16bit Sensation: Another Layer

Konoha Akisato's love for bishoujo games—a type of entertainment focused on interactions with beautiful girls—has always nurtured her aspiration of becoming a popular artist. However, as Konoha secures her first job as a sub-illustrator at the game company Blue Bell, she confronts the harsh reality surrounding her favorite genre. In 2023, the bishoujo game industry is overrun with cheap, repetitive, and low-effort releases, with Blue Bell at the core of the problem.

After stumbling upon a vintage game store and reminiscing about the impressive titles of the past, Konoha suddenly winds up in the year 1992—just as the bishoujo game industry was beginning to flourish. Konoha struggles to accept her new circumstances until she joins Alcohol Soft, a small game company willing to employ her as an illustrator. Although she believes her skills from the future will propel her to success, technology and illustration are considerably old-school, and she must promptly adapt if she wishes to fulfill her dreams.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Akisato, Konoha Main

Koga, Aoi Japanese

Rokuta, Mamoru Main

Abe, Atsushi Japanese

Shimoda, Kaori Main

Kawasumi, Ayako Japanese

Uehara, Meiko Supporting

Horie, Yui Japanese

Yamada, Touya Supporting

Yamane, Aya Japanese

Gomikawa, Kiyoshi Supporting

Fukushima, Jun Japanese

Ichigaya Supporting

Morikubo, Shoutarou Japanese

Echo 1 Supporting

Tamaru, Atsushi Japanese

Haruhiko Supporting

Takahashi, Shinya Japanese

Echo 2 Supporting

Imaizumi, Riona Japanese

Oowada, Tomoyuki Producer

Nakayama, Nobuhiro Producer

Nagamine, Rieko Producer

Niikura, Toshiya Producer

Reviews

Oct 28, 2024

lycoping

Recommended

I'm honestly a little mystified as to why this has a rating as low as it does.

There is a clue to why I feel this way in the name: "another layer". This is a layered anime. If you look at it from a surface perspective, you might not like this anime very much. And from a surface perspective, there's not much to like. There's quite a bit of nostalgia - most of which is done rather hamhandedly (though even at my age I didn't know about the PC-98, seems interesting to look into). It could also be seen as ... a love letter to bishoujo. It kind of is, but if we were to leave it at that level, it wouldn't be much to speak of either. On those levels, the story is a bit trite and shallow, the FMC is rather annoying, and the MMC is quite one-dimensional (see what I did there?)

But there's so much more to it - if you look for it. I doubt everyone has.

This story is actually a rather odd coincidence in my life, because it directly (and flagrantly) addressed a question that I've been mulling over in my head for a little while: what role does imagination have in creation? I won't go too deep into that because I'll bore the pantsu off you, and it gets absurdly theological, but it's a fascinating question, I think. All of the other things - bishoujo, nostalgia, time-travel, are all subjugated to this question. What makes us human? What is imagination? What is that intangible thing that makes the difference between a stupid garden variety game (or, by extension, anime) and one that is popular/amazing/whatever? And the way it handles that question is amazing, and frankly, rather unique.

So for that reason, I would have rated this anime a ten. I wanted to rate this anime a ten. I almost did rate this anime a ten. But there were a few flaws, and I couldn't do that in good conscience.

As some reviews have said, the FMC was rather insufferable. She was supposed to be voice acted as a super high energy, young-ish character who, well... it's her world and everyone else lives in it. But what they ended up making the character was a shrill, overly hyper, loudmouthed character that was difficult to warm to. Yes, she was a good character, and the VA was *capable* of toning it down when necessary, so at the end, that was clearly a directorial decision, and an awful one. They could have lowered the pitch a bit, made the voice a little less harsh and grating, and not only would nothing have been lost, but it would have been even better.

The second major flaw, to me, has to do with the last three episodes. I'll try not to spoil. But this reminded me very much of Back to the Future 2, when Marty came back to 1985 or whenever after changing the timeline in 1955, and ended up in a dystopian society. The thing is, it was *needlessly* dystopian. It's 2023, not 2050, and the technology would not have been *that* drastically altered by a game company having a successful game. The corporate environment might, but the technology was significantly more "advanced" than it was in the original timeline. It just made no sense other than to enhance the sense of dystopianness. Plus, when that story arc "resolved", it, well, kinda didn't. Did the villain get his just desserts? We assume so. But of course it doesn't matter, because, well... it just doesn't matter. You'll see.

But the thing is, it wasn't entirely dystopian. Yes, there were dystopian elements, and *clearly* so, but I found it fascinating how the redevelopment and "improvement" of Akihabara was portrayed as, by definition, dystopian. I guess I can see that to a degree, it would certainly have been dystopian in the FMC's perspective (they addressed the "coming home to a place you don't know" emotions very well), but still, I got the distinct feeling that it was *such* a love letter to Akihabara that it couldn't have been any other way. I guess that goes back to the "love letter to gaming" layer, because Akihabara is the mecca, but... still. It was a hamhanded message.

