Occultic;Nine

A blog disproving the supernatural, co-run by NEET teenager Yuuta Gamon and his enthusiastic best friend Ryouka Narusawa, becomes the catalyst that would bring together a group of people who supposedly have nothing to do with each other.

These individuals include high school fortune teller Miyuu Aikawa, who joins Yuuta to work on the blog; realist Sarai Hashigami, who is stunned when tragedy strikes his family; doujin artist Ririka Nishizono, who has an uncanny ability to predict the future with her art; black magic practitioner and local curse expert Aria Kurenaino and her ghostly friend; Shun Moritsuka, a seemingly childish otaku detective; and reporter Touko Sumikaze.

As this unlikely group, bound only by the strings of fate, find their way to each other, they are confronted with murder and other events that are shrouded by the presence of the supernatural. They must band together to solve the mysteries interlacing the city and their lives.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Gamon, Yuuta Main

Kaji, Yuuki Japanese

Narusawa, Ryouka Main

Sakura, Ayane Japanese

Moritsuka, Shun Main

Kakihara, Tetsuya Japanese

Kurenaino, Aria Main

Sawashiro, Miyuki Japanese

Aikawa, Miyuu Main

Yoshida, Hitomi Japanese

Hashigami, Sarai Main

Ishikawa, Kaito Japanese

Kusakabe, Kiryuu Main

Taniyama, Kishou Japanese

Sumikaze, Touko Main

Itou, Shizuka Japanese

Nishizono, Ririka Main

Noto, Mamiko Japanese

Kisaki, Asuna Supporting

Akesaka, Satomi Japanese

Fukushima, Yuuichi Producer

Yokoyama, Shuko Producer

Ishikawa, Tatsuya Assistant Producer

Ishiguro, Kyouhei Director, Episode Director, Script, Storyboard

Reviews

Dec 24, 2016

FireEmblemIke24

Recommended

TLDR: Skip to final paragraph.

Water’s bottom, many people, drowning, giant cow-tits…transmission died.

Clearing out the elephant in the room. Nikola Tesla never had an illegitimate child as he was a virgin who devoted his love towards a peculiar pidgin. What if I told you he did father a child, and this child capable of being a poltergeist, has managed to possess someone all this time. Occultic;Nine is a show that explores the occult and probes into the spirit realm. The series scrutinises paranormal activities and tries to rationalise it in a scientific manner, hence tries to inform us that anything can be disproven my science. ...

Occultic;Nine had one of the worst opening episodes that I’ve experienced in a long time. The pacing was frenetic in the sense that it was uncontrolled and hard to follow. How on earth do you adapt a whole light novel volume into a single episode? The standard is usually 4 episodes per volume but this series is purposely shooting itself in the leg by having the nerve to do this. This series is a combination of the Tatami Galaxy and Durarara at its finest. The lightspeed dialogue combined with a relatively large cast has conceived a child in the form of Occultic;Nine. The child inherited some of the undesirable genes and turned out inferior to its parents. I’ll explain why.

The plot is pretty much focused on the detection of ghosts, material or not. Material ghosts are detectible with the latter being unrecognisable. Gamon Yuuta, our high school NEET runs a blog dedicated on the occult, only to find himself caught up in a crime scene. The murder of professor Hashigami, a leading researcher in the occult field, causes panic for our distressed main character who flees from the scene to avoid getting prosecuted. Good move there as Japan’s judicial system is seriously flawed.

The murder wasn’t the main incident of the show. An intentional mass suicide of 256 people in Inokashira lake sets the precedent for what entails later. The discovery of the corpses in the morgue reveals a shocking truth. The concept of being alive while looking at your own corpse seems alien to most folk. This sounds contradictory but bear with me as the show does explain the circumstances later down the road. The situation is that some of our main cast are alive without feeling dead, the idea of being conscious after parting with the material body can only be explained through science.

Now talking about the main cast, the series does switch around from person to person giving different perspectives. Our main character Gamon Yuuta is being instructed by a voice from a radio. This reliance on a tool indicates that he can’t get things done properly. I compare it to stabilisers on a bike, which is what this character is going through. He doesn’t have any independence and his actions are limited.

Narusawa Ryouka known as Ryo-tas by Gamon is a person whose physical traits defies the laws of motion. Her breasts are so unsightly, that every time she makes an appearance which is usually accompanied by a silly dance. She is literally known as the big-boobed girl who serves no purpose until later on where her character becomes the focus and not her melons.

