The story focuses around young middle-school girl called Mirai (which is an interesting name in the contex of the story, since it translates into "future") and her younger brother. Due to her overworking parents, she has the one to take her brother for a visit in some kind of gallery away from her home, where the fatal accident in the title takes place. Briefly after the earthquake adult woman named Mari decides to help them return to their parents and so the trio starts on their way back, which is pretty much the theme of the entire series.
Now, this anime has only 11 episodes, though looking on what there is in the plot, and there is pretty much nothing but just going back home, it seems that the number is too big. The series has some side stories, but they are rather short and depth-lacking, like the one about guy who liked robots, cause they helped saving people.. Yes, he liked robots and it was just about him liking the robots. The entire episode of just him liking the robots. I'm not even kidding. The more you watch, the more you begin to wonder "what the hell did they fill the next x episodes with?". There is a little turn at the end of episode 8. It would be hard for me to explain the circumstances and what made me not like it without giving out much spoilers, so I will touch as generally as it is possible. The series ends with some kind of inception-like theme going on and the inception itself is a little bit confusing at the end, in a way that you're not completely sure if the plot won't take another twist or there would be a sudden moment of realisation that the girl was just having a bad dream all the time at the very end. This makes is hard for you to go along with the actual action and empathize with the characters. I realize that this story is made to be emotional and tear-jerking, yet I couldn't get the feeling that it was dragged on with a forced ending to it off my head.
For the visuals, there are just mediocre. I don't have much against the background, but I certainly didn't like the way characters were drawn. While Mirai is generally ok, but the boy with her looks plain bad, and the moments when he's supposed to smile resembles me of a parody rather then anything else. The voice isn't that bad, but it doesn't show off too much either. Opening is a bit anti-climatic, it makes you a bit excited and waiting to get in action, while the anime is extremely slow-paced. The ending on the other hand is just brilliant. I loved it and the way it fit with the show unlike the op so much, that I gave +1 score just for the ending theme.
In case of characters it is hard to say much, since there are only 3 of them and each is pretty much one-coloured. There is a handful of side characters, but most of them are as deep as the aforementioned robot guy, so let's just just ignire them for time-being. For the main trio, the one that I certainly didn't enjoy watching is once again the younger brother. He's just over-optimistic, family-loving, everyone-around-concerned-for etc etc child. Everyone he speaks, he merely says anything new or unexpected, and his voice is a bit annoying, when he says everything in a shouting manner. The only character I enjoyed looking at was Mirai, since she was kinda dynamic, turning from depressed, a bit rebellious teen into warm and sympathizing girl. I could sort of identify with her and experience her drama and that was the part of the show I greatly enjoyed.
As far as I'm concerned, this anime could be way more entertaining if they decided to give up on the inception theme. This would also make it shorter, cutting it possibly to 9-10 episodes, but it would also make the ending less confusing, so the viewer could actually enjoy the feeling of katharsis which comes with it. If it would be true, I would be actually willing to give this anime an 8 from the title, however it's not that simple and I'm a bit in two minds when it comes to judging it. On one side I like the overall theme of it and the character development of the main heroine, despite the fact that the anime feels over-extended and even boring, not to mention the confusion around the inception-like end theme. So to say: I liked it and I was bored with it at the same time. If you are looking for a catastrophical anime with high value of realism, as well as some personal drama going on, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 is a solid recommendation for you. Too bad I can't forget about it flaws, and thus it makes "only" 7.0 earthquake on my scale.
