What I liked about K is its boldness. It tries very hard and excels at looking cool. The characters fighting each other, the flames, smoke, and effects are all very nice to look at. I can really appreciate the time it took to animate this series. Most, if not all, of the characters talk in a over dramatic voice, you that deep, raspy voice? Yeah. That one. It does feature some pretty funny moments featuring the character called “Neko”, but they are few and do not make K a comedy by any stretch of the imagination. The best part of the story is the history lesson we are given half way through the series. So that should be somewhat telling.
What I did not like about K is the plot. It is slow, like molasses slow. Even though K is thirteen episodes long, everything seemed to take forever to happen. A lot of talking happened, with little to no forward movement. Maybe others will disagree with me on this point, but to me, there were whole episodes where nothing dramatic happened. For a thirteen run series, that just cannot be allowed to happen. A lot of the story centers around the Shiro-kun. A young lad suffering from amnesia. Who is he? What has he done? Can he prove his innocence? Kind of stuff. The story is also heavily centered around people with supernatural abilities, but the reason for why exactly they have the abilities is never given. May be this will be explained better in the second series (gulp), but if they only produced this one, then the audience would just be left with their own conjecture, and that is not good.
Who is K for? I suppose any one who enjoys watching the new stuff, like me. It also should appeal to those who like light fantasy to mid-weight fantasy in their anime. Although I suspect that the second series will be much heavier on the the fantastical elements. It is a lighthearted anime that is dressed up to look like some kind of heavy, high concept epic. But really, all you have is a child dressed in his dad's tuxedo. All the flash, but none of the cash. I thought K would have been something I would really like, but it turned out to be just another anime on my list.
