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Mekakucity Actors Overall Review

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Dr-J33

Published: Jun 28, 2014

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Now that the show is over, its time for my final overall review of the series.

I'll start with the animation. At first the animation and the art style looked a little off to me, but eventually it grew on me. Its a bit too similar to Momogatari though (I didnt realize this before because I had not seen any footage from that show at the time, but now that I have I can see the resemblance). One thing that slightly bothered me was all the posing. For characters like Momo, the posing fits, but when you have characters like Kido and Ayano posing, its kind of out of character. And some of those head tilts were out of place sometimes.

Backgrounds are visually appealing, and trippy at the same time. In some instances this is good, such as with the surreal neverending world, but other times its kind of odd and somewhat out of place, such as Shintaro's room and the underground lab.

The Characters are portrayed well, which is good for a series like this where most of its charm comes from the characters and their relationships with eachother. The voice actors all seem to fit with the exception of Konoha and Haruka's voice actor. I know that their voice actor is kind of famous (voicing characters like Death the kid and Rikku) but honestly I expected more of an emotionless voice coming from Konoha as opposed to the childlike vibe the Va went fir. And when he was voicing Haruka.....I'll be honest...... He sounded like some kind of japanese Kermit the frog (DONT HURT ME). The Voice actor did however do a very good job with the Wide eyed snake's voice.

In terms of the plot the show struggled at times. Some things present in the other adaptations were not put in the show, such as most of the funny scenes and the monologues from Yuukei Yesterday and Headphone actor. It felt like the show didn't have enough time to cover most of the material from the songs, and not just because it only had 12 episodes. There were scenes in the show that funny as they were, ate up too much of an episode's runtime, the scene between Momo and Kenjirou in episode 2 for example. It was funny, but at the same time it dragged on for way too long, taking away time that could have been used elsewhere in the episode. The running length of a show should not hinder the story if used properly. I have seen shows like Love Chuunibyio and other Delusions tell a good story in 13 episodes, heck Black Rock Shooter only needed eight episodes to tell a great story. But at the same time this show did in fact need more than 12 episodes. Kagerou project has a large story that should have had at least 24 episodes to tell it's story.

One of the things Mekakucity Actors did best was the music. The background tracks are fitting to the moods of the scenes, and the insert song covers were all well done for the most part. The only way the covers could have been done better would be if Lia herself sung all of them (but budgets I guess....).

The Opening song might just be one of my favorite things about the show, not only is Daze the best Op song this spring (in my opinion), but the opening itself showcased all of the characters well. In my opinion and Opening should introduce the characters, and hype the viewer for the show. This does both of these pretty well. If only they used this opening more. The Ending song was alright, but I'm not into sad songs like Days. In terms of the ed animation, my biggest complaint is that Hiyori is the focus. Hiyori only speaks for one episode, durring which she is mean, rude, and the opposite of everything the ED stood for. I feel that Azami would have been a much better focus.

And speaking of Azami, I should address the little monster segments. After the credits for most of the episodes, theres a short play-like video detailing the story of a little monster, Azami. This serves to explain the origins of the never-ending world, and eventually connects with the main story in episode nine. I like these segments. Given the short running length of the show, putting all this background information into a show is difficult, but these segments manage to provide this background information in a way that is artistic, creative, and mysterious at the same time.

The show deviated from the source material in various ways, one being the portrayal of Ayano in the first half. For the first half Ayano is mysterious, and gives off a vibe that implies her to be the antagonist, making Ayano a red herring was in my opinion a good choice, it adds an unexpected plot twist for the newer viewers. Its almost like the reverse of what Madoka Magica did. Other things the show did well was expanding on some of the other Dan members, such as Momo and Hibyia. Although not everything the show did was good. They didnt even mention what Haruka and Takane's illnesses were. This makes the scene in ep7 where Takane collapses somewhat confusing, as he had barely any indication that she was Narcoleptic.

The show has a problem of showing things happening, but not explaining them until about two episodes later. Scenes like Takane recieving her snake (which has virtually no audio whatsoever) and The Kagerou Daze scene from episode make very little sense for quite awhile unless you have background knowledge of the series. Its mostly show, but little tell.

Heck, I think this anime was mostly for the fans, who have all this background knowledge of the series to begin with.

The biggest problem with the show might be the people making it. It feels like Shaft didn't put allot of effort into the show, the budget seemed to be lower than some other shows, it only had 12 episodes, and don't get me started on episode 9's opening. In fact, I believe that the primary reason Shaft made this show was because Jin already had connections there. Jin had worked on the ending song to Momogatari's second season, hence the decision for Shaft. I feel that a different studio would have been a better choice, one with a larger budget that would allow for more episodes.

In the end Mekakucity Actors is a good show, and one of the two shows that I did not put off watching along with Jojo's Bizzare Adventure. Another studio could have done a better job in my opinion, but I enjoyed watching this show every week (except the episode 9 opening, that I want to forget)