AnimeZone

This is a continuation of my thoughts from Part 1. I recommend you finish reading that before delving into this.

You can find part one here.

6. Mayonaka Punch

I've been waiting so long to talk about this one.

This is one of those entries in which I feel like most other people will accuse me of over-hyping this show, overpraising it and calling it “underrated” for no good reason, but I will stand my ground on this one.

Because, while I will admit that this is just a simple comedy that doesn't do much in terms of innovating the medium or tackling societal issues or debating heavy philosophical topics, I will argue that not every show needs to do those things.

Sometimes a good show can just be fun.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let's discuss the plot of the first episode, shall we?

Young adult Masaki Sonoue is a popular NewTuber and co-founder of the Hype-Girls NewTube channel, a small channel that has been growing for the past months and has managed to garner a significant amount of success.

However, one day, after raging out and physically punching another one of the girls of their channel in the face, a huge amount of backlash from the fans of the channel emerges against her, a public online scandal that devolves so much that Hype-Girls ends up kicking Masaki out of their group just to quell the online hate.

Abandoned by her channel collaborators who were also, incidentally, her friends, Masaki tries to start up her own channel to try to find success again. She tries recruiting new members for her team but has little luck doing so, as the online hate against her continues and nobody is willing to associate themselves with her anymore.

Meanwhile, at Bonpai Manor, a manor in a different part of the city, a pink haired vampire girl named Live awakens from a 20 year long slumber after having a conspicuous dream involving a strange girl.

Live meets up with Ichiko, another vampire living at that manor and who's also Live's assistant, who has been awake that whole time and has tended for the manor and doing all the tasks necessary to keep their family still together there while Live was in her deep slumber.

Ichiko gives some brief information about what has happened since Live went to sleep, while also revealing that, since she had started trading stocks to make more money, she ended up going into debt and now they are penniless.

While doing so, Ichiko accidentally reveals to Live an image of Masaki on a NewTube video thumbnail from a video feed that she had been scrolling. Live realizes from that picture that the girl from her strange dream was, in fact, Masaki, for some odd reason.

Later on, the girls at the manor very quickly run out of blood to drink, as Live has consumed almost all of the blood bags that they had in storage, to recover from her long sleep. Realizing that they will be needing more blood for sustenance, Live decides to visit a nearby hospital to find a new supply.

As nighttime arrives, by pure luck, Masaki arrives at the same hospital as well, since she was reminiscing how that abandoned hospital was where she had shot her first video with the girls from Hype-Girls.

Masaki was walking alone on the hallways of that hospital, remembering moments of when they had filmed their first video there, until she stumbles upon a room where Live was searching for blood in, the two meeting seemingly for the first time.

Live immediately recognizes her from her dream again and also senses the blood dripping from Masaki's nose (a nosebleed that Masaki had accidentally caused for herself a couple of minutes prior after hitting her head), the scent of Masaki's blood driving Live mad with hunger.

Realizing that she's in danger, Masaki makes a run for it, trying to get away from a desperate Live until she reaches the rooftop of the abandoned hospital.

Seeing no other way out, Masaki walks to the edge of the rooftop, threatening to jump off if Live doesn't leave her alone.

Live doesn't go along with her, though, and Masaki accidentally slips, beginning to fall off the building. However, in the nick of time, Live saves her using her flying powers.

Seeing how Masaki had calmed down, Live begins pulling her along as the two fly through the night sky above the city, amazing Masaki with the gorgeous view.

After the two settle down again, Masaki decides to make Live an offer: she will agree to allow Live to drink her blood, but only after Live helps her get 1 million views on her new NewTube channel. Seeing that vampires exist and witnessing their powers firsthand, Masaki is convinced that that's the surest way to popularity that she can achieve for growth.

Live agrees to her request.

That's the synopsis for episode 1.

Now, let's start by stating the obvious: I'm a sucker for night shots of cities in anime.

The scene with Live flying with Masaki in the air above the city during nighttime reminded me of the first episode of Call of the Night, also an anime about vampires. While this show wasn't as gorgeous as Call of the Night was, not even close, it did have the same feeling of alluring promise of fun and wonder, of excitement and sense of discovery.

Given that this show is an original work that came out only recently, it wouldn't surprise me if they took inspiration from Call of the Night's first episode as well. I'm not saying that they did, and even if I did say that, I wouldn't have any proof of it, but it's just a hunch from me.

Outside of that, I just liked the general feeling of the first episode.

It was giving me good vibes, the type of vibes you'd expect to see from a laid-back, nonsense type of comedy TV series that doesn't care much for rules and just wants to take you on a ride, as the viewer.

