Bland characters, lazy writing, cheap tricks, nonsense narrative, covered with over-the-top notch animation and production quality of A1 Pictures. This is the new norm for most of the released animes. But can these two save those four things I’ve mentioned? If you can turn your brain off, yes.
In these past few months or even before, we had this called, “Style over Substance” thing. Examples were Komi-san, Sono Bisque Doll, Spy x Boring, and I think you know those animes. But some animes are obviously incredibly stupid to watch. If I were to find another anime that has a similarity to Demon Slayer, I think it would be this.
Seriously, this has to be one of the dumbest anime in anime history, that I couldn’t take seriously. Under the beautiful and top notched animation, lies an infinite number of ridonkeylous points, that literally damaged my mind. I don’t know what makes this show “unique” and “appealing” for some viewers, but I rewatched it again as many times as I could. In the end, guess what I’ve found… NOTHING.
Of course, everyone will like this show. Great production quality, animation, VAs, sound, and most of all, girls. CGDCT is the main norm for most anime viewers, especially men. Oh, wait… This is an active one. Instead of Cute Girls Doing Cute Things, they are holding guns and shooting bad guys, just like John Wick. Crazy, right? You may think that this is a yuri bait show for real, and enjoyable to see. “THIS IS VERY ENJOYABLE AND THE BEST ANIME OF THE SEASON!” Let’s get real and snap back to reality.
Okay! Let’s do this shit!
The story is really just meh. It’s a mixture of cliché tropes and full of adorable girls holding guns. It’s refreshing as some others said, but in fact, it’s not that interesting. Mostly who are watching this are for yuri bait reactions. Seriously? Little girls with guns? Again? When did it become a norm exactly? And on top of that, there are unexpectedly shitty plot holes and ridonkeylous moments that I’ve lost count of. It’s a simple story that is full of predictable plotlines. A lot of dumb stuff, some being in the category of anime bullshit makes me sigh but I’m somewhat used to it. Some are a testament to bad writing and some that just plot holes, plain and simple. I failed to understand how it is so unconditionally loved, and why people defend it so vehemently.
==== Here comes the spoilers ====
In a very loud busting new Tokyo, where people live very close together. The people in that city couldn’t hear a loud fucking sound of unsuppressed gunfire 10 feet outside their house, by orphan teenagers carrying guns that fire plastic bullets for them to not kill people when they were trained to murder and end the lives of those who are a threat. That just sounds so stupid and contradicting. Those girls are trained to kill but they are using replica bullets, while the bad guys have the intention to kill them. The concept is to have a secret organization of school girls act as a counter-terror organization and prevent terrorist attacks BEFORE they even happen. Well… from the first episode, the agency had many reports that some of the members of the agency got caught by the bad guys. This seems that the SECRET AGENCY isn’t SECRET enough to be stealthy. Not just that, shootings all over the place, evidence, blown up buildings, and trains. These girls are suck at their jobs! And the leader of the organization, suspended one of the main characters because she disobeyed an order, while one of their member’s life was on the line. Wait… Are seriously gonna say that the reputation of the organization is more important than a human’s life? What the fuck, seriously? I didn’t know why their entire organization pitched as a low-key CIA. The whole goal was to allow people to live in peace if they think that there is no such thing as terrorists, simply say that a terror attack was an "accident". Okay, Okay… Can you explain how these 10 middle school teenage girls just fired an absolute amount of ammo and explosives like an army in the middle of millions and millions of people in the city? It’s an ACCIDENT, RIGHT???
I failed to understand how bullet dodging works in this show, but it’s stupid. Chisato is being shot by an AK47, and it can fire 600 rounds per minute in a fully automatic setting. If you apply logic, she could’ve dodged that in seconds. But damn! She can dodge all the bullets that are being fired at her like fucking Neo in The Fucking Matrix. How could she do that?! Not to mention, she can dodge it at close range! Can someone please explain to me how it fucking works?!
