Story:
Without a purpose in his life, Inuyashiki Ichirou spends his life in a seemingly unloving family who despite his best efforts is never given even a smidgen of love or respect from those closest to him. After one last attempt at failing to get closer to his family by bringing home a stray dog, he runs off into the night and finds himself in a park begging for a purpose in life. It is there when mysterious and unexplained life forms from another world barge in and accidentally kill this man and another bystander, haphazardly replacing their entire bodies with weaponized systems in order to cover up their tracks. Now with a body capable of flight, combat, and technological prowess, he vows his existence to help those in need. While a certain high school boy has other things in mind.
A naturally story heavy series, Inuyashiki is a show that attempts to use a majority of its available time in order to create a moral dilemma of what it means to be human and do the right thing. Since our dual protagonists both have bodies entirely replaced with mechanical parts, the possibility of trying to return to that feeling of being truly alive wavers in their minds and eventually set the two on different paths in order to find themselves through the use of various scenarios that ask our protagonists the question of “what would you do in this situation?” in order to cement them on one side of the argument.
A very interesting concept, but is sullied by one key reason: balance. Thing is, Mr. Inuyashiki himself really doesn’t get that much screentime comparatively. While yes the beginning of the show is devoted solely to his readjustment to his new existence, the rest of the series can be summed up as ‘The Marvelous Body Count of a Sociopathic Murderer’. The first protagonist that we’re introduced to hardly ever gets the spotlight, and the series puts so much emphasis on the other side of the story that the actual confrontation between the two is more of a fight between good and evil rather than one between similar yet conflicting morals. Furthermore, the short 11-episode timespan really works against the show because it always felt like the show was rushing somewhere and never gave the viewer enough time to rest and fully take in what we’re given, especially with how everything turns out as the episodes progress.
Eventually, this culminates into another major problem of the series escalating things to almost ridiculous lengths that I can’t really take what happening seriously anymore. Or at the very least, it doesn’t really make sense to me cause half the time it feels like the show makes these huge leaps in logic in order to try and make whatever’s happening ‘justified’. Or something. The ending is the worst offender to all of this cause the whole of it feels like a haphazardly thrown in conclusion that we literally get no prior warning of anywhere in the series. At the end of the day, the series doesn't feel satisfying or provides any form of thought-provoking resolution that constitutes anything worth thinking about for the future. And that is a real darn shame.
Overview:
+ Unique concept
+ Certainly poses some interesting questions
- Appears more black and white than gray
- Escalates in a manner that doesn’t make sense
- Motives feel clunky at best, messy at worst
- What the actual fuck is that ending
Characters:
Rather than a full cast of intriguing characters for us to spend time with the characters in Inuyashiki boil down to the MCs and literally everyone else. I’ll explain why that is, but first,
Mr. Inuyashiki himself is certainly an entertaining idea for a main character. An old man who finds a new purpose in life by using his now fully mechanized and mechanical body for good, much of what he represents is acting as the ‘hero’ and helping those who cannot help themselves. An interesting character indeed, but without really much weight to his actions. Sure he’s partially doing it out of the goodness of his heart, but his home situation leads us to believe that there’re other reasons why he selfishly chooses to help people to fulfill himself. Problem is, the first episode rushes through his crappy situation so fast that there’s very little impact for the audience to really give a damn. The poor build-up thrusts everything wrong in Mr. Inuyashiki’s life without much word or warning is not very favorable storytelling, which doesn't translate well to the eventual changes that again feel rushed and out of place. Above that, very rarely do we get an opposite perspective that what Mr. Inuyashiki is wrong. Maybe this is just personal bias talking, but to me, the show does such a poor job at muddying the waters enough to raise enough questions that I can’t really see much gray when everything is shown in black and white when it comes to the actions and sometimes motives of this man.
Then there’s Hiro, or as I like to call him, the show’s main problem. Ironically named ‘Hero’, Hiro spends most of the series showing off his sociopathic tendencies as compared to Mr. Inuyashiki, he kills innocents to feel alive rather than helping individuals with his newfound power. I’m sorry, but if you ask me, none of what he’s doing makes sense cause we hardly get any rhyme or reason as to what led him to value human life so cheaply. The mind of the sociopathic is an interesting way to go about the moral dilemma, but it’s really hard to establish an equal footing on the two characters since one spends the majority of the series saving lives, while the other takes them. Because the timeframe of the show is so short, I feel like there is more to this boy, but since I’ve never read the original source material, I can only make the assumption that the show unfortunately had to cut off a lot of the potential backstory and explanations to both justify and humanize his actions. Cause seriously, this guy’s body count doesn’t exactly scream “Bad to good”, and Mr. Inuyashiki’s track record is pretty squeaky clean in comparison.