And boy, was it a wild ride. I loved this show to a fault. It was wacky, filled with slapstick, color, energy and fun.

But, surprisingly, it also had some deep moments as well. They weren't many, mind you, but they were there and the few that I did see gave me a nice surprise. The show has some relevant things it wanted to talk about and some nice life lessons to impart. Granted, none of the lessons are very original or mind blowing, but they are important nonetheless; lessons such as “confront the people you need to confront early on, otherwise you might regret waiting for too long”, “learn to cherish the simple things in life”, “appreciate your family” and “don't be mean to your friends” are somewhat cliched and had been brought up in many anime before this one as well, but I've found them to be organically meshed well into the episodes here and have had a deep emotional impact on me.

The fact that the show didn't need to include those lessons into its episodes at all, since the comedy was already very well done, but it did so anyway, went a long way for me to appreciate it for what it was.

And also, the fact that Masaki, the protagonist, is a violent unhindered bitch that lashes out at anyone that pisses her off was such a nice sight to see. In the medium of anime where most protagonists are sterile angels that are seldom selfish or even assholes at all, it's such a nice breath of fresh air to see someone as unhinged as Masaki was. Her flaws felt very relatable, and the fact that she also learned her lesson by the end of the show and grew a very tiny bit since the first episode didn't get lost on me either.

And this was another show that flourished in randomness, which made it very difficult for me to predict any of the plot twists that the episodes would take. Simply put, whenever a TV anime manages to make it difficult for me to predict where it's going is, by itself, a very nice surprise. I love it when I can't put together where an episode is going, and this show managed to achieve that almost all of the time.

Simply put, the show was unpredictable in the best of ways.

And the characters were just so fun. I loved every moment of seeing them onscreen interact with each other. This is another one of those shows where, if you take any two characters and put them alone in a room with each other, you would get a funny script that simply writes itself without much effort. I love it when characters are written like that.

My only complaint was that the very last twist of the very last episode was a bit predictable (as I saw who was the mastermind of that plot before it was revealed), contrary to what I said earlier, which kind of lessened the impact for me a little bit, but I was still satisfied with it.

The show was very much what I wanted to see. It's these shows that come to mind whenever I ask myself what is the poster child for “anime” as a genre: raw, unadulterated, chaotic and full of energy TV series that need to unleash onto you, the viewer, all their maddness, while also bringing you into their colorful unhinged world.

This is what, I feel, anime should be like: it takes full advantage of the medium of animation, while also relaying important information and deep life lessons on the side as a bonus. And it does that while having a distinguishing and unique personality as well.

This is what I want from anime.

I want another season of this show. I genuinely feel like this show deserves more and that there's potential for even more fun to be had with these characters.

If a new season never gets greenlit, I will be sad but it won't be the end of the world, as the season wrapped up most of the important loose ends that it had. But if a new season does get greenlit, I will be sure to watch it.

7. SHY (Season 2)

The SHY anime adaptation returns once again, in a brand new season on TV.

For those that are new here, just know that I've already covered the first season of this anime in my fall 2023 lineup blog post. You can read my thoughts on that season here, as I won't be repeating myself. If you want a TL;DR summary though, basically SHY is a Japanese manga that began being published in August of 2019 and is still ongoing as of the making of this blog post. It currently has 26 volumes and these opinions that I'm writing cover the manga's anime adaptation done by studio Eight Bit.

Specifically, this entry will describe my thoughts for the anime's second season.

To be frank, I wasn't very sure if this particular TV series was going to get a second season. Back when I finished watching its first one, I had my doubts that it would be popular enough to get one but, apparently, the studio decided to renew it.

This is interesting. Maybe they see the potential in superhero anime, as other TV shows like My Hero Academia highlighted how there's a large audience that the anime market can tap into; or maybe the manga is simply that popular in Japan, and there was high demand for a continuation of the anime.

Who knows?

The first season had a lot of potential, I will say, and I loved to see the story take dark and unsettling turns but also maintaining a sense of elegance and pride, never going too far with its sinister undertones and still trying to keep itself afloat with its lighthearted superhero theme.

This new season does the same, although the story didn't grab me as much this time around.

The plot here will focus on, believe it or not, the princess of a hidden ninja village named Ai Tennoji who ran away from her home after being sheltered for almost her entire life, in hopes of discovering and exploring the outside world on her own. She just so happens to meet up with Teru and Iko and immediately befriends them.

Ai is secretive about her village, though, and leaves out the true purpose for why she ventured into the outside world.