As for the people living in that city, it seemed that they didn’t hear a loud fucking sound of unsuppressed gunshots. Are you even sure that those people in Tokyo have ears or are just deaf? Episode 12 was the ridonkeylous fucked up of the show. People are being killed by themselves, or by the lycoris, there were other counter-terrorist agencies everywhere, and people were capable of seeing blood right in front of their eyes. But in just a second, the government (not sure) covered up the whole thing by promoting the Lycoris agency as an attraction. And by that, the terror from the people’s minds vanished just like that! WHAT THE FUCK? These people have to be a bunch of mindless ignorant I saw in my whole life.
While the military and police expert officials are being replaced by these idiots. How is the government are being accepted of this? Do you think those orphaned teenagers are experts enough to be replaced with the ones who can really do their jobs? Those people who were really trained by the pros in hand-to-hand combat, firing weapons, applying the military codes, and who can protect the country are being side-lined. Seriously? One of the girls from that organization was capable of shooting and hitting mid-air from 10 yards with a bone stock iron sight Glock. Are you seriously fucking kidding me?
Remember the part at the end of episode 11, when Majima is shooting at Chisato? Taking uses her bulletproof bag to block the bullets. She did that a lot and blocked a lot of bullets, but 1 bullet just knocks the bag out of her hand and it falls out of reach. The bullet didn't even hit her hand. The funny part is, she had not lost that bag there. She could've just blocked Yoshi's bullets in episode 12 when he was shooting Takina. I guess the writers realized this and decided that the best solution is, "She just loosened her grip on the bag and lost it, genius!". This is just lazy writing at its finest.
I failed to see the writers didn’t take these details seriously. I mean, guns and gun ranges are heavily real, and even the guns from shooting games are realistic. Oh, wait… Is that allowed in Japan? If it isn’t, I recommend utilizing the technology we have today. There are many videos on YouTube about guns from experts. It’s not that hard to do that shit, and yet those people couldn’t make a cohesive and believable gun show.
As for the characters, they are bland, very one-dimensional, and even predictable. Most of the characters are very annoying that are very painful to watch. Chisato is a terrible character. Remember in episode 6 when Takina told her that 4 members of the lycoris lost their lives? And then she said, "Takina is gonna live with me, yay!", and smiles as if nothing happened. But she always said that she values other people’s lives. She didn’t feel anything when her co-members died in a tragedy in her childhood. It’s like she didn’t give a fuck.
In episode 9, she just straight-up shoots at innocent civilians at a highway, making them lose control of their cars. What the fuck? Mizuki didn’t give a fuck about other people’s lives. I couldn’t believe that the reason she shot people was that she was sad. You couldn’t just endanger someone’s life, while the organization she’s being with is PROTECTING THE PEACE, COUNTRY, AND ITS PEOPLE. There are many valid points that she’s a bad character, but I’ll just end it here. At least her development was genuine… a bit.
Takina… Takina. She’s one of those characters that have no personality at all. She’s just an edgelord from the beginning, and because of one hug from Chisato, her ice-cold queen attitude was POOF! She’s been cold-blooded for a long time to her co-members, but her attitude couldn’t waver that easily. Her development lacked details and progress. Her character doesn’t feel human after all.
I think the least good characters here are the robot boy and Majima. They have chemistry together as partners in being bad guys. Majima is a straight-up twisted and evil protagonist, which made me curious about him. Robot Boy is the opposite of Majima, with a quirky and funny personality. The two of them made the villain side more intriguing.
In the end, the production quality doesn’t fix the massive flaws of this show. Underneath this colorful show, lies a satirical action full of obnoxious characters, bullshit situations, and plot holes. However, it could be fixed. Just fix the damn narrative with more sense, girls should be adults with adult mindsets, real gun fights, with real purpose and real-life limitations, and situations. I know the whole review sounds like I’m nitpicking, and many people who are enjoying this show make excuses that “this is anime, not real life”. But if it portrays realism, interactions, and purpose, I will not hesitate to judge.
Story: 3/10
Animation: 8/10
Characters: 3/10
Sound: 6/10
Entertainment factor: 3/10
Enjoyment: 3/10
Score: 4/10
PS: I'm being generous with my score LOL
