Story:
First off, this narrative is complex. That is not to say it is hard to understand. Complex merely means there are many facets at work, and there really is a whole lot going on. A good writer tailors a multitude of facets together to tell a strong, tight-knit narrative. However, while there's great ambition to this project, it ultimately fails. The more someone puts into a story, the less wiggle room one has for mistakes. As the show starts, you're never quite sure what exactly is going on, and the benefit of the doubt is that choices for the show are merely stylistic. Because of that, it's easy to forgive. However, as the episodes continue, there comes a point when things simply aren't consistent anymore. That's when one recognizes it isn't stylistic, they're mistakes.
This isn't helped by the amount of absurd, unrealistic, unrelatable characters in Mayoiga. I think the more anime I watch, the more I have to realize that I am not the demographic being targeted. Ever. The target for so many shows seems to be those who enjoy characters who repeat the same word over and over, stereotypical glasses-wearing know-it-alls, and repetitive quirks that just don't exist in the real world. These are stupid tropes to have in an arguably serious work. There's no argument against this. A serious work needs serious characters.
Although the above is more limited to supporting roles, main characters have unengaging character arcs as well. They seem to start and end abruptly from time to time. It's like whiplash to the nth degree the way the pacing is with these arcs.
This isn't really spoiler territory but if you what I'm comparing to, then ultimately you're gonna find it easier to infer what's going on in the show after reading this part of the review. Basically, this show feels a lot like Angel Beats!. 1-dimensional characters in an absurd premise that has a potentially engaging story surrounding it ultimately soiled by poor pacing with overly dramatic scenes just aren't my thing, and Mayoiga seems to emulate what some people thought was great with the former. From where I stand as someone who didn't like Angel Beats!, I just can't understand why someone would want to emulate such a premise.
That said, something about Mayoiga remained way more engaging to me than Angel Beats!. Despite the cancer that plagues Mayoiga's entire story, the show seems to have this odd 'it-factor' to it for me that simply kept me waiting for the next episode. Perhaps it's the seemingly well-timed cliffhangers, or maybe it's simply because I hopelessly want to enjoy a horror anime despite knowing how bad horror anime is. All I know is this, I couldn't stop watching the show. I just had to watch the next one. There's this draw that I simply can't explain, especially when there's so much NOT GOOD about the show.
If I had to briefly try and engage this conundrum, it's that Mayoiga's complexity sells you to the end. Then, once it's over, everything comes rushing back and you go, "I knew that didn't make sense then and excused it to continue, but now I really have to admit how absurd those choices were." And I'll admit, I recognized the absurdity of some choices but only near the end of the series did it really click how bad some narrative choices are.
Art:
I'll be the first to admit that moe art is NOT my style. And while this show is not 100% moe, it's that cutesy artistic theme that's plaguing anime right now and boy-howdy do I hate it. To compare: each character has relatively the same body-type and their only differences are hair and clothing. I think it's hilarious that there's actually a character designer in the anime industry nowadays. Just have some sort of algorithm churn out these suckers and save you a buck. There's clearly no inspiration for these things anymore.
It's also important to note that the scenery of the entire show is largely the same. It's also pretty dang dark and because of this, you're lead even more to focus on the character in frame rather than anything surrounding them. Also, the show takes place in an abandoned village but it might as well take place in a cabin.
Some people might really disagree with me here but I liked the creature renderings for the first few bits of the show. I think it's important to recognize that in horror, to make something scary is to make it other-worldly. One of the most effective ways to do this in animation is to change the type of animation style you're using for your creature. This was used well for 1 creature and so-so for a few others. However, it doesn't last long as the final creature is laughably bad. Which leads us into:
Animation! While the show flows well, there were a few times where proportions threw me off. However, I think this was due to emulating certain camera effects. However, the most pitiful were 2 creatures, one in the middle and the one at the end. I'm talking horrid. There's other-worldly animation and then there's hiring an otherworldly creature to work on a worldly program without giving him a translation book for the Japanese language to read your program. *heavy breathing*
//Sidenote: I know, this is getting long-winded. Bear with me!
Sound:
I found some of the soundtrack compositions to be pretty good. I wasn't totally choked up with emotion by any of the tracks, nor did any of them necessarily get me pumped during any intense scenes, but I will say that they are unfortunately used in a forgettable anime. It's a shame that we'll never get to hear them used in something better.
That said, poor timing on a few tracks and I remember hearing one legitimately replay after a short delay. Like, it was so jarring and distracting. The song came to an end, (like a 1 minute long loop) and then pause, then restart and it was so strange.
Also, that final creature had such a dumb sound. It was only made worse when it repeated like 4 times.
Character:
I find myself wanting to copy/paste the story section for this one. I genuinly shook my head because I was about to.
If I had to add anything new about the characters, it's that this sort of thing happens to a lot of anime. I'm talking a LOT of anime. Seeing 1-dimensional characters is not uncommon and the problem is that people eat this stuff up like it's fresh lobster at a 5-star restaurant. I recognize that this anime has a <6 scoring and that's great because this show does not deserve anything higher than a 6, but the problem is I see things like this all the time in popular anime. Remember how I mentioned Angel Beats!? These 2 shows are so-totally similar it's maddening to see how Angel Beats! remains so popular. But I digress. I'm not talking about characters, I'm talking about the concept of Mayoiga as a whole.
You see, writers think this stuff is okay because of so many shows LIKE Angel Beats! sell figures, BD's, posters, extra memorabilia that nowadays runs the market due to rampant torrenting. However, this issue isn't all the consumers fault, as people wouldn't torrent shows if producers wouldn't churn out 12-episode advertisements for their mobile games every season (I'm doing it again, aren't I lol). It's so much easier for companies to simply BS their way with writing than it is to spend a week one one character arc, then melding it with anothers.
And the sad thing is with Mayoiga is that we have a work that's stuck in the middle, where part of it wants to be Angel Beats! with 1-dimensional absurd characters and the other wants to have a complex narrative. It's like 2 scripts were forcefully prostitued to produce some frankenstein monster of a narrative. It's a shame. But the biggest shame of all is that I spent the entire character section talking about the concept of bad anime and not about the characters.
But what is there to say? They're all bad. Lol.
JK I liked Lion. She was underused. =3
Enjoyment:
So do I regret the show? Not necessarily. I think there's a lot wrong here but I also think there's a lot right? Like I said, there's an 'it-factor' at play for me and I know this is purely opinion based. But, even after thinking it through, I can't think of any reason to HATE this anime other than what I suspect it may represent (see: Character section lol).
Idk, watch it I guess. you might dig it.
((I might start doing more reviews again so watch out! If you wanna read my other ones, check out my profile and see what I've got. There's plenty to explore!))