Amarariruku, in the meanwhile, will plan to take over the world using one of their new members, a strange and mysterious girl named Utsuro Karakururi.

I won't go into more detail, since I feel like that is unnecessary.

This new season has some good points, but also some weaker ones as well.

First things first, I will say, I feel like this show is still a very worthwhile watch.

One of the main highlights of this particular season is that circumstances will force Shy to take up a role of leadership for a rescue team, later on.

Teru, being very shy and socially awkward, will have to force herself to manage a team of other heroes and ensure the safety of others while in this mission.

I won't be trying to become too political in this, but I feel like this is the poster child for what a feminist anime should be like.

People generally take issues with Hollywood's implementation of feminist movies, very many arguing that it's too on-the-nose and loud in its messages, and I get that and I absolutely agree with this.

Anime, thankfully, has gone under the radar in these instances, mainly because, in my opinion, anime TV shows and movies are a bit more subtle in their political leanings and keep their affinities out of plain sight.

This show is no exception to that rule.

The show doesn't scream 'Girl power' every episode, nor does it shove in your face Teru's prowess as a perfect leader or abilities as a female superhero.

In fact, the show goes the exact opposite route and underlines her shortcomings and vulnerabilities all the time, but in a good way.

The point of the show is to present the protagonist's growth, both as a competent hero that saves others but also as just a human that needs to become functional in society.

Shy will have to learn to become a good leader. Sooner of later, she simply will have to become better at dealing with others and commanding forces to coordinate rescue efforts.

And this season puts her in that uncomfortable position, to force her to adapt.

Of course, she won't be alone, and she will have a team helping her along the way. Most of her other team members will also be female, which brings up my pointing out how this is mostly a feminist work.

But, like any good feminist piece should do, this season also shows cool moments with a couple of male characters as well, to complement its message. Characters like Ming Ming and Davie John will also get their spotlights, with John in particular appearing very cool and allowing us to finally get a glimpse into his powers.

The antagonists will also get their fair shake, with the introduction of Doki Baragaki, as well as the return of the joyful Kufufu.

And, finally, we will finally get to see Stigma's abilities in actual combat, assisted by a ghostly apparition of another Amarariruku member named Quabala.

Honestly, this show was a lot of fun.

The second thing about this new season that I wanted to point out, is how I like that we finally get new characters being shown in the spotlight. The old characters were absolutely fine, but I like how new arcs in TV shows sometimes decide to move the spotlight slightly away from the protagonist and onto new characters to bring in new elements and to spice things up.

Ai is a very fun character to show, and I was very fond of her personality.

But, as with the last time I talked about this show, there are some things I also dislike about it.

The most glaring issue I take with this show is its cheesy dialogue that constantly makes me think that this show was obviously geared towards a younger audience.

While I wouldn't say that the show is geared necessarily towards children under the age of 13 (although it's still accessible to them), my guess is that this is targeted towards teens, mostly to the female teen crowd even. The fact that wikipedia claims that the manga is Shōnen in nature (i.e. targeted towards teenage boys) feels a bit inaccurate to me. The reason I say that this is geared towards a younger audience is due to its cheesy cliched lines talking about one's “heart” and “purity”, filling the world with “love” and fulfilling “dreams”.

Then there's the boring anime cliches that are omnipresent everywhere, like how all the right people are there at the right moment to save someone, how someone has an long winded speech as they are about to die, how someone is struggling with deep regrets over their dark past, sorrowful and mourning over the road not taken.

And couple that with the happy-go-lucky ending that solved most of the problems and wrapped everything up as neatly as possible, and it felt somewhat too sterile.

Almost, although there was one aspect of the ending that at least tried to bring some sense of sourness to it which I cannot spoil. You'll have to see it for yourself to see what I mean.

Anyways, those are my thoughts on this show.

Would I watch another season of it? Honestly, yeah I would.

As cheesy as it is, it's still a fun and entertaining show nonetheless. This is exactly what I was hoping I would get if a continuation were to happen after the first season.

I genuinely am now interested in the saga of Amarariruku, and I wish to see Stigma's backstory as soon as possible.

This story has potential, it has interesting twists and fun yet relatable characters. I've never been much of a superhero anime fan but this show is rapidly changing that.

I am very much hoping that this will get the same treatment as My Hero Academia and continue being adapted for far longer, especially since there clearly is still a lot more manga to draw material from.

8. Pseudo Harem

You didn't think I'd have a full top 10 list without a harem anime sneaking its way in here somehow, did you?

Yes, this is a romantic comedy slice of life story in which the protagonist, a highly talented boy named Eiji Kitahama, is surrounded by a harem of exactly one girl. Confused yet?