Hashigami Sarai is the son of the murdered researcher and just like his father exhibits an extreme amount of intelligence which is not normal for his age. The knowledgeable Sarai is able to deduce problems and other riddles in the blink of an eye, which to me is just incredible. Geniuses exist but even then, he struggles on some occasions making it somewhat realistic.

Aikawa Miyuu is a high schooler who is extremely skilled in fortune telling. She has built up a reputation due to the fact of making correct predictions. She is a character for the audience to relate to as she doesn’t comprehend scientific jargon just like myself. Her quirk is surprisingly useful when it comes to putting the pieces together. These four characters are the most important to the series with others such as Minase Ria getting their own screen time but aren’t worth talking about.

The show is produced by A-1 animation, which in recent times has gotten quite some stick for churning out series like the Asterix War. The art style is a breath of fresh air with the character designs being relatively unique. The only downside is Ryo-tas whose has been fetishized with enormous breasts. No fricking way is it breast hypertrophy. The animation as expected from this studio is relatively good with most scenes being aesthetically pleasing and generally fluid. It would be a stain on the studio’s portfolio if it did have poor animation but I’m glad it met my expectations.

The sound is amazing and is composed by Yokoyama Masaru (Your Lie in April, Plastic Memories) with it just adding to my immersion to certain scenes. The mix of electronic and contemporary rock music through auto-tuned measures immediately catches my attention by sending a statement. The use of casual jazz music in the downbeat scenes is a good indicator for the tone shifts. Lastly, the music is great at setting up a creepy atmosphere with extensive use of fading in/out and selective piano compositions. The music used generally follows a certain tempo to match the timing of certain segments, this is useful for scene transitioning and makes for some good cinematography.

TLDR-
The first episodes annoyed me initially but this show manages to redeem itself as it goes on. The mystery regarding the incidents are cleared up in a way you wouldn’t expect. The plot twists cannot be understated with it being interlinked with events. They may not all have a direct relation but by following the lines you gradually see the bigger picture. I would definitely recommend this series for those willing to give it a few episodes. In food terms this is slow cooking, which is higher praised than the generic fast food shit.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Feb 3, 2017

Devroux

Mixed Feelings

At the start of each anime season I pick a few of the anime to watch weekly. Unfortunately, while Occultic;Nine was able to keep me interested since episode one, it wasn't good enough to keep watching weekly and I fell behind a great deal. Having recently finished it, I'm glad that I took the time to return and watch it. It's not something to be heralded as one of the greatest anime and personally I didn't even feel as if it's something I'll be recommending to other people, but I did thoroughly enjoy parts of it. There were a lot of things I had ... a problem with, but at the very least, the parts I enjoyed were enough to keep me going until I finished it.

To get it out of the way at the beginning, I harbor a personal bias towards the art style that Occultic;Nine and other similar anime use. The overly dark tone of colors is one thing that I can get over, the the various points of view that are used to view the characters and especially the fish eyed effect that is used sometimes is just not something that I can get over. The anime isn't being shot with a camera, the different points of view aren't necessary and are really brought in when they're not need; e.g. when the cast is sitting in Blue Moon talking to each other and you as the audience is placed on the other side of the room, seeing nothing but them in a corner of the screen. The shading used for their noses, or lack thereof, was also something I didn't really appreciate, but at that point I guess I'm just being nit picky towards the artist's (or artists') art style. Other than the issues I've stated, the rest of the art throughout the series isn't something I had a problem with. It was consistent throughout it and fairly smooth. Brownie points for the important scenes being both well lit and lacking of ridiculous points of view.

As far as the sounds go within the series, I don't have anything special to say about it. I'm not really the type of person to pay attention to the opening and ending songs, nor do I pay special attention to the music used within each individual episodes, so if it does stand out to me, I make sure to say something about it. In essence, the sound to the anime were fairly average.

While some might love the variations in characters that came together in this show, I will not be one of those people. Individually the characters weren't special in much of any way and when they came together as a group, didn't offer anything to each other to get attached to any of them. The reason I watched Occultic;Nine was not for the characters, as I felt that their significance was simply to act out the story in the same way a hammer drives a nail. Sarai was fairly hard to swallow. Usually he was brusque, but was able to flip a switch at a moments notice to a different personality setting. Miyuu and Moritsuka were the easiest characters to like. Miyuu didn't give much of an opportunity to hate her either, to be fair, but she wasn't normal and nice. Moritsuka talked way too much, but at the same time, he was just interesting. The biggest problem I had with the characters was with Gamotan himself, our main character. He was whiney, but in the next scene he'd be confident, and he really had a hard time having his own personality, instead settling down to be all of them. He did his job as the main character, but it wasn't enjoyable to watch him make the journey from episode one to episode twelve.

