Nazotokine

Spoilers used to give more context. No puzzle spoils though.

Nazotokine is a half slice of life, half puzzles in a quiz world type Original Anime by Tengu Kobo which according to listings on MAL have only does this Anime and it's 'Sequel'. I watched it in 2016 for three episodes but never really bothered for some reason week to week. I thought the concept was interesting though. But thought as it's nearing the end of 2021 I'd finish off a few short anime.

Seeing it again from scratch the vibe of the puzzle world gave off a VR training room kind of look but instead of ... blue/black it's purple. As played a few puzzles games prior (Practical Intelligence Quotient though the puzzles are nothing like this game but the world gave off that vibe to me) to this it seemed similar.

The animation for the characters is ok, nothing special even the CGI in some places is noticeable. The designs are fine but I did get confused who was who as I felt that I was expecting the protagonist in the centre of the screen when they were on the left. Them being on the left wasn't a bad thing as the protaonist's friend was talking to other characters so it suited the scenes and the show doesn't just revolve around the protagonist during the slice of life moments but it did throw me off a few times.

The slice of life parts are more about our office lady protagonist that's an otaku but doing things in the office, going to the movies, onsen and other slice of life/typical things. It doesn't really give off too much of a Cute Girls Doing Cute Things type show just a slice of life with the puzzles every so often. With 5 puzzles in the entire show if I remember correctly. There is a bit of fan service with the onsen one but they aren't using it for much more than 'she just happened to appear in the puzzle world at that time' than a usual fan service excuse the way other shows do. I don't mind either way but it is noticeable.

As the protagonist wasn't phased or freaking out by the world jump the first time or isn't the other times it was surprising to see a character used to entertainment not freaking out from a weird dimensional jump. I swear I'm sick of characters so average they freak out because their normal life is so great. Nice to have a character that is aware and can take it. They aren't the most deep characters either but still it was a nice touch I appreciated. They even point out others that had been to the puzzle world freaked out and she wasn't.

During these puzzle moments that happen in particular locations she has to solve the word play like puzzles and a character (an alien pig/rabbit with sort of thing called Hacchin) that's there to tell her if she got the answer right, was close, what the time limit is or presents the puzzle is there.

Each puzzle is completely different. While each episode doesn't have a puzzle just the episode ending before the puzzle starts at times which can be annoying due to the 7 minute run time it doesn't seem too bad, the episode with the puzzles give you enough time and are not cut off at all even if quick for it's 5 or 6 minutes of actual content depending on the shortened 30 second or 1 minute 30 second intro it goes between sometimes. You get to see some interesting puzzles though, all increasing in difficulty and different concepts each time. The people that appear with her in the transition are usually there as hints and can't move in the dimension besides the protagonist and another character but I don't want to spoil that much. Some involving English words (not just the subs making it clear to the viewer) others more Japanese. Some involving shapes in particular ways others involving train station names. They are all really well done. Some you can kind of guess what they are going to point out next but others you need to wait for them to explain it at the end or during the thinking moments to really get what they are presenting to the viewer. I didn't find myself wanting to spend time thinking about it and more just getting through the episode but the solutions made sense by the end and they explain it well afterwards just encase for the viewer instead of leaving with what the character worked out or the viewer having to completely work it out themselves which the viewer can but it doesn't leave the viewer confused.

While it kind of feels like a quiz show it's not like a Lucky Star Quiz show scene type format, and more a jump in and out of a quiz solving round only in a dimension.


I'd say watch the show for the puzzles as they are easily the best part even for being the show's gimmick. The slice of life parts are fine but don't mean much and you will find the puzzle bits distracting if only focusing on that. The slice of life bits more so add extra as well as are a break/breather between puzzles or to show time passing between each puzzle encounter. There isn't much story, even each time the protagonist tries to get to the bottom of why she is here it doesn't want to reveal much at all. The 12th episode doesn't say much either so assuming it's sequel show explains things but otherwise even for not much story just having a concept like this is enjoyable in itself. Besides there is tons of slice of life shows to enjoy anyways but not as many shows doing a puzzle based dimension to my knowledge. I highly recommend it if wanting something different or for the puzzles. As 7 minutes each and 12 episodes should be able to get through it fairly quickly in a few hours.

So, Nazotokine. "An anime about puzzles". I was interested in this since it was announced, since I love puzzles and having an anime which focus uniquely in this was interesting enough. So as soon as it was available in crunchyroll, I watched it.

...aaand it was kind of a disappointment. First, there's the lenght of the episodes: only 7 minutes, minus ending and opening. That leaves us with 5 minutes of actual show at most. This makes the whole experience pretty lacking in content, but it also ruins the pacing, since Tokine doesn't even solve the puzzles in the same episode they're presented. Then there's the ... obvious lack of a budget. A lot of the art is static, there's a tooon of montages in the show instead of actually animated scenes, and some bad CGI here and there. And then the actual puzzles. They aren't bad; some were pretty smart, I thought, but they get solved extremely fast and doesn't give the viewer a chance to solve them himself. It doesn't help that most are in japanese, but I can't really blame that in the show.

It's not all bad, though. While the characters are nothing to write home about, I do like how they're all young adults working in a company and not highschool girls. That was a nice change of pace from the usual stuff you see. Tokine (the main girl), too, is really funny. The story is just there, but I honestly don't care, since it's just an excuse to get some puzzles on screen. The opening and ending were both really good, specially the opening. A nice detail I noticed is that during the ending of each episode, there's a similar puzzle (but different) to the one Tokine did in the episode for the viewer to solve.

Anyway. I seem to have talked way more about the bad than the good. So why am I giving it a 6, then? Am I being too generous because this anime so very specifically panders at my love for puzzles? There's a little bit of that, yeah. I'm also cutting it some slack because of the obvious production limitations it had. But all that aside, I did enjoy Nazotokine and I'd be excited for a 2nd season. It's a shame, though, Had this been a bigger project, I'm sure it would have been a lot better.

Rating: 3/10

One of the biggest issues is that the plot and the way characters act just make no sense. Oftentimes nonsensical things just seem to be normal to characters and don't require more examining. The puzzles themselves oftentimes don't make any sense either and I have no idea how the character draws conclusions sometimes. It feels like a very sloppily thrown-together show that someone with no concept of good storytelling wrote.

The characters are very bland and flat. The main character is so well-loved for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

The OST does not stand out at all (oftentimes it's some vocal song that's probably the ... ending theme?), and I found the opening theme to be bad, in terms of both vocals and how it matches the music.

The art is strange - character designs do not stand out, and some of the drawings (especially of muscular men) are really weird. Additionally, characters oftentimes have a really heavy outline and stare right at the camera when talking, so it seems like one of those visual novels/video games. This is further compounded with the contrast between the not-very-good CGI (?) background and the animated characters. There's also a ton of repetition in terms of reusing footage - which would be okay if it was a longer anime, but if 1/5 of each episode is the same footage (transforming sequence, Q-Stone sequence) then it gets bland really fast.

Overall, everything is just not good - story that makes absolutely no sense and characters act nonsensically, music and art do not stand out either (which sometimes, for me, are somewhat redeeming factors).