Plot/Story (3/10):
The interesting premise as a ghost story/mystery was eye-catching, but this premise was quickly discarded and turned into a confusing, boring monster story formed from psychological scars.
You could tell throughout watching this anime that the team behind Mayoiga couldn't make up their minds about what they wanted it to be. If they had stuck to the idea about Nanaki Village being a mysterious ghost town, then perhaps this anime would have been slightly better, although there were many things wrong with it other than the plot.
Anyway, I stuck with Mayoiga until the end with a few shreds of hope left. I really hoped that the ending would save it. Did it?
No. And what's worse, the ending stole elements from Angel Beats!, but it did it badly. I think it was supposed to be emotional, but I ended up laughing at it.
Characters (2/10):
It's never good if the viewer would rather see all the characters dead rather than alive. This is true in my case, as I quickly came to dislike the majority of the characters. Their archetypal personalities were unfitting in some situations, for example, Lovepon's obsession with execution and torture was unnecessary in their situation, and even though this obsession was present from Episode 1 - 11, it seemingly disappeared in Episode 12 despite her psychological scar not being cured or accepted.
Mitsumune was a pathetic excuse of a main character from the start, taking on a personality trait of that likening to Makoto Itou from School Days, the very first memorable thing he does in this anime is decide which girls he's attracted to and openly talk about it. This gets the attention of a tsundere I can't even remember the name of and Masaki. In the first few episodes there's an unstable love triangle between Mitsumune, the tsundere and Masaki, but it's quickly dropped when other situations arise.
The only characters I liked in this anime were Nanko, Lion and Valkana. That's it. So, your anime has only three likable characters, you have a problem.
Art (5/10):
The art is mediocre at best, but 5/10 is the highest number anything in this anime is gonna get. The animation is nothing to admire, and the CG monsters are absolutely grotesque. No, not in their appearance, but just their designs and quality. I wouldn't expect very highly of CG in anime, but my god the monsters were probably the worst CG creations I've ever seen.
The character designs are nice, I'll admit that. They were all pretty creative, especially Nyanta and Lion with their cat-like appearances.
Sound/Music (4/10):
Meh. The soundtrack was definitely extremely repetitive, with the same guitar track playing over and over again in any mysterious moments or in moments where the characters come to some sort of realisation. Is this one guitar track any good? No. No it's not. I could tell from the start that the budget in the music department of this anime was low. When I discovered that Masaru Yokoyama was in charge of the music, I got very excited because he has a history of producing beautiful anime soundtracks, such as Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso. However, he definitely fell flat here, because the music was definitely lacking.
Enjoyment (3/10):
I was bored and it's a damn shame too. I had pretty good expectations at the start that sunk after Episode 3, and by the time Episode 5 came around, I was continuously asking myself "Why did I even bother?"
I constantly debated with myself whether or not I should drop Mayoiga during it's run, but I stuck around to see if it would become more enjoyable. The episodes featuring the characters' backstories were one of the best, and by the end of them I was hoping Mayoiga was getting better, but after the backstories came the appearance of the CG monsters, and from there Mayoiga sunk into another pit of disappointment.
Overall (3/10):
Mayoiga is a show that will disappoint just about anyone watching it. If you're thinking about starting it, tread carefully and go in with the lowest expectations possible. It's a bad show, to put simply.
I'm just glad that most of the other Spring 2016 anime are good, or else it would be a very disappointing season indeed. Mayoiga can be thrown on the pile of boring and bland anime and can be quickly forgotten about the anime community in the coming months.