If there's any reason to watch this series, it's solely contained within the story itself. The events within the Occultic;Time world would take place without real connection to the main characters and they would be forced to play catch up. Over time it felt less as if the characters mattered, and more like they were just the group that got lucky enough to be the ones we'd be forced to watch. As I said above, the characters were more of a tool to act out the story. Every time you'd believe the characters were catching up and making progress, another event would be revealed that set them back and sent you reeling. The vast scale of the events kept me watching and the thought process of the people behind these events kept me interested. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the overall story. Each individual event was important and interesting, but the story as a whole didn't make much of an impact and the ending was lackluster to say the least.

Overall, Occultic;Nine isn't something that I'll really every recommend to anyone unless I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel of the genre. The points of view were not enjoyable, the characters were annoying or plain at best, and the plot in its entirety wasn't that entertaining. Watching the show is pretty much just done to see it all play out step-by-step, which is what made it interesting at all.

TL;DR: If you don't have anything else for the genre, watch it. Otherwise, don't bother.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jan 1, 2017

Smugdear

Not Recommended

Light novels have been a popular adaptation these days, there are dozens of anime that have been adapted from this. It has been one of the best solutions to decrease the over-dominance of manga in the past. It's a good strategy, though. But I should say that "adapting literature into an anime is not an easy work".

Why? Because the director has to adjust a hundred pages of story into a fit 24 minutes per episode in a limited one-cour (or two-cour if they lucky to have that time), with the same feeling & content of the literature itself. Many anime failed to bring ... this to the screen. And what I thought about Occultic; Nine is similar as I stated above. Occultic; Nine has failed to wrap both story and characters in its adaptation.

The story somewhat brings us into certain cases of death with many supernatural elements haunt them. The story tries to persuade us to see from a different perspective in supernatural things, the 'there is nothing that can't be proved by science' theme is actually a neat theme, in my opinion, it has its own noteworthy in my mind.

One thing that disturbs me is the pacing. After 8 years I watch Japanese anime, I've never seen a character talks like it has been fast forwarded 2x by a remote. It is really ruined the entire feels about the anime. I could see that sometimes I must rewind the minute bar in order to understand the story. Another cancer that this anime has is the ineffective information dumping. The story struggles to throw much information to make us more understand. But what we got is an enormous endless wave of information with fast forwarded dialogues and heavy feelings which make the story's full of plot holes.

I could honestly say that the ending is not so good at all. It felt really rushed and poorly wrapped episodes of calamity and ends with an all-happy cliche nonsense ending.

The animation is in the hand of one of the most prestigious studios in Japan, the A-1 Pictures. Is not that because I hate the story (or the studio), but the art itself failed to bring a meaningful contribution to the anime. It was poorly done, it just like the characters has been blended with the color of the background, like it has the same texture. It is really different from other works that the studio has done in the past, really less-colorable with dark colors has been the dominance.

Characters, from what I saw is also has been poorly-handed, especially our main character, Gamon Yuuta. It still follows a 'hero wannabe' stereotype character that hasn't have a single meaningful character development. Other characters are cookie cutter, almost seems to be random & feels a lack of originality. Villains felt one-dimensional, without having a single purpose on their actions. The problem is the anime was too busy to bring us it world building while abandoned the in-depth character development, which makes it more vulnerable.

The only fairly accepted elements is the sound settings. Both opening & ending are lovely to hear. While I can't say anything except 'disappointed' for the voice actors & their fast forwarded role. I never heard such character talks like that before.

While in some minutes, I found out that this anime actually succeed in bringing mystery elements, I felt the mystery thingy in my mind, thirst to make me wanted to know what's comes up next. While in some minutes, I felt the 'rushed' things is also annoying. In the same time, it makes you want to continue it or dropped it in a weird mixture of feelings.

In the end, watching Occultic; Nine is one of the worst ways to end a year. It is obviously not recommended if you seeks a deep sci-fi/mystery anime. It leads our mind to a desperate situation where you struggle to understand it but the story doesn't give you any chance to understands it, a total wasted potential because of a bad execution. It just another pitiful attempt to adapt a light novel.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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