Also, there were some plot points around the time travel that were, well... insufficiently addressed, to put it lightly. I can't really say everything about what I mean because it would be a spoiler, but let's say there were some situations and characters throughout the anime that were, well... inscrutable, and clearly deliberately so. That's fine right up until the inscrutability becomes indistinguishable from a "deus ex machina" and, well, that line was crossed. Would have been nice to have a few things explained a little better, rather than just have some rather odd and poorly explained people hopping in to save the day for no apparent reason.

All that said, the flaws were enough to take it from a 10 to a 9, but that's still high praise. It's one of those anime that makes you think, and one that after the anime is over, that you just kind of sit there and have to process it for a little bit. I had that same experience with some of the greats, like "Akebi's Sailor Uniform". If you can look past the shallow surface layers to the message beneath, you might find something meaty to chew on, and given the ascendency of anime about as shallow as most of the bishoujo games this anime was, on the surface, a love letter to, that's a rare thing indeed. Recommend from me.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jan 5, 2024

denkisoda

Mixed Feelings

This anime seemed ambitious. The first half is an elegy for the bygone golden age of galgames, while the latter half is a paean to human imagination and passion. If the creators chose to focus and deep dive on either one, this anime would likely have been a better show.

For galgame enthusiasts, ep.1 is a nostalgic trip down memory lane, featuring names from the heyday of galgames: _Dokyusei_ (Elf), _Shizuku_ (Leaf), _Kanon_ (Key), _Rance_ (AliceSoft)...Aaaaaand the ending theme was composed by Shinji Orito from Key, with Lyrics by Kotoko (a pity that it wasn't sung by her!). As the main character, Akisato Konoha, time-traveled to ... the past, the audience got a glimpse of how the galgame industry progressed. Even younger viewers would find this part quite fascinating (at least I did!): How illustrations were done with a scanner and mouse in the era before Photoshop and tablets? How to achieve rich shading and texture with very limited color palettes through dithering? How did game developers react when transitioning from PC-98 to Windows? It reminded me of _Shirobako_(2014), which similarly depicited tons of domain knowledge about anime production.

Unfortunately, portrayal of galgame industry remained on surface-level and of very small scope. The first half of the show focused extensively on Konoha's soliloquy and interpersonal relationships, which became quite repetitive. The latter part, starting from ep.7, obviously attempted to explore the possibilities of the time-travel premise. While the efforts were commendable, the story was quite messy with too many questions left unanswered. For this reason, two parts of anime felt disconnected, despite all the foreshadowings the creators tried to put in.

Imagine you work in a declining industry that you are very passionate about, and you had the chance to go back to its golden age - what would you do? Create your own project? Transform a company? Or change nothing and simply enjoy the industry's prosperity as an observer? I believe all these angles could have led to interesting and plausible stories. The key is to make one choice, and tell the one stories with all seriousness.

The anime has other shortcomings as well. Konoha wasn't an adorable character to begin with - she was really loud and had a sharp voice which I couldn't bear with. Her behavior was so unpolished, which didn't align with a 19 y/o character with work experience. Starting from ep.4, the animation quality began to falter, sometimes resulting in weird distortion. And of course, the most severe issue is the plot as I mentioned above. Overall, I felt the anime squandered an excellent opportunity to build a story around galgame industry.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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May 4, 2024

six20

Not Recommended

16bit Sensation: Another Layer was disappointing. The idea of a show being a tribute to an early part of the anime subculture, the early 80-90s doujin games is a good premise. However when it was executed, it felt weak. It is not worth watching.

Animation wise, the show is fine. Konoha looks cute, Mamoru is quite handsome. The other characters are easy on the eyes and the show is fine on that regard.

Character wise, the show is also fine. Konoha does love games of the era she is supposed to enjoy. Her passion is infectious and game development team as a whole feel warm and dysfunctional ... yet competent enough to pass as something I would expect to see of an indie studio.

The soundtrack is okay, I definitely like Link ~past and future~. The rest of the soundtrack is okay and does its job fine. Nothing stood out as bad soundtrack per-say.

Storywise, this show fails on the last 4 episodes completely. The whole future being an incredibly bad butterfly scenario that has no rational reason, both using the show's logic and applying standard real life logic. This show is grounded somewhat in reality and the fact the villain is what it is kills suspension of disbelief very quickly. The rest of the show was just disappointing. I expected the show to go a lot more into game development not just have passion, dithering and voila you too can create your own "Clannad VN" or something. I admit my knowledge of 80-90s VN is bad, but I expected to learn a lot more from this show. I get that art is important to VN but shouldn't the routing have a lot more focus? It just feels like a generic create creative works series but the premise seemed to promise more.

Overall, objectively, this show is fine. It looks nice, the characters match what the show is supposed to get at and a soundtrack is good. However, I wanted more, because a show that should be a passion project considering the creator of the show was from that era should have showed off more of their trade to create those games from that era.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Why this anime is underrated?? Drakath_V - Nov 25	11 replies	by Honeypon »» 54 minutes ago
	Poll: 16bit Sensation: Another Layer Episode 13 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Dec 27, 2023	112 replies	by Assassino707 »» Nov 19, 4:32 PM
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	Poll: 16bit Sensation: Another Layer Episode 2 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Oct 11, 2023	86 replies	by Timeline_man »» Jun 8, 10:00 AM