The first episode shows us a first year high school student named Rin Nanakura who is walking around the school campus trying to find someone from the Drama Club.

She ends up meeting Eiji, a second year student at that school and, after hearing her desire to join the same club that he's already in, Eiji decides to pull a prank on Rin and pretends that he's currently the only member of said club, and that he's also the club president.

Rin is impressed and happy that she gets to work with him but, after they arrive at the Drama Club room, she realizes that he had pranked her when seeing how the room is full of other people and the actual club president (who actually isn't Eiji) welcomes her.

Later on, during PE class, Eiji confides in Rin while they are on the side talking to each other that he has always wanted to have a harem of girls that would be interested in him but is sad that he has no one like that.

Rin, realizing how sad he is, playfully decides to try out her acting skills (since she has always wanted to become a famous actress) and creates fake personas for herself, personas of girls that would actually be romantically interested in Eiji.

The fake characters she creates are Cool-chan (a girl who's always calm and calculated), Impish-chan (an outgoing girl that likes to tease him all the time) and Spoiled-chan (a little sister-esque character that constantly wants to be spoiled by Eiji). All of these characters are forthcoming and Rin makes it a point to play them as if they are interested in Eiji and are part of his personal harem.

Eiji is very much happy with this development (as well as impressed by Rin's acting skills), to the point where he gets a bit too much into it.

After that point, Rin will constantly switch personalities between herself and one of those girls to play around with Eiji, while also developing feelings for him in real life as well.

That's the gist of episode 1.

Yeah, the premise is very simple and straightforward. Honestly, I was expecting for the whole Rin using fake personalities to get across to Eiji that she likes him gag to get old very quickly but, surprisingly, it didn't.

The whole show is just a series of jokes about how Rin and Eiji are somewhere alone in a room, they talk about their current lives, and then Rin gets the idea of using one of her personalities to tease Eiji in one way or another.

The show likes to have fun with itself, and I can respect that.

It was getting a bit boring, seeing how Rin would almost always confess to Eiji but when he realizes what she's trying to say, she gets very embarrassed and backtracks by switching to one of her fake personas and pretending like it was one of them that did the confession instead, playing it off as a joke.

But thankfully the story doesn't do just that, and it eventually evolves the romance, as time goes on.

Seeing the characters like to spend time together, laugh together, act together, even participate in plays together and, eventually, kiss and confess to one another, reminded me why I like watching romance anime in the first place.

After such a long time of watching romance anime where the relationships are very much stagnant or evolve at a glacial pace (I'm looking at you Spice and Wolf) this was such a nice breath of fresh air.

In fact, I would even go so far as to say that this is a prime example of how I genuinely wish a slice of life high school romance love story would be done in anime: have two main characters that are semi-interesting and not complete stick figures, have them have great chemistry together, have them gradually grow and develop feelings with each other, sometimes teasing and joking about it but never completely discarding that idea and, eventually, have them realize their feelings and act upon them.

This is such a simple and mind numbingly straightforward formula to follow, yet for some reason so many anime seem to fail at it one way or another.

This one just follows that formula, without innovating or doing much to change it but, still, having a personality and style of its own.

And you know what? It worked.

Sure, the first couple of episodes, where the main characters weren't yet sure of their feelings, were a bit boring and slow but it picked up the pace as it went along.

By the time the show ended, and I saw the characters and where they ended up being, after the long journey from episode 1 to what became of them now, it felt like such a treat.

And this is also a nice example of how to do a romance anime without even needing to involve sex or fan-service in the story at all. You don't need that, a story can remain pure and family friendly and still be impactful, as this show highlights.

Not only that but the show also introduced some excellent drama towards the end as well, with a very important decision to make in which Rin had to make on whether she wanted to continue a relationship with Eiji or if she should follow a proper acting career and part ways with him, as that had been her dream all along.

I won't say how they solved that dilemma but, what I will say is that I was very much satisfied with the conclusion of that arc.

Overall, this was an excellent experience. I could talk about everything I liked about this show but, really, the only thing that I genuinely think needs to be said is just “Go watch it!”.

There are very few reasons why you might dislike this show and I feel, generally speaking at least, most people would like it unless, for whatever reason, you genuinely hate slice of life romance stories.

I doubt this will ever get a second season, since pretty much everything got wrapped up pretty nicely and I don't think there's anything else left to say. If a new season does get announced, though, I'd be sure to pick it up again without any hesitation.

