~SPOLIERS BELOW~
STORY 6/10
-quick summary:
the anime starts off with our MC (akio) in high school with his childhood friend tama. the day goes on per usual however every so often he begins to see odd things, experiences vivid nightmares, and remembers people/events others around him dont. he bumps into a girl named aya and through her, realize that he isnt alone in what he experiences; she too has experienced the disappearance of her entire town, has memory lapses, and saw things other around her didnt (before they disappeared). they both soon discover there was an unnamed and ambiguous catastrophic event that wiped out all but 12 humans on earth. for the survival of these 12, a virtual world created inside their own minds was built for them to continuously live through their own memories. this world collapses when MC and aya discover the truth, and decide to leave their minds and experience the dystopian real world together.
this section i thought was solid for the amount of time/episodes allotted. i really liked the concept of the anime. theres just something about dystopian futures and matrices that are so polarizing. i thought the pacing of the story was well executed and i enjoyed all of the plot twists; i honestly didnt see most of them coming. the only qualm i have with the plot is that there are quite a lot of plot holes or just aspects that were never gone over again.
the summary i wrote left a lot out for the sake of being concise but the matrix had 11 people living their memories through one girl (mutuski) who sacrificed herself to basically be like the "server" for these created worlds to take place. this whole idea was actually executed by the MCs older brother and his wife, mutuski's older sister. -- why were there only 12 survivors? why did she have to sacrifice herself so everyone can live inside their own minds? why did it just so happen that the MCs brother was able to figure all of this out? everything they are seeing/experiencing MUST have come from their life before the catastrophe (whether conscious or unconscious) so where does aya fit in? it seemed as though she lived in a completely different town and attended a completely different school as the MC as far as the audience knows. how does she play a part in this? everyone else the MC meets, who are they? what relationship did they have with MC before the apocalypse? none of that was really answered. i suppose you are just expected to suspend your disbelief because the whole anime takes place in a recreation of life so anything could happen.
ART 5/10:
the art was ok for the time. everyone was modeled very differently, which is always nice to see. sometimes background characters/secondary characters sometime get no love or effort put into their design that makes them somewhat memorable but this anime put in some effort. the MC looks like a standard anime protagonist but aya, tama, the other secondary students, the 3 older women they meet were all very distinct. animation was a little rough. there were moments where perspective was wonky (i.e. sometimes going up/down stairs didnt look like that at all), animation didnt perfectly line up with the sound (i.e. the karaoke scene), the animation was a little sloppy in spots.
sound 6/10:
the voice acting was fair. nothing bad to say about it. the music and sound design was pretty good. one of the things i think this anime gets right is the successfully impactful timings of the sound effects to induce tension, fear, or confusion. there was a lot of singing in this anime that wasnt the best though. tama's VA is not the best singer lol but it added to the relatability of the characters.
characters 5/10:
i felt like the characters were very hit or miss. they were either really good, or really added to the plot in some way or they totally didnt at all. i think hit characters were aya, MC and tama just because they all felt the realest to me. tama really felt like they was longing for something she didnt really know she wanted and what she wanted was just out of reach. she had a lot of personality. aya and MC didnt have that same personality or energy but they had strong motives that influenced their decision making; MC wanted to understand what was happening with his world and why he was constantly having these nightmares, while aya was desperately trying to reunite herself with her family and friends. they both were driven by the truth and it was really interesting to see where that took them both. i would also consider MCs older brother and mutsuki as hits because they too were motivated characters and had a lot of stake in keeping the world a secret in order to maintain the status quo and to protect the "greater good" in a sense.
complete misses were the three woman who worked for city hall; they truly were just there as fan service. the old pervy man they also meet with the shotgun doesnt really add anything to the plot. mutsuki's older sister has no motivations or much of a personality. she really isnt even given much air time. there are the minions who roam the dystopian world controlled by mutsuki that dont have their existence explained. they are just random hoodlum, which im going to assume unconsciously represent looters and thugs that appeared post apocalypse to raid and pillage what was left of the resources. they added nothing.
with all of that being said though my ENJOYMENT was 7/10 simply because i liked the philosophical nature of the anime, the basic premise, and i was also able to suspend my disbelief to allow the plot to unfold the way that it did. when you acknowledge that MC spent a countless amount of time within his own mind, you can kind of excuse the weird or random things that have no explanation to view the story for what it is and what is represents. they tackle the age old debate of whether or not you should base sweeping decisions on pleasure or a select few or is it worth sacrificing one for the wellbeing of the group. it tackles the basic human question of "what is real" as well as debating whether or not its even worth taking the risk to leave the safety of your mind to venture into the unknown. it also tackles the distinction between familial/platonic love (between MC and tama) vs (im assuming) a more sexual or "adult" kind of partnership (between MC and aya).
