I've often been an advocate for melodrama. I've always thought that it created a specific kind of feeling that I grew rather fond of. Most of the time it's almost as if the characters inside such stories live in a world that's created for the purpose of melodrama alone, it tends to feel almost like a theatrical play. It's charming, almost hypnotizing, and if the show can build off of it properly it can achieve some stupendous results.
Enter Anonymous Noise (Fukumenkei Noise), created by studio Brain's Base who's been in sort of a commercial slump over the past few years despite having some of the most beloved franchises under their belt. Was this an attempt at making their way back into the market?
Certainly not.
Fukumenkei Noise almost feels like a fan project and at times it even looks like one! There's so much wrong with it that it almost feels like it was created by an amateur, but it wasn't! People who made this have a few projects under their belts, maybe not enough to be called "experienced", but they surely had to have some knowledge about the industry. So how did it came to this? How did someone look at all of it and thought "yes, this will sell". Add some pretty weird restrictions on the countries that it was allowed to air in (UK, Ireland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland only on Crunchyroll, rest is only available on Amazon Anime Strike) and you got yourself a huge, incredibly obvious flop, and let me tell you, I certainly won't be advocating for this one.
*Slight spoilers included*
The show features a love triangle between the three main characters. Nino, also known as Alice, is a girl who got into singing at a young age thanks to singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" with Momo, her male neighbor who later had to leave for certain reasons. During that time she also met Yuzu, a boy who liked to write music that she would meet on the beach. After Momo leaves, he helps her get out of a slump by leaving her a song that she can sing. With the intention of reaching Momo with her voice, Alice keeps singing, and when she enrolls into a new school it turns out that Yuzu is in her class, what's more is that Momo attends it too, though in another building. And so the tale of music and love begins.
Gosh, it was so hard to make this show sound remotely interesting.
Anonymous Noise has problems since the very beginning, as it decides to start off with the older characters, but then immediately jumps back to a flashback for the entirety of the second episode to showcase their backstories. Wouldn't the first episode be more effective if we knew those characters since childhood? Seeing them reunite has no meaning, no impact if we don't know who they are. Those characters mean nothing to us. The only thing it does is raise confusion. To be honest it would be fine if the second episode didn't exist, because the show does a good enough job at telling their backstory through their actions and dialogue, but it has no meaning when we already know it all and just serves as a constant reminder instead of pushing the plot in any direction. It's as if the writer didn't trust his viewers to follow their story both in childhood and in the present at the same time, so he just put that episode in post-production to make it less confusing as it goes on. That's not a good thing to assume. But that's only the beginning of the downward spiral.
I think that describes this show perfectly. "Downward' because this show keeps going lower and lower with its quality the more it goes on, and "Spiral' because while doing so, it only spins around in place without even realizing that it's heading to its demise.
Alice is obsessed with Momo. I'm not talking "oh, they're just in love", I'm talking actually obsessed. For six years she kept on thinking about him, not letting go of her dream to meet him and be together once more. The entire time we follow the group, everything she does, she does for Momo, for a chance of seeing Momo, for even a bit of news about Momo. She joins a band in order to reach Momo with her voice, as she promised him six years ago, she learns how to play guitar because the guitar came from Momo, she started writing a song because it was going to be about Momo. This is a trait that could certainly be intriguing, if only the show could step back from it when Alice is on the screen. At one point, she pretty much becomes a psychopath, she can't function without him, when she gets on stage all she can think about is something related to her precious Momo, she turns berserk while singing exactly because of that. It gets really boring after a while, seeing how much did Nino go through to, in the end, remain with the exact same feeling and with the exact same mindset, because trust me, there are so many events that should influence her that it's crazy. If that wasn't enough she repeated the name of her beloved so much that it even made me realize how silly it is. Who in the world would name their son Momo (No offense to all the Momo's out there, but it is silly)? Doesn't Momo sound like a name for a pet monkey?