The rest of the cast unfortunately falls into the category of symbolism than characters. Everything from deplorable human beings that test the characters’ code of ethics, to people that shows us that there’s a reason to save people in this world. Much of the cast is meant to only give weight to the battle of personal philosophy between our dual protagonists and as such, exist only as fodder for us to watch the result of since their stories are meant to directly impact them rather than give us a functional cast.
Overview:
- MCs emphasize a very clear good/evil divide rather than a perceived gray dilemma
- Side cast are rather unimportant aside from story fodder
- Seriously, character motives are very questionable
Art:
The show was made by MAPPA and really stands out as some of the lowest quality art that the studio has managed to pull out in its short and youthful existence. (What, did Kakegurui take too much out of the budget?) The big problem I see here is waning. The quality of the art wavers from ‘kind of ok’ to ‘you just didn’t try’, as the entire color scheme of the show poses this really drab but not at all dynamic style that just isn’t interesting to look at.
Not only that, but the people can just look downright ugly sometimes. I know it’s harking back to the original style of the source material, and the style is meant to be more realistic, but often times I would curdle away from my screen because one or more of the characters’ faces would look just so unappealing that I kind of didn’t want to watch anymore, which doesn't help when often times the show uses close ups so we REALLY get to see their ugly mugs. I’m probably just running my mouth about this, but I just don’t like the style.
But that’s far from the biggest issue about the art. Roughly half the show is done in CGI in order to easily animate the robotic parts and sections of the dual protagonists body. The reason for this is understandable given how complex the implanted weaponry can be, but why use it in the normal animation? During scenes with the character simply walking around or standing normally, the show falls back on the CGI models and really clashes with the background environment, even going so far as to replace entire scenes using these models to save on costs. I’m not sure why the show seemingly has no budget, but the results show, and the results aren’t pretty.
Overview:
+/- Some surprisingly fluid fight scenes (because CGI is always fluid)
- Below average art quality
- Uses CGI in areas that I feel like don’t need CGI
Sound:
With an OP made by Man with a Mission, the band known for having one-liners in songs, “My Hero” stands out with the new slogan of “HIT ME ON THE GROUND” as the chorus with an action-packed and high-energy song that’s about as memorable as their other works, which is pretty standard fare for the band considering how catchy ‘database’ is. Yes that is a compliment. In comparison, the show’s ED, "Ai wo Oshiete Kureta Kimi e”, is a more somber piece that’s meant to symbolize the internal struggle with our dual protagonists with a piano-based beat and soft vocals, a definite contrast that’s just as good as its OP counterpart.
Personal Enjoyment:
Based on personal preference alone, Inuyashiki was a series that was way out of my comfort zone, as I don't typically watch shows that base their entire concept on semantics, and I'm really not a fan of deformation of the human body, even if mechanical. So I fully admit that this show was not for me. That being said, I did hear good things about the series and wanted to jump the chance and see what it’s about so I could potentially have something more than the slew of slice of life-based stuff that I usually watch in a given season. You know, get out of my comfort zone and stuff and explore.
I really wanted to like this show. Honestly, I did. But episode after episode posed some weird situations that don’t really make sense if you ask me. The series spends the brunt of its focus on Hiro like he’s supposed to have some kind of redemption, but everything felt way too fast and way too shallow for me to care. I was initially intrigued at how the show would approach the sociopathic individual, but nothing really came to fruition at the end and that irked me because now all we have is a battle of good and evil rather than a battle over who is in the right cause supposedly, both Mr. Inuyashiki and Hiro doing both good and bad things is supposed to give the viewer a conflicting viewpoint. And that just didn’t resonate or show with how things were going.
Did I like this series?
Honestly speaking, no. I know the show is probably not for me, but looking at it from a critical eye, I find a lot of faults with its storytelling, a sociopath that the show fails to get you to really sympathize with (Several thousand wrongs and a couple hundred rights do not make a right. Even with that ending you're still an asshole), and an escalation that blew everything so out of proportion that I couldn’t take it seriously. By the very end I sat mindblown not from the quality of the show, but from trying to process what the fuck I just watched cause everything went from zero to a hundred so fast I needed a minute to catch my breath.
What didn’t I like about this series?
Obvious ones the ones I complained about in the question above (ironic, I know), what is up with those aliens at the start? No, seriously. You can’t expect me to just forget that that ever happened. I understand they’re supposed to be used as a plot tool to get the characters into their robotic forms, but when you introduce something like that, you are just begging for questions to be asked.
Would I recommend this series?
Personally…no. I understand a lot of people are fans of the series and it’s praised for having a good story, but if that’s the case, then this anime is really going to disappoint you. Eleven episodes is so short for such a huge philosophy/story driven show, and being unable to put down enough groundwork to make that dilemma stand out is a major problem that never gets resolved. Whether or not the original source material is any good is an opinion I cannot have because I have never read it. But. If the praises sung about the original material is true, then I’d suggest go reading that instead because MAPPA really dropped the ball here.