9. Love Is Indivisible by Twins

This was another entry in which I had high hopes for. On the outset, this looked like a very interesting idea that I haven't seen done for quite a while (the last anime with a premise similar to this that I watched would be kiss×sis). Thankfully this show treats the characters and plot more seriously than kiss×sis did, though.

Episode 1 shows us the life of a young boy named Jun Shirosaki. He and his parents move into a new neighborhood when he is a young child and there he gets to meet their new neighbors: the Jingūji family. While doing so, he gets to interact with the two daughters in said family, Naori and Rumi Jingūji, two girls that are fraternal twins.

Given that he shares an interest in reading, like the way Naori does, he immediately hits it off with the twins and they quickly become close friends.

Naori and Rumi look very close to each other, but their personalities couldn't be any more different: Naori is a nerdy girl that's the top of her class, has a high affinity towards reading and being an otaku geek, and has a very devious and feminine side whereas Rumi is a tomboy that likes sports and playing basketball, is quite shy and very cautious but likes making friends all the time. Still, the two love each other as siblings and they try to keep a cordial sibling relationship with each other.

Fast forward to the end of their middle school and Rumi decides to confess to Jun, asking him to date her, despite knowing that Naori also has romantic feelings for him.

Jun is taken back by this but, reluctantly, he agrees to go forward with this and he and Rumi become a couple.

However, at Rumi's insistence, the two keep their relationship a secret from everyone else to not attract unwanted attention, the only exception being Naori, who Rumi confides in.

They all enter the same high school, Rumi joining the basketball club while Naomi simply spends her days with her best friend and Jun tries to maintain a healthy balance between his studies and his secret relationship with Rumi.

But, one fateful day, while talking alone to each other, Rumi reveals to Jun that she wishes to end their relationship abruptly, which comes as a complete shock to him.

Jun is shaken by her inexplicable desire to part ways with him but, knowing that he doesn't really have any choice in the matter, begrudgingly accepts the new state of affairs, choosing to still continue being friends with Rumi nonetheless and watch over her from the shadows.

So, just as suddenly as it started, Jun and Rumi's relationship comes to an end.

Naori is surprised to learn from her sister that Rumi decided to severe romantic ties with Jun, but still goes ahead trying to be supportive of her. Deep down, Naori suspects what the reason for the end of their relationship could be.

So ends the first episode.

So, to cut to the chase, this is another high school slice of life teen romance story.

I've seen other stories that have a similar premise before, although I will say that the way this show told its story felt surprisingly fresh to me, nonetheless.

The way the family drama is done in this show reminded me of a similar anime called Domestic Girlfriend, back from 2019.

Also, the fact that this anime is based off of a light novel series is blatantly obvious here as all the episodes are filled with so much quirky dialogue between the characters that it's very clear that the conversations are the focus of everything.

My general thoughts of this show are that I actually really like it.

Setting aside the cliched premise of two sisters that are close to each other but are forced into an unpleasant rivalry to get the attention of the same man, I liked the execution of the drama.

And while, technically, this is a romance anime, it hitting all the beats that a romance would take, at its core, this is pretty much just a teen drama.

There were times when I said that I'd gotten bored by slice of life teen dramas and that I would never watch them again but, even so, I would always change my mind and decide to continue watching them anyways.

Some teen romantic dramas I like and others I hate for being too boring and realistic. This was one of those instances where I actually liked the execution, thankfully.

A big reason for this is the dialogue between the characters. This, in my opinion, is the perfect example of what realistic human dialogue looks like: it's long, filled with unnecessary trivia and pop culture references but also filled with personality and quirkiness; this is especially true for instances where the people speaking are teens.

Moreover, another big reason I loved this show is the realistic sibling relationship between the twins. Naori and Rumi are constantly at odds with one another, while still trying their best to be courteous and supportive and allow breathing room for each other, avoiding being overbearing.

And, even when it becomes very clear that they both have feelings for Jun, they do their best at trying to not allow their jealousy for the same boy get in the way of their own relationship to each other.

Personally I found that to be a unique but also very realistic way of handling these issues.

And while things do eventually escalate to a serious fight between the two, it never goes too far and the conflict only goes to show the humanity that these girls have and how their struggles are very real and relatable, which made me sympathize with them.

However, with that said, there are issues that I also have with this show.

For one, I've come to really hate Jun.

The show tries to pass him off as a simple and earnest guy that's trying to build a life for himself but he really ticked me off towards the end, when it became obvious that all of the drama in this show eventually is caused by his indecisiveness. Yeah, this is another one of those anime that likes to bring about a romantic triangle with only one guy in it, where the guy cannot pick which girl he wants to end up with.