Actually, he pretty much is the pet monkey that belongs to this show. What he really is, is a Deus Ex Machina that tries to hide it by having a resemblance of some sort of a personality. He exists solely to have an impact on others, to push them forward alongside the plot. His own motivations are unclear and tangled like some sort of a pasta dish, but one that's from a cheap, crappy restaurant that doesn't even have a proper sign on the street. He wants to stay with Alice, but he "can't" because he clearly wouldn't be able to compose music anymore. Why even try right? It's better to live a life of misery that you're living right now without doing so, right? You know, when you have a different character that can clearly think and recognize stuff, especially when he spends so much time with a character that's this much in the clouds, having all other characters act so much out of the ordinary that he sets can be obnoxious. That character is Yuzu.
Yuzu has a proper development cycle and actually evolves throughout the show accordingly to the things that are happening to him. He has different approaches to Alice as she becomes more and more psychopathic and relentless, he wants to help her, but he keeps getting blocked out. The worst part, is that the guy who is his rival turned out to be his friend. What a coincidence! Even he ends up getting completely screwed by Momo. It's like Momo only exists to screw over other characters! It's like everything would go correct for them if it wasn't for Momo appearing at random moments!
Does this add something to the actual value of the show? Does anything add to the actual value of the show? No. This show is so lifeless and forced that it almost chokes and drowns in its own vomit.
This show fails to use anything it has at its disposal, and that's funny because, you know, it could've chosen what it had at its disposal in the first place.
A) Melodrama? The scenes where it's utilized the most are inefficient because of the lazy camera work and animation, pretty much every single one of them has this one, long still shot that's just plain boring, no matter how impactful it should be. Not to mention that the melodrama is overused to all living hell and repetitive at that. For example, in one of the earlier episodes, three different characters end a conversation by slamming the door. All of them are different people, two of which didn't seem to overblow their emotions as much as they did at that moment. At that point, not only do you ruin you characters with inconsistencies, but the usually strong, effective scenes become less impressive when you have four or five grand, overblown moments before it already.
B) Music? The MC never shows her actual passion for music, the only thing that seems to push her into it is Momo, for Yuzu it's the fact that he writes for Alice, though it is said that his mother forced him not to pursue anything related to music and he finds peace and transcribed his feelings through it, so he's good in my book, and last, for Momo it's that he needs money and also because of Nino. So if two out of three of them seem to have no passion, how about the secondary cast? Well, they seem to enjoy it, but just like anybody else, nobody ever talks about how they like music, why they like music and why do they do music. They just created a band because they were at a concert..... cool. Even the manager, as he talks about the songs they create, he talks about this being good and this being bad, but what makes him decide that? I sure as hell don't hear any difference. Oh wait, I forgot that once he said that Nino lacks "something". Thanks for the info buddy. Very useful.
C) Love? There is no real reason for Alice to keep on loving Momo for such a long time, nor is there one for Momo to never forget her, maybe it was a turning point in his life or something, but from what we know, there were other instances that could ignite this, multiple ones in fact. Yuzu has the only reasonable explanation out of the three, it's that even though he always remembered her as the first person who was so passionate about his songs and someone that he helped, plus the fact that she's the reason why he lost his voice drove him somewhat insane over her, his love was only rekindled after he met her six years after. Once again, I don't know whose idea was it to pair one character, that has pretty reasonable explanations for his actions and development that corresponds with the events of the show, with all the others to make them look like some brainless teens who seem to live on another planet, but by doing so it made it pretty much impossible to push the suspension of disbelief more than to a certain point. The only justification is that they're stupid.
And you know what? Despite that, I think I could've liked this show. I mean, last winter, Kuzu No Honkai came out and everyone was an idiot in there too. What that show had, is some clever directing that kept me coming back to it, it made me want to think about what it had to offer, and it also had some good character designs and solid music. Well, that show also had more themes and more exploration, but that's not my point. But you know what? For a show that's supposed to showcase going completely crazy through singing, for a show that has so many "important" moments, this show is absolutely atrocious in all technical aspects.
You know how to notice a quality of a music anime straight away? With the music! Surprising, I know.
When your entire series, your premise, your core and your heart is based around the meaning and portraying yourself through music, having the characters not care for it is one thing, but having zero FUCKING passion for your soundtrack is a disgrace. I am so mad at this series with how it treats its music. Let's even go past the fact the directing for the music has no meaning, the tracks themselves are lazy. There's about four different variations of the same song, don't worry though, it's not like they're associated to any type of scene other than "sad" or "happy". Not only that, but that song, that one constantly repeated track, is the OP. Yup. That's how little effort was put into it. Just take the opening, add some different mixer to it and throw it out there. I'm sure nobody will notice. Do you know how exasperating it is to hear the same song over and over again? There were points where I was relieved to hear a song that isn't a remixed opening. I was relieved to hear any form of freshness in the soundtrack of a music show. Let that sink in for a while.
