Mayoiga is the one responsible for it.
-------- Story (3/10):
What would happen if a bunch of troubled people who want to run away from their life come together just to be lost and trapped in a mysterious village?
Apparently, Mayoiga gives you two answers:
1: The Mystery and Drama
It's quite good mystery to be honest, it makes you really curious about what actually happens there. Each episodes often ended with cliffhangers, and through out the series you will find yourself wtf-ing your screen. What actually happens next are often pretty shocking. However, don't expect any foreshadowing. This is the kind of mystery where you don't find any foreshadowing but the revelations keep on surprising you.
The Drama is... Well, some are cliche, some are rather interesting.
Then, at the end of the series, it tries to convey a kind of messages to the audience through the psychological drama, although a crappy one.
Regardless, I personally like the ending, it's not the boring optimistic happy ending, neither it is a completely bad ending.
All of those mentioned aspects would make a pretty good anime, if only you can ignore the other face of Mayoiga...
2: The Laughs.
There's a good chance you will look at Mayoiga as the "it's so bad that it's good" kind of anime.
There's some reasons you would laugh from this anime:
First, because those people are a group of not so logical people, how the characters react with some incident and interact with each other are often so weird and funny that you can't hold your laughs.
Second, is development that doesn't make sense, or just plain forced that it seems so funny.
Third, is awkward things which the show tries to tell in a serious way, but turns out to be so hilarious. Or, trying too hard to be unique, but ended up being awkward.
For example (minor spoiler) : A monster that ended up remind you of 'Digimon' and 'Thomas and friends', the monster should be scary but looks hilarious instead. Example for the later is a detective who constantly and literally check extra fat in her stomach whenever she think. Like, why?
Forth - is the plus, and actually related to the first point - is that some characters gives you rather catchy lines (in a hilarious way) frequently, like a constant buzzkill, which is very quotable or really worth for meme.
Now, I'm not even sure myself anymore if the show coincidentally making it so hilarious or the creator actually trying to put some funny aspect in it.
So is this 'laughs' part makes the show worse or better? Personally, I found it adds the enjoyment. lol.
Overall Story:
Let's check the whole story from the start. The first episode gives a solid feels of mystery and horror, perhaps you will expect some gore. Knowing the background idea, this series could easily promise a crazy and chaotic anime (in a good way). Which is why people has such expectation: A mysterious chaotic bloody massacre, or at least a kind of like Danganronpa.
But unfortunately, that's a wrong expectation.
Instead, it started as mystery and tried to graduate more toward psychological drama at the end.
Considering the background idea which it started and the final idea which it tries to graduate (which both are actually great ideas), Mayoiga is a perfect example of an anime with great idea but very poor execution - ended up somewhat hilarious.
-------- Characters (4/10):
- 20 characters. I'm not even sure if I can remember everyone correctly.
- The big number of characters create awkward-paced dialogues.
- The character development feels rushed and forced.
- Most are stereotypical, few are quite original.
- Wrong expectation is: They all have the same amount of role. The truth is: Some has major role, some has minor role, some just being there to make some laughs aspect in the series, some are just addition to the number - perhaps so that it feels realistic enough to have enough member (20 person) which make that fishy trip seems less fishy.
- There's around 5-8 characters that has no depth nor has any purpose to exist in the story. Perhaps their sole purpose are just to be the normal character that doesn't stand out, But the fact that they looks kind of unique, make us think that they're wasted. What's really wasted is when we think they're interesting but they actually don't have any role and we never get to know more about them.
- There's a lot of characters that until the end, we never know their dark past and why they're there trying to start over their life. Some people might say that the series clearly doesn't have enough time to do the right thing for the characters. Heck, even some pretty important characters doesn't have clear background story, meanwhile some random characters has clear back story. Regardless, at least we want to know everyone's story, no matter how short. But we never get it from this show.
- As mentioned before, the characters often make some weird/stupid actions and comments. Don't blame them for being illogical/retarded or accuse it as a bad writing. After all, that's exactly what the story is. They're troubled people whose soul/psyche hurt by their own life that they want to start over a new life as a new person, but unfortunately they are trapped in that panic anxious situation (albeit the anime show it with kind of awkward slow-paced mystery). Thus, It would be more irrational if they all are rational in their positions.
- The good thing is: the characters cast serve a fairly good mystery. The one you think is suspicious is actually just a red herring. The one you think doesn't have important role is actually a very important character toward the end - sort of like that.
-------- Music (4/10):
Opening is catchy and has a kind of dark feels.
Ending gives you the mood of hopelessness,
and the "unlucky hippopotamus" song is rather funny but disturbing.
There's this eerie soundtrack that reminds me a lot to a soundtrack in RPG that always there whenever I'm in a dungeon and near the boss room, which is nice especially when it plays in the last episode near the end of this anime.
the rest is... well, they don't catch my attention, to be precise, they're boring and bland.
The worse thing is, there's this part where it's showing a dangerous panic scene, and I'm pretty much sure I hear a music that sounds like soundtrack for comedic drama. I laughed despite what I see in the screen.
The thing is, sometimes this show will give you weird experience, since there's a chance you will be laughing while an eerie soundtrack plays in the background. Weird.
-------- Art (4/10):
I can't really give any comment here. Everything is average, but nothing is really boring or plain.
The character has diverse design and good.
But some of the monster looks strangely laughable.
-------- Conclusions:
Mayoiga is a strange anime - in a funny way. It's hard to find something as strange as this.
A fairly good mystery with hilarious things, the characters are done wrongly, and graduate as crappy psychological drama.
Try it if you still not sure, you will definitely know if you're interested to see it until the end through all the strangeness or just can't stand it.
