Sit Back, relax and play some early PS2 games (You’ll understand in a minute) as I present to you the anime review for Shoumetsu Toshi or by its English name, After Lost. Lets begin.
Story: 4/10
On one frightful day, a city suddenly disappeared without a trace. They call this event, “Lost” and it left nothing behind. Except for one thing. Yuki, the only survivor of Lost had been experimented on by a mysterious company looking to find some answers about the events of lost. Until one day, she is broken out and escapes thanks to a courier by the name of Takuya. Takuya plans to take Yuki to Lost due to a message from Yuki’s father saying “Yuki, I am waiting at Lost.” With their plans set, they travel to Lost while slowly uncover the truth about Lost’s origins and the organisation working in the shadows.
The story of this show is decent at best, even if it does like to sidetrack ALOT. It is very much cut up into different story arcs that last between 2-4 episodes that help cover the whole mystery behind lost and the villains’ motives. But I think around the halfway mark, it was starting to get pretty obvious as to what and who caused Lost to happen and I was just waiting to see if I was right (which I was). If that’s the case then the mystery isn’t exactly interesting is it? If the mystery is obvious well before we get the reveal as to what happened, then it isn’t exactly a well told mystery. Yeah sure, it was also obvious who was responsible for Lost from the word go but how it happened was meant to be the intriguing part.
As for the arcs themselves, some I would say are worth it as it does help give context to the story and unravelling the mystery. Although a couple of stories are pretty much filler in my eyes, (in a twelve episode series I might add) some of them were interesting and had some dark themes behind them to make you hate the villains more. Well I would if I had some kind of understanding as to what the villains’ ultimate goal was. That is a problem with the show overall at times because the story is trying to invoke an emotional response but it fails to do so. Sometimes it wants us to hit us with the emotional scenes before adding context as to why this scene should be emotional. If it did it beforehand but subtly, (Just to make sure it is not using obvious foreshadowing) then these scenes would have me invested; yet they fail to do that.
Characters: 1/10
Every character in this show can be described as basically cardboard cut-outs with people drawn onto them. This is because they are just as interesting as cardboard cut-outs. This show does a poor job of making me care about these cast of characters because they are uninteresting to say the least and baffling at its worst. They are the kind of characters that invoke a sense of frustration in you because they can behave and speak like nothing can bother them; all for the sake of just progressing the plot. A scene from episode 1 where we hear what Takuya thinks of Yuki especially infuriates me because it is never built upon and could have led to some interesting narratives.
Which leaves me to another criticism is that our character’s motives and personalities keep changing with little context in order to progress the plot. This is especially true when it comes to our main protagonist Takuya as his motives are never set in stone and changes his personality on the fly. Sometimes he acts as a loner, sometimes he acts like he’s actually a caring person, sometimes he’s cold, sometimes he’s selfless, MAKE UP YOUR MIND MAN! Then there is Yuki who is just as bland as a single, stale cracker. Despite having the goddess of Japanese voice acting herself, Kana Hanazawa, voicing her, she has no personality to speak of and when she tries to have an emotional response, it comes off very weak and uninspired, leaving me to not care for her at all.
Animation: 1/10
HOLY S**T! THIS CGI IS BAD! This is some of the worst cgi I have ever seen in an anime. The vehicles just look horrendous and doesn’t look like they even try to hide the fact it was cg. You see, this is why I said you should play some PS2 games, because this cgi looks like something from an early PS2 game. But even that is insulting to the PS2. I should expect this from Madhouse as they can’t do cgi well “cough cough, Overlord III, cough cough.” This show has been clearly shunted down the priority ladder and it shows. Animation is of nothing of note, the cgi looks awful and the character designs are just bland and rather genericwith nothing notable to mention about them at all.
Sound: 3/10
The soundtrack is rather forgettable as well. There was not a single track that I can point out and say, “yes. I remember that one.” It was either too bland or didn’t fit with the tone of the scene well. It was just there and sometimes was drowned out by the sound effects of this show so sometime I couldn’t hear the damn thing.
The opening for this show has a good song but is hampered by the crappy visuals. "Kotae” by Mao Abe has some great pacing to it and I am a fan of how the vocals are used as well as the instrumentals. But there were clear cheap cuts in the animation department that brought it down for me. If it had better animation, I would say this would be a hidden gem of an opening, but the opening is just alright.
The ending baffles me because it features an idol group that only appear for one episode. So to begin the series featuring them in your ending sequence will just baffle the viewer. Honestly though, it feels out of tone with the rest of the show and is something I skipped immediately after listening to it once.
Conclusion
So yeah, if you didn’t get it by now, this show is bad. There were plenty of problems with the show’s story and mystery, uninteresting characters, awful cgi and forgettable soundtrack. There were only a couple of things I liked about this show but they were swallowed up by the many problems I have with this show. But it is nice to bash something that would not get defended in the slightest due to its s**tiness. If you are reading this by going through this season’s catalogue of shows or going through Madhouse’s library of shows. Please do not watch it. Your time is better spent elsewhere than this show..unless you want to experience what a really bad show is.
My personal enjoyment: 1.5/10
Overall score: 2.1/10 Recommendation: Don’t f***ing bother