The other tracks are somewhat okay, but they're not anything good either, they aren't pleasing to listen to for me, they don't feel like they're conveying anything, and since the show doesn't give a damn about how to use them, I feel even less inclined to even give them a chance.
The visuals are just as dull, perhaps even more, but they aren't infuriating, because this isn't a show about visuals, they're just disappointing. The character designs say nothing about them, so instead they try to fit some jokes around how long Yuzu's eyelashes are or how small he is, other characters though, not so much. Nice try by putting yet another thing into JUST ONE CHARACTER YOU IDIOTS. The other visuals, aren't half bad, the backgrounds look solid and there were some nice scenes throughout the show, especially the beach which was a highlight of the show for me every time there was a sunset. Let's get back to negatives though, this show has absolutely no idea what is it doing with it's setting. It just throws in places, you have no idea how do they connect, it lacks a proper sense of direction in every place. They just jump around between places like it's nothing. Nino enters a building to go to a studio, next scene she's next to the place she's supposed to be in and you have no clue whether she had to walk up, down, just through a door, was it a long distance or whatever, nothing. There are even scenes in other parts of that building, but I have no idea where could those ones be placed either. They spend a lot of time in the studio, just like in some other locations like the beach and the school, but if I were to move around any of those locations based on the show alone, I would get lost in a matter of seconds. Oh, and let's not forget that absolutely "teen-like" sense of fashion. The casual clothes are so "rock" and "punk", and the costumes that the band plays in are so "dark", that's what makes them cool, I mean we all know darkness is what teens are into. I honestly don't know how do teens in Japan think or what is the current popular style, but I hope it has nothing to do with this. Same goes for the hairstyles. They're weird, unlike anything I've ever seen before, especially Nino with the two balls on each top side of her head. She almost looks like an alien when she has those.
And then there's the directing. Oh dear lord. I'll just go out and say it, but you better prepare yourself for the next sentence. Almost all important scenes are either done in CGI or with a still shot.
I can't take it no more! Writing this one sentence filled me with so much despair that you can't even imagine, it's so painful even thinking about how much could they ruin each and every scene with awful, despicable directing hurts me internally. I feel genuinely angry.
Sure, there's animation after the still shot goes away, but it all looks the same: There's a dramatic scene incoming, sudden transition into a still shot and a sparkly or serious sound plays. Yuzu kisses Nino = still shot. Yuzu sees Nino smile when she is learning to play the guitar = still shot. Momo says goodbye to Nino = still shot.
The CGI is used for the concerts, where Alice goes berserk and people witness the power of her voice. That's not bad on its own. What is bad, is that all it does is puts the character models on repeat. They have a cycle of movement. Also, Alice's hair when she has the wig on jump around as if they were two springs. Fuck this. I'm sorry, but I'm genuinely mad when there's so little effort put into a project that some author worked on for hours upon hour. Even if I dislike the way he wrote it, it still doesn't deserve this. This is a disgrace to him, I'm sure that when he wrote those concert scenes, he wanted them to embody what his story can do, but here comes a studio that took everything he did, and through the things that were completely out of his control, wrecked those scenes, as if the repetitive music wasn't enough. The people who made this are actual scumbags and I feel no remorse calling them that.
Whooo, okay, let me calm down a bit. This is going to be a section where I ramble about some other details that I left out, AKA the Super Spoiler Section.
You know how else was the love theme butchered? There were two other relationships that I didn't mention, one between that blonde kid Haruno and Suguri, and the other one between her and Yuzu. But where do those go? Absolutely nowhere, not even a bit, not even a tiniest little inch. There are about two or three scenes that indicate the love interested between them, and they never are brought up again. It's like the writer felt as if there weren't enough romance sub-plots, as there are in other shows, and had to put it in for the sake of it. There's nothing to them, the characters that they try to do something with end up being nothing anyway.
