K Project might be the biggest letdown of an anime I've seen all year. It has some of the best OSTs I've heard in a series this year. The animation is gorgeous and the art direction in the first episode had a setup for a series that was going to be epic. So what the hell happened? To put it bluntly, how did such a captivating series become such an epic pile of crap?
Simply put, the story was all over the place and it all begins with the setup. The plot resolves Isana Yashiro who is falsely accused of killing a clansman of the Red King. He is hunted down by Yatogami Kuroh, the servant of the former Colorless King, HOMRA, the clansman of the Red King and SCEPTER4, the clansman of the Blue King. Isana is befriended by Yatogami in the process as well as a strange girl/cat named Neko, who we find out is a Strain. Together, they try and solve the mystery behind Yashiro's mistaken identity for a killer who claims to be the Colorless King, as well as find out his connection to the Silver King. Everybody got that? Good...because I sure as hell didn't. For one, who or what are the Kings? The series briefly describes them as seven people with special powers. When they release their power, an object appears in the sky called the Sword of Damocles. So what the hell is the Sword of Damocles? Gooooood question...because the series doesn't explain that either.
There's a clash between the Red and Blue clans during the early stages of this series because Munakata Reishi, the Blue King feels that another disaster will befall them because Mikoto Suoh's (The Red King) Sword of Damocles is in rough shape due to overusing his power. We get very little explanation or back story about the dangers of a king maintaining their Sword of Damocles so it is just another minor plot point that falls to the wayside due to poor development.
I found the ONLY thing this story did well in both explanation and in storytelling was the reveal of Adolph K. Weismann, the Silver King. Weismann was just about the only character that got any sort of development, albeit still not enough in the grand scheme of things. We learn that the Silver King is also known as the Immortal King...yet, we don't get an explanation as to WHY he's immortal. Or at the very least, the series doesn't do a very good job of explaining that detail. We also find out that there are 7 Kings in total, but it's unexplained who these Kings are, where they came from, and why they have these powers as well as why they can pass their powers down to clansman.
That leads me to my next point, this story just didn't develop it's characters...any of them. Apparently according to the plot, we should be invested in the battle between the Reds and the Blues. The conflict between Suoh and Munakata. Okay, can you at least tell us WHY? There are times when I wonder, is this story about Yashiro, or is it about Suoh? Or how about Yatogami Kuroh? We learn that he was a servant for the former Colorless King, Ichigen Miwa. And? That's it...for being the what would become best friend of the lead character for this series, we learn next to nothing about him...and don't get me started on this mess that is Yashiro's character. The explanation and back story behind his character is so fragmented and confusing that even when the series is completely said and done, I still don't know ANYTHING about his character.
Ultimately, it felt like the producers tried to tackle way too many issues in a 13 episode series. What it resulted in was a lot unresolved plot points and loosely knitted character development that fell apart at the seams because there were far too many characters to even try and develop. GoHands should've realized (and I use this analogy a lot) that sometimes, less is more. Give us a narrowed down, detailed look at each set of characters or clans. Give us a better explanation/back story to who or what the Kings are. This series MIGHT have worked in a 26 episode set...and I say that loosely. They still might not have been able to tie up all the loose ends in 26 episodes. All-in-all, considering the production budget behind this series, there was a lot to be desired by the time it was all said and done.