Harem anime are notorious for always leaving things ambiguous towards the end, which sometimes is done right, but a lot of other times it just pisses me off because it's too scared to pick one pairing to finish off with.

With romantic triangles, this is even more of an issue, simply because the realistic and relatable human characters that are the focus of the story make it even more painful for me, as a viewer, especially when the protagonist says that he can't choose only one of them. I get that sometimes it's unfair to make a choice, but this show makes a good point how not making a final commitment can sometimes be worse than making one that's unpopular.

The ending felt so disingenuous and whatever-ish that it felt very unsatisfying.

I genuinely feel like taking your time to make a proper choice is, most of the times, a good thing, but that can only go so far before it becomes ridiculous. This genuinely became almost ridiculous towards the end, how non-committal it wanted to be and how long it was taking for Jun to make a decision (spoilers: he still doesn't make one by the end of this first season).

But alas, it is what it is.

Would I watch another season of this show if it was to ever air?

Yeah, I would.

I enjoy watching these characters, seeing how vibrant and full of energy they are, seeing them interact and work off of each other and, especially, I want to see more drama between Jun and the girls.

Also, I want to see the girls continue to slap Jun every chance that they get, because I do feel that he very much deserves it.

10. Tasūketsu: Fate of the Majority

And we now arrive at this entry.

Before I begin, I just wish to state that this is my review of the first ten episodes of the anime, as those are the only ones I have watched. I have not watched any episodes beyond the first ten (the first eleven, actually, but the eleventh episode is mostly a recap episode, so I don't think it counts). Please be aware of that.

This one's going to be probably another one where I see a lot of people disagreeing with me, especially the fans of this show.

I have some stuff to say about this particular TV series, but I'll start by describing the plot of the first episode for now.

Young teen Saneatsu Narita is a regular high school student that's trying to live his time alone, with his father working overseas and his mother gone from his life.

He's a particularly intelligent individual that is quite adaptable and clever but is not very good with using computers.

One day, at school during computer science class, he sees his computer screen light up with a strange text being displayed on it saying “You can read this message” (I don't remember the exact text from that episode but it was something along those lines).

Saneatsu finds that message strange but ignores it and moves on with his life.

The next day, Saneatsu realizes that something is off when the TV doesn't seem to work at all for no apparent reason.

Before heading to school, he decides to visit his best friend's house, to pick him up as well so that they can go together, only to notice that he was dead in his own home.

Saneatsu panics, unsure what was happening, only to then receive a phone call from a classmate informing him of what's going on and asking him to come to school.

He does so and there he meets up with other students, a group of survivors that were all sharing their stories of what had happened that day to each other. Apparently, they had all woken up to the sight of their families and friends dead in their own homes that morning. The cause of death is unknown, since they all seemed to have died out of the blue. In fact, the majority of the city's population had seemingly died this way, to the point that there were no emergency services to rely on, no authority to declare a state of emergency nor anyone to help them at all.

As they discuss further what was going on, they discover that all the people in that room had one thing in common: they had all seen that same ominous screen at one point the previous day, the same weird screen that Saneatsu had seen during computer science class.

But just as they were thinking that, the laptop that they had running in that room turns on out of the blue as well, with a new message being shown on the screen: “You live in Tokyo”.

Suspecting that these strange messages on computers might be behind the sudden deaths of other people, everyone in that room pay close attention to that message, although they don't know what to do about it.

The next day, all the remaining survivors gather at school once again, in the same room, to discuss what they should do next again.

But, as they gather up again, they discover that even more among them had gone missing (most likely have died). This time around, even the phone network has gone down as well, so now they can't even get in touch with each other by mobile phone if they ever decide to split up.

When assessing who was missing, they soon come to the conclusion that those that have gone missing since the previous day were people that did not live in Tokyo (again, obviously having something to do with the ominous computer message they had seen the previous day).

Seeing how they cannot contact anyone by phone anymore and how there's no TV, they start verifying what little resources they have left: electricity still seems to be running, there's also clean water still running and the radio still seems to work.

But as they try to make a plan of action, a new broadcast is made through all the computer systems everywhere across the city, in which a digitally modified voice begins speaking. The voice calls itself the Emperor, and it claims that the testing phase of his game has completed.

The voice then proceeds to describe the game that he is talking about: Tasūketsu, a death game in which all the remaining survivors living in Tokyo have to find a specific postbox or a specific laptop hidden in a designated area of the city every day. A new designated area gets chosen each day. If a postbox or a laptop is found by a player, that player can then use it to submit a question of their choice that may only have one of two answers, to the Emperor.

If no valid questions are submitted that day, the Emperor will choose a random question from among a list of his own instead.

