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First of all, the story:
The show follows an intriguing SCI-FI premise of characters being connected by pain and having to solve problems and psychological puzzles those running the experiment ask them to solve in a way being forced to deal with uncomfortable subjects and learn empathy.
The premise is promising. Its not unique as something akin to that was already done with Kokoro Connect or even currently running western show - Sense8, but it is still something that holds promise. Character exploration and introspection can be enjoyable. Characters usually are where the substance of the show comes from.
The problem with Kiznaiver is already hidden in the story description I gave - "forced". The show feels forced. The SCI-FI setting and lore are poorly fleshed out and exist solely as plot devices to force characters to have melodramatic interactions with each other. The problem with that is that the said interactions are shallow and poorly written. Characters do not behave like people. For the lack of better example, the narrative's understanding of "feelings" or "interactions" is on the level of 12 year old high-schooler teen writing emo poems on tumblr. The show is filled with cringe-worthy use of "feelings", "sharing the pain", but majority of interactions are basically teenage melodrama.
For a premise with interesting SCI-FI elements and possibilities in the lore, the show does not bother to do anything with it beyond using it as plot device to force characters to have melodrama. The plot elements that ARE there are spaced out so much that the plot ends up very bare-bones and barely holds together as an excuse to have those interactions.
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Art
Artistic design and cinematography is one aspect where Kiznaiver is actually decent to good. The show is filled with interesting shots, creative and dynamic use of colors and great visuals. Its basically Studio TRIGGER trying to present SHAFT-esque visuals and mostly succeeding. Its one of Kobayashi's best works in terms of that.
It does suffer in terms of character designs, especially in terms of outfit designs - for supposed "everyday teenagers" the characters wear the kinds of clothes that nobody would wear casually. The kind of outfits that make the modern day designer collections look normal. It requires a SUBSTANTIAL amount of suspension of disbelief to believe that "your everyday teenager" would wear anything like that.
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Sound
In terms of sound-track the show is nothing special. Hayashi Yuuki is not someone that stands out for me in terms of composer and surely the music is serviceable to work with the show without standing out, but nothing special, not anything I'd listen on my own to.
The show does have a brilliant opening song by Boom Boom Satelites, which is a good listen on its own, although not the best that band has produced in the time of their existence.
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Character
Characters is where the show falls apart. For something that is supposedly so character-focused, Kiznaiver's characters feel stereotypical, manufactured and fake. You have typical emotionless MC, typical childhood friend, typical loony girl, typical megane, etc. You get the idea. The show tries to play it off as meta-aware by telling the viewer how they are supposed to fit the stereotypes, yet at the same time the show does nothing to make them feel more than that.
While some characters like Niko are likeable in a way, everyone's existence begins and ends solely with their purpose of participating in melodrama:
- Niko is likeable and decent character that not much is done with.
- Chidori's whole existence revolves around childhood friend tropes.
- Sonozaki is poor mans Senjougahara, that, unlike Senjougahara, lacks any strong characterization beyond her personality tropes.
- Maki exists solely for her backstory(which has its own share of problematic tropes),
- Tenga is typical "dudebro" whose only purpose is to overreact and act cool.
- Yuta is barely fleshed out as a person and is used mainly with purpose of playing off the other characters.
- Hisomu literally lacks any purpose or characterization at all.
- The show's protagonist, Katsuhira, has interesting premise, yet terrible execution, which makes the character impossible to relate to and hard to understand, as sole elements of his character development are tied to VERY scarce plot moments.
The characters are lack relatability and the end conclusion to their arcs makes it feel like a majority of cringy melodrama the viewer experiences was kind of needless and pointless. For a character-drama, the show falls apart completely in terms of actual characters.
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Enjoyment
The show's sole enjoyment value comes from two angles:
- Either you are capable watching a mediocre show solely for sake of experiencing the directing and cinematography
or
- You are capable of bearing a juvenile high-school drama and are okay with bare-bones plot and no real emotion in narrative.
The show is like the show's protagonist - lacking empathy. I personally can't "like" or "dislike" it. The show just IS. It happened. But it lacks any qualities you can like or despise. Its fake, manufactured and stale.
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Overall
Kiznaiver originally was intended as wacky Okada-esque action show, but via production process, was overhauled into a character drama, resulting in a show that is ill-prepared to accomplish what its authors want to accomplish and the lack of identity is felt through entirety of the show because of that.
Its the kind of a show you watch because it is airing. And then, when the show has ended, you put the complete tag onto it and go "Okay, I watched this." without any real thoughts of feelings about it.
Its a show that wanted accomplish so much, yet ends up accomplishing absolutely nothing - be it in terms of narrative or in terms of audience emotion.
