Something strange.
At times I could see what they were trying to do. At times it succeeded--and very beautifully, too--and at times it made me feel like an AI had been told to write a series based on an algorithm.
The general premise has a vaguely-shaped world split by a vaguely-mentioned war with a city being set as an experiment by vague, mysterious higher figures wherein people would try to get united via a 'kizuna' experiment consisting of using people cosplaying as the dog thing from Paranoia Agent to kidnap teenagers (carefully selected so that they were to be as different from one another as possible), do clandestine surgery on them and have them share physical pain because of it in an attempt to see if they managed to understand each other that way.
Here we have 7-deadly sin gimmick that doesn't even involve the actual sins unless you scrutinize, but that's fine. Each kidnapped teenager represents a 'modern day sin'and is pretty much forced to cooperate and 'bond' with the other teenagers until the end of summer.
Teenagers? Bonding? Learning to empathize? Kidnapping? Sounds like a decent enough premise, right?
Within the first half of the first episodes, the series's weaknesses begin to creep through. Granted, we can take in a silly premise. Granted, we've seen enough characters who randomly get white hair due to trauma to accept them with no second throught. Granted, we have seen brick-faced waifus and tsundere childhood friends and quirky crazy comic reliefs enough times to grow numb to them, too, but... that's the problem.
You know what's going to happens before it happens because you've seen literally everything within Kiznaiver before. The characters are as recycled as the plot elements and themes, and this wouldn't be too bad with good enough execution (or else pretty much everything would be unenjoyable) but Kiznaiver tries to be Another Trigger Show without seeming to understand what has worked for their other works in the past.
To elaborate: Trigger's characters are not the best. They're fun, they're unique, they're easily recognizable, but their role in an absurdist battle anime is not the same as their role in a character drama. Tropes and gimmicks don't make great characters; depth does, and that's what Trigger lacks. That's what ended up fucking Darling In The Franxx in the ass (ep. 19 onwards notwithstanding) and it's what affected this show the most.
Did this have the potential to be great? Absolutely. I must admit I was quite charmed the first episode or so, but it soon became clear that we'd see no more of these characters than their quirks. Good character dramas demand depth. Would Toradora be as acclaimed if Taiga had been nothing but a tsundere? Would Anohana be remembered as fondly if Jintan's hikikomori status had been nothing but a funny haha quirks? I'm not saying every anime out there has to be a deconstruction, but if your characters are 2D, how are they supposed to keep a story based on them compelling?
I'm part of the crowd that believes this would've greatly benefitted from 24 episodes instead of 13. Had they given everyone an arc and not just one (1) character and this would easily be one of MAL's darlings.
Trigger is known for larger-than-life, gimmicky characters and humor, but that doesn't mean all their works have to be like that. The humor detracted rather than contributing, but the Gomorins were pretty cute and it was easy to see they didn't take themselves too seriously. Until they did. Not only are the cardboard characters a problem, but also the tonal dissonance. Am I supposed to laugh or feel bad for them? Why would you ruin what is supposed to be an emotional scene with a joke? Again, it's like they're trying so hard to stay Trigger that it holds them back more than anything at this point.
It's not bad to stray from your roots. Not everything has to end in a giant robot fight and not every episode has to have forced humor in it.
Ultimately, I feel like them trying to hard to make this fit their mold ended up in the series's demise. It was rushed, it was tonally dissonant and it felt like they were yelling at you 'Feel this way!' instead of letting empathy surface naturally. Kind of ironic, all things considered.
That said, I really liked the concept of some of their characters (Agata beginning as an apathetic, detached individual and slowly thawing along the way, in theory or Yuta being this pretty boy hiding a massive complex behind an arrogant facade). Some scenes were genuinely very well-made and you can tell the director did what he could with what he had. I'm really torn about this series because it had all the ingredients, yet fell apart in the making. I don't know.
In a nutshell:
a) Great character ideas, bad execution
b) Interesting, if weird, premise, bad execution
c) Generally pretty good directing and cinematography
d) Very good art and soundtrack
Most importantly:
e) Stop making characters gimmicks dammit!