At the end of each day, at midnight, the chosen question will be displayed on computer screens across the whole city, and all the players whose answer to said question would be the majority answer among the two options, will die, thus shrinking the group of survivors each day by at least half.

In order to survive, the Emperor told them that there are envelopes scattered across the city which, when opened, will confer whoever opened them supernatural powers called Rights and Prime Rights.

Prime Rights are more powerful than Rights but, in order to accept them, whoever wants to acquire them will end up sacrificing a random part of their bodies in exchange.

Once a user has already received a Right or a Prime Right, he may not receive another one.

Finally, the last survivor standing will get the privilege of meeting with the Emperor face to face.

Then, the broadcast ends, and the designated area for the next day is displayed.

Seeing no other way of surviving, everyone there agree to cooperate with each other so that they can improve their chances of survival.

However, the next day, after finding a gun, one of the survivors begins threatening the others and taking matters into his own hands, which prompts everyone to flee by car and leave him behind.

Saneatsu, while searching for a postbox or a laptop, finds an envelope with a Right in it but decides putting off opening it for now.

Instead, he asks another survivor from their group, a young girl around his age called Saaya, who is their leader now, to have a private conversation with him.

Saneatsu tells Saaya that, since she's their group's leader, he will confide in her that he intends to kill the Emperor.

Saaya agrees with his reasoning, saying that she'll do everything in her power to support him.

For now, though, they will need to participate in the game just so they can ensure their own survival.

As they bond with each other by taking a selfie, later that day, it's revealed that the question that had been submitted to the Emperor was “Male or Female”.

Seeing how one of them is now bound to die by midnight, Saneatsu and Saaya decide to promise to each other that, whoever will get to survive, they will do their best to kill the Emperor to stop this madness.

Midnight arrives and the entire male population of survivors, including Saneatsu, collapse to the ground all of a sudden, dead.

Saaya cries in silence as she hardens her resolve to get her revenge on the Emperor.

So ends episode 1.

OK so, that's the gist of things.

Basically, you've got a death game in which survivors post a selection criteria with only two answers, and the players who end up in the category with the majority answer will die.

That's pretty much it.

Who the Emperor is is shrouded in mystery, as nobody really knows.

The Rights and Prime Rights system is quite interesting.

Various survivors will end up with various supernatural powers, such as the power to divide anything into slices, the power to turn body parts into weapons, the power to turn inanimate objects into dolls that do their controller's bidding etc.

Honestly, the idea is quite cool.

The premise itself is not half bad, and I really like the potential that such a setup has.

Sadly, this is where all the nice things I have to say about this show end.

The synopsis of episode 1, which I just described to you, may make it sound like a genuinely interesting plot with very many twists and turns that might seem very compelling, at first glance. Trust me, I thought the same after watching that episode.

It looked so cool and interesting that I was hyped to see more.

But then, as more and more episodes came out, and as I watched one after another, I soon began to realize one crucial flaw with the show: the fact that it's very boring.

This particular show has a very good setup, with a highly interesting premise. The problem with this plot, though, is its lackluster execution.

The way the story is written, it feels like it was a deliberate choice from the author to make the beginning to be so compelling and interesting, just to attract a lot of newcomers to the story. But as the plot evolves, you soon realize that there's not much more it has to offer, beyond an interesting beginning.

My main gripe with the show is that it's constantly about strategizing. That's it. That's what all the characters do in this show: they talk a lot and they strategize at each and every corner, whenever a new piece of information is revealed. That's all they do.

With a premise like this one, you'd expect for there to be a lot of action, a lot of cool fights using supernatural powers and inventive techniques.

But really, that's just wishful thinking. There is very little action in this anime, with the very few fights that there were in the first 10 episodes being very dull, short and unimpressive.

In fact, I, for the life of me, cannot recall any action sequence from this anime, despite me having just finished watching its first 10 episodes. The fact that it had such little impact on me is very concerning.

Most of the conflicts in this show are resolved by simply talking. That's it. It's just talking. All they do is talk things over. Even when it's with an enemy or an obvious threat, they either talk it out to reach a common consensus or they just run away. That's how most of the conflict resolution works in this show, at least until the tenth episode when they deal with the Emperor.

Some might say that that's the realistic approach, as most human conflicts in real life resolve through talking most of the time, but I will argue that realism isn't always a good thing. In fact, realism is usually a very bad thing, especially in fiction where the entire purpose of it is to escape reality in the first place.

I don't want realism in a show where the characters acquire supernatural powers. I want epic fights. And this show did not deliver on that front.