Yeah, I didn't even mention the side characters before because they are nothing, and yet the author tried to make two of them into something with such little effort and care. They don't have any resemblance of a personality outside one quirk, like the drummer who is always straightforward, or the two lovebirds that I mentioned, but they try to make Nino interact with them and have some sort of meaning to her. Like the girl vocalist, who later leaves to join Momo's band becomes her friend, but her relationship means nothing to either of them in the end. It's like they just needed another female character for Nino to talk about certain topics with. She has nothing to offer. And same goes for the blonde guy, who says things, but he is never established to any degree. And the drummer boy? He's practically nonexistent, the only time he has something to say is when he goes for the same joke of "I"m really straightforward", so if you see him doing anything, that means it's coming sooner or later. There's also the manager who likes to not give any details on his work and do nothing while trying to feel important. That's not his character description, that's just how I see him upon finishing the show.
Speaking of finishing this show, it certainly was rushed. The whole sub-plot about Yuzu's and Momo's mothers? Yeah, there were maybe three scenes for each, both ended as abruptly and added drama that only served as, well, more drama. The characters work perfectly fine without it, it only adds more scenes that, you know, could be used to add some stuff to the already riddled with holes and jumps in logic plot. Oh, and let's not forget to add a single line of dialogue at the last scene concerning Yuzu's mother that indicates another sub-plot inside a sub-plot, as it turns out music somehow killed his father. Yeah sure, the 11th episode seems like the right place to do it, right before the climax of the main plot with Nino and Momo. Those people really have no idea how to do this, don't they? This is just trying to appeal to so many people that it ends up appealing to nobody, every little detail that someone could relate to lasts so short that there's no way to develop it. "Jack of all trades. Master of none". Fits perfectly. I mean, it's fine if people feel like it relates to them on a personal level, but it doesn't represent a single thing well enough to call it a proper representative in my mind.
By the way, does Nino even know anything about Momo? Because she seems to love him for so long, but what does she even know about him once they see each other again? He clearly isn't the same after all this time, so how can she still love him, how can she keep telling herself that she loves him? All it brings to her and others is pain, but what she seems to love isn't Momo, as in a person, but Momo, as in an image that she had when they were younger. That's what really makes me question this series, it pushes the suspension of disbelief too far. You would think that after all she suffers and after all the suffering it caused others to undergo, she would drop it. The explanation for not doing that, is that she loves Momo, but when you think about it, she actually doesn't, as I explained. It's a big faceplant right from the get-go really.
And now let me tell you about the one thing that I like, it's a singular scene, with a singular idea. Yuzu can't sing, he lost his voice and can't recover it. When Nino finds out it's because he wanted to make her stop crying when they were little, he runs off to the roof, and she follows. They confront each other and he finds peace when Alice starts singing. What Yuzu does, is lip-sync to her singing, and calls her "his voice". Like, this is a great, well thought out, impactful scene (even though it consists of characters standing and moving their enormous mouths a bit, so pretty much a still shot). Too bad all this wasn't set up properly, it was a rushed sub-plot introduced in the same episode. They sort of blew their load early, because no scene came even close to this level of thought.
Oh, and I like the ED. It's nice, peaceful. The OP is fine too, but when you hear it so much it became annoying.
This anime is like a leech. Upon finishing it I was almost drained out of all of my creativity and passion for anything. After finishing writing this review, all I wanted to do is sleep, because I believed that my dream could create a far better story than this show, this piece of fiction that was actually released as a 12 episode series, possible with quality checking and some sort of vision behind it. Turns out, I was right. My random, stupid dream about me riding a watermelon and crashing into my dad riding on a banana, and then us reuniting because we're close to each other after all, was more interesting and more expressive than this. So I want to warn you, that if you have any plans to write something soon, maybe even searching for inspiration on a similar topic, don't go searching here. Hell, if you just want to pick a random show, don't. You know what, don't even pick it up if you're looking for a bad show, if there's a risk that it could suck you dry as it did with me, why risk it? Turn back wanderer, you have traveled too far into the anime depth. Don't go any further, or I can't guarantee you'll come back in one piece. Your imagination might be left behind.
As always, this is purely my opinion, but I can't recommend you to develop your own.
