to make up for it. and i can't stress this enough, the anime is severely lacking in character depth compared to the manga. read it, now. i just noticed it's new years eve but i don't really give a fuck, maybe tonight will be the big night where i finally end it all, you're free to interpret that as you wish.