The biggest issue of Kiznaiver is in the nature of it's writing. The core idea is a story about people that literally share their pain. If you are interested in things like story writing or simply seen or read a lot of entertainment media like manga or anime then you might already have an idea of what will happen in the series. In fact you can make a checklist and play a drinking game with it. There are just certain obvious plotpoints and twists that have to happen in this story to not waste it's potential and they obviously will. I can't recall any anime that previously delt with this gimmick yet I already felt like it's “another one on the topic”. It's good, don't get me wrong. Great even. It's an ideal storyline for a slice of life drama and trigger being an action-loving studio keeps it interesting and well-paced. They basically took something obvious and executed it as well as it was possible to execute, but the topic itself provided little maneuverability and space for imagination. Once you know the characters you will know what will they do. It's an uncanny feeling that shouldn't get you out of the story but it makes it difficult to judge it's quality. The idea is great and the execution is perfect. But there's little to no effort in coming up with the idea or executing it due to how great it is on it's own. Does a story like that deserve a medal? An award for being invented or picked? I don't really think so. That's why I gave it an 8. It's more than good but less than revolutionary or inspiring. Putting it in a weird spot. What I can say for sure is that it's worth going through at least once and that it's by no means any worse than a 7.5, which is quiet a good grade anyway.
What helps the story a lot are the Characters. The character design is very interesting. They are different, they look original but they also don't stand out too much from common people. They fit their realistic modern-day setting but also thanks to that setting can't really do anything outstanding that would make them anything more even if their interactions are quiet reasonable and always in line with their personalities. They're just great. Nothing more, nothing less.
From the technical side the Art of the series is not bad. It has some nice colors and decent linework. I had a small issue with animation of running and only that. For whatever reason characters often run in a bizarre out-of-place fashion that actually took me out of the show a few times. It looks comedic even during dramatic scenes and it has no real purpose. It could be argued that it was done to make it look a bit more frantic but it failed at that. To outweigh that the show has some nice special effects and felt rather pleasant to look at overall. So I decided to rate it as a 7, but a 6 would also be in place.
The sound has similar issues. It was more on the enjoyable side but nothing really stuck in my head. It's just fair.
I would have to rate my enjoyment at 8. I'm coming mostly from the fact that I put a lot of attention to the story of the show I'm watching and I enjoyed the execution of the topic of the show a great deal. Even if I can't rate it all that high. Nothing really stood in my way of having fun even if nothing was really outstanding. You could compare it to a catchy song. It might not have much meaning but there's something interesting in there and it's pleasant enough to put on your playlist.