Strategizing might also seem like a good approach to take with a premise like this, since I believe that there are many people that like stories with a sophisticated plot where you have to follow the plans of the main cast, but even that doesn't really work here. The issue is that a lot of rules of the game are hidden, with Prime Rights allowing players to change the rules of the game at their will, when they want to.

This pretty much means that the author of this story can pull out anything out of their ass whenever they feel like it, and use the It's a Prime Right so anything is allowed card as an excuse. I don't want to get into specific examples, since that will bring about spoilers, but I will say that using this rule, even death was reversed at one point, which nullifies any impact that dying has in this show (which is a problem when the entire selling point is this being a DEATH GAME).

And the characters are genuinely so one-dimensional as well.

Saneatsu has no real personality, outside of being intelligent. That's his whole personality, besides wanting to stop the Emperor. That's what defines him.

His friends aren't much better, all of them being generic characters that are one-note and bring little to the table.

The only good thing I can say about this anime that genuinely entertained me were the last couple of episodes that led up to Saneatsu's team confronting and eventually defeating the Emperor.

That last confrontation, as well as Saneatsu's plan, were well thought out, although a bit fragile as well. That plan seemed to rely on a lot of things being just in the right place at the right time for it to work. If anything was misplaced or mistimed in any way, it feels like it wouldn't have worked at all. The fact that everything lined up just right at the end felt a bit convenient but, honestly, I was so glad the show ended that I didn't care anymore.

But wait! Did I say ended?

Funny you say that. Because, after the tenth episode ended, I was pretty much certain I was done with this show.

But then, next week came, and I soon realized that the show continued to be updated on Crunchyroll. And, to my horror, I saw another eleventh episode being added. Horrified, I went ahead to watch it, only to discover that it was a recap episode.

Yes, this means that the show wasn't close to an end. There were still more episodes to come into the future.

The show decided that ending it at the point where the antagonist was defeated wasn't good enough for a finale, so it said Let's add more to the story by adding new characters and a new antagonist as well in the most contrived artificial fake-out of an ending I have ever seen.

Why, oh why do you torture me so, show?

I'm just....done. That's all I have to say. I'm so done with this BS.

The fake-out ending that it had, while contrived and not very satisfying, was a good point to call it quits. Why prolong it any further than that? I haven't seen a show so desperate to pull the curtain at the last second and shout But wait! There's MOOOOREEE like that since the Code Geass anime ended its first season.

Like, why are you doing this?! Who are you trying to impress?

If it's me the show was doing this for, I'll tell you one thing: I wasn't impressed. In fact, I quit watching this show entirely after episode eleventh.

Had this show ended at the tenth episode, I would have said that it was serviceable (not good but serviceable). Now, I cannot even say that.

I'm sure fans will say that this is the point from which it gets better (and, for all I know, they might be right), but I don't care anymore. If the first half of a show is crap, I see no reason to keep watching it just in the hopes that it might get better. If you want me to spend my time on you, you have to earn it, and this show didn't.

After watching the first episode, I went to Wikipedia, only to discover that this anime is actually an adaptation of a manga that's been around since September of 2013. At first, I was very surprised by this discovery, and I was asking myself what took it so long to get an anime adaptation, after more than a decade later.

But now, after watching the first ten episodes, I now see why. This makes too much sense to me, now.

This is a manga series and it makes sense that the manga author would try to prolong this story to infinitum. After all, this is how the guy makes a living for himself. So I can see how he'd stretch the story as much as possible, to keep earning money from sells of his manga.

My only issue with that is, though, that if this was indeed the work of a manga story that keeps getting stretched and elongated continuously, then the execution really needed to be better, to entice me to keep watching. Long running anime series that are adaptations from manga do exist, and they are for manga that have been longer running than this one has. Obvious examples include One Piece and Naruto, who everyone know quite well, although you can point to many others as well if you want to.

The point is, those other series did a better job at managing an interesting story and keeping the readers invested. This one didn't do that for me.

I've rambled enough. I'm done with this show.

This is the very first time since I've began covering anime TV series in this blog that I ended up dropping a show. I genuinely avoid dropping TV shows because I think it's in poor taste to do so.

However, I just couldn't force myself to go through with this one. In fact, it was an effort to even get to the tenth episode and not drop it earlier. The fact that the show decided it wanted to keep on going after that while using a fake-out ending no less, felt like a spit in the face to me. I just couldn't take it.

So yeah, I didn't finish this one, nor do I plan on doing so. I don't care if it's unprofessional of me to write about a TV show without finishing it. To me, the show itself was unprofessional even for existing. So no, I have no regrets.