Story - 8/10
Kekkai Sensen is set in an alternative reality of New York. There was a huge explosion between Earth and the Netherworld with New York caught in the middle. This explosion brought beings from the netherworld to Earth. Now normally with these type of storylines, they tend to follow the path as a alien invasion, however that is not the case in this. Instead of that the visitors and earthlings live with each other in harmony, for most cases. Because like Earth, the Netherworld has it’s criminals as well. The story follows mostly Leonardo Watch, who is a member of a crime fighting organization known as Libra, are group of people trying to bring balance to the two worlds, by fighting against whatever crime that involves both worlds.
With such a unique and interesting concept, there is one thing that the writers must do. And that is the world building. For such a unique world, I guess they explained as best as they can. Because they explain how most the powers, the characters have and their backstories are explained fairly well. However the world building in general, explaining the lores and how things work, could’ve been done better, as there a times where you will have no idea what is going on. And this comes in with the pacing, the pacing jumps around, sometimes it’s quite fast and feels rushed, and sometimes it just really slows down and when that happens it’s hard to keep track of what’s going, because the constant changes in pace. One minute they’re discussing something, the next they are all suddenly in a rush to save the world. However despite these problems, the story is very nice and touching, with some thrills here and there, and it has a pretty good ending. It’s just that it’s confusing and hard to follow.
Characters - 8/10
There is a lot of characters in Kekkai Sensen, and like a lot of shows with a lot of characters, a lot of them don’t get development and are kind of there for a unique character to be introduce each episode. The main protagonist is Leonardo Watch who has the power of the ‘All Seeing Eyes of God’ Which is just as it sounds, it’s the ability to let him see anything, but at the cost of his sister’s eyes. And this brings me to another plot point, Leonardo’s sister is his motivation to gain more courage and find out more about his power and use them for his sister’s sake. Now there is quite a bit of character development from him, as he starts out not trusting the people around, but learns they need him and he needs them to move forward. And you can see the courage he gains by the end of show. However one thing that does bug is, he talks about his sister so much, yet we know nothing about her, and what happened to her afterwards. She sacrificed her sight, and is receiving letters from Leonardo, but we don’t know how much of a role she plays besides an outside motivation for Leonardo.
Like I said previously there is a lot of characters in Kekkai Sensen, too much to go through them all. But there are some they need some attention, especially from Libra Klaus von Reinherz. At first, Klaus just fills the void for badass cool personality, but as we learn more about him. We see why he fights and where does his morals lie. We see him protecting those in his organization and trying to understand the enemy which I love about his character. There are two other characters they play an important role in the story and they are the twins White and Black. Now these characters are a key mystery to the overall plot, so I’m not going to spoil anything, but their story just hits you in the feels and they have such good interactions with the main characters.
Animation and Sound - 9/10, 10/10
The art style its feels very mature and gritty. There is not a lot of colours, and it really highlights the urban city of this alternative New York, which really works for this type of setting. It makes you feel right there, at the moment, and pair that up with the soundtrack which I will get into later. The designs of each character feels really refreshing and unique and I like how they were able to blend it the netherworld inhabitants with the humans and not making it completely stand out with one another, as they all share this world. The action scenes and the way they use their blood powers is really nice to look at, although it can be a bit simple at times, as in they’ll use their blood powers but then a big text words come up, and it’s suddenly explosions, not really that impressive sometimes. The action scenes are good, but not all them have the same quality of high animation. And this comes in with a problem with some of the pacing changes when scenes changes, it’s hard to follow at times, and some scenes look simpler than the others.
I can’t finish this review without talking about the soundtrack. Because as I said in my top 25 anime of 2015, it hands down has the best soundtrack of the year. The combination of jazz and blues music really add to Broadway atmosphere of this alternative reality of New York. It’s amazing, the vocals and the instrumentals are just beautiful to listen to, and it adds so much to the scene and you can listen to it on its own, without needing the world that it was made for. Also the soundtrack isn’t the only thing great about the sound in general. The opening song is wonderful to listen to and the animation is nice, I kind of regret not putting it higher on my top openings of the year list. But maybe because the ending song was just on a league of its own. I was always looking forward to when the get to the ending song, because it’s an upbeat catchy tune of a song with awesome animation which made it feel like a Broadway spectacle, with the cast of characters dancing to the beat, and it was probably my favourite song of the year. Hands best soundtrack of the year.
Enjoyment - 8/10
The concept and world of Kekkai Sensen, had me really interested in this anime. I really enjoyed the characters and the way they interact in this alternative reality, but my enjoyment can only go so far as when I’m trying understand on what they’re trying to pull off. Because some things aren’t explained all that clearly and the way story jumps around, it’s confusing. Oh yeah, I haven’t mention the comedy in this show, I think it’s pretty good well timed comedy, has good timing and doesn’t really distract away from some of the scenes too much, that being said it’s not laugh out loud funny, but still pretty good for a quick giggle. And you will be surprised by the amount of comedy in the anime. But I just love listening to the music, and the ending song just got him hyped up for more episodes just to watch the ending song.
Verdict - 8.5/10
As we draw closer to the end of the review, I give the story an 8. Because despite its pacing problems and some confusion in the story once in a while. The whole entire premise and concept kept me interested for the whole time it was running. And the overall story was touching and an epic thrill ride.
For the animation and sound, I give it a 8 and 10. The animation and art style is fine. They did a really good job recreating the alternative New York. The action scenes were great only they kept a good quality for all of them rather than having some of them be pretty simple. The soundtrack like, is by far the best soundtrack of the year. The Jazz and Blues really add to the Broadway atmosphere of the whole show and its wonderfully composed. The opening and ending songs are great, especially the ending, which is my favourite song of the year.
For the characters I give them an 8. I love the characters Leonardo, Klaus, and the twins. And I love their character development. Zapp was an entertaining character as well. Because of the huge cast, I wished we had more time the learn about them, and wish there was more development. And it was disappointing, we didn’t learn too much about Leonardo’s sister.
For my own personal enjoyment I give it an 8. With some confusing and hard to follow story points in the anime, it was hard trying to enjoy those moments, when you don’t understand what is going on. But for the most part the show is really enjoyable, just with the concept alone. The comedy is surprisingly clever and it’s funny how they use it quite often, I did not expect a show called Blood Blockade Battlefront to be quite funny. But the music was just perfect and I loved listening to it, which made the show.
So for the overall of score of Kekkai Sensen after rounding it up, I give it a 8.5/10. It in anime with a very interesting concept and world backed up its wonderful soundtrack, that really just shows how much music can do for an anime. I recommend Kekkai Sensen to those who love to watch Supernatural, Action and those who love to watch Crime Thrillers.
