Kamierabi

After receiving a text message offering to fulfill any of his wishes, high school student Gorou Ono successfully enacts his perverted fantasies with classmate Sawa Honoka. However, to his dismay, the granter of his wish materializes in the form of a demon named Lall. She informs him that he is now part of a game that will determine the next God of the world. As Gorou struggles to come to terms with this reality, Sawa attacks him with a giant sword, revealing that she also is part of this twisted competition for the divine throne.

Every participant of the game receives a special power, and Gorou manages to kill his classmate with his ability: the Holy Book of the Fool. But this technique comes at a cost: Gorou's life gets worse every time he uses the book. As he learns more about this seemingly absurd competition, Gorou must find allies and learn how to use his newfound power before he loses everything.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Nojima, Chika Main

Abe, Natsuko Japanese

Akitsu, Yutaka Main

Uchida, Shuuichi Japanese

Futana, Iyo Main

Kusunoki, Tomori Japanese

Sawa, Honoka Main

Matsumoto, Sara Japanese

Lall Main

Sakura, Ayane Japanese

Amano, Tatsuya Main

Shin, Yuuki Japanese

Ama, Kouki Main

Kajiwara, Gakuto Japanese

Ono, Gorou Main

Ura, Kazuki Japanese

Okino, Mitsuko Main

Fairouz Ai Japanese

Ryou Supporting

Yuuki, Aoi Japanese

Mori, Akitoshi Producer

Shouji, Naoto Assistant Producer

Seshita, Hiroyuki Director

Yamaguchi, Takayuki Sound Director

Reviews

Oct 17, 2024

GGyouuuuu

Recommended

The date I wrote this review is on around episode 3 of season 2 of the show,this is the first review that I've ever wrote,and I feel like this is a review that I should write before the series keeps on going.

What is the most charming thing about Original Anime? There are no source materials,No spoilers,No pre-established fanbase,all there is for original anime is that no one but the staff members of the anime knows what's coming next.

Binge watching original anime and following through original anime are two completely different experiences,and to me KamiErabi is a show that perfectly embodies the unknown aspect of following ... through a original anime.

I was one of the first few people that saw KamiErabi's teaser trailer,being attracted by the people working on the show like Yoko Taro,the creator of Nier Automata and the Drakengard series,Jin,who was behind Kagerou Project and Atsushi Ohkubo,author of Soul Eater and Fire force,with it's interesting 3D look to it I had a feeling this show had a potential to be a unknown gem.

When the first episode dropped,I went into the show with excitement and shortly after finishing it... I don't know what to feel.

The deal with KamiErabi is pretty simple at first glance: A game where you fight till the end, and the winner of the game becomes god.

Pretty simple stuff,battle royale type anime should be familiar enough for people that watch anime,but then as I went on with KamiErabi weekly,there is this energy that the show had that despite feeling lost and mixed on what is happening,there is some sort of weird energy that just motivates me wanting more of it.

The show itself is pretty weird,in fact I think the choice of using CGI actually helped establishing the vibe as well,sure I bet traditional 2D animation could better capture Ohkubo's artstyle and more free with it's battles,but the CGI while not being the best,is very expressive,and the effects it had is also really interesting,in fact I think it's because of the disadvantages of CGI in most anime being pretty wonky,added that extra bit of weirdness that KamiErabi had.

I tried to figure out what is this feeling that I felt watching this show,and till so far with S2 of it airing,I still don't have a single clue on how to describe it,and that's when I started to realize just how great the staff behind the anime is with using a anime original format.

KamiErabi felt like taking large names in the community,and throw in the most limited amount of resources to test the limit of how much can they do,and with my weekly experience,it definitely felt that KamiErabi has done far more than what people expect of it at first glance.

This is a experience that only people who were there weekly can feel about.

Because let's be real,KamiErabi most likely wouldn't be that first choice of a show to choose to binge watch,because to anime fans standards,the only real attractions of KamiErabi would probably be just for the staff members behind it,truth be said: KamiErabi is designed for people who were there for it.

I have no clue as to if KamiErabi's ending in season 2 will letdown what it's done or take the show to become a hidden gem,but that is also what made watching KamiErabi so engaging,because it is a show that is designed for people who truly loves original anime,who truly likes the feeling of gambling for what's next for it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Dec 20, 2023

KANLen09

Mixed Feelings

Informative

KamiErabi God.app — the successor to derided, full-on 3DCG shows like Ex-Arm and Tesla Note...and being a high-stakes battle royale conceived from one of the game industry's most beloved icons? I am shooketh.

Even if you don't play video games, the pellucid name of Yoko Taro should be no stranger to anyone, for his Drakengard (and its subsequent spin-off NieR) franchise of games has become quite the phenomenon that's widely accepted as one of the cult classic games that have gained quite the notoriety amongst fans. And now, he's back with an all-star team to create one of Fall 2023's most divisive anime of the season: ... the high-stakes, battle royale death game that is KamiErabi GOD.app. 

As Ajin and Sidonia no Kishi a.k.a Knights of Sidonia director Hiroyuki Seshita puts it, KamiErabi is not just a mere imitation of famed mangaka Sakae Esuno's Mirai Nikki a.k.a Future Diary, but to quote his words, “I mean, it really is crazy. The world we’re in is already crazy. I mean, it’s super crazy. And what we’re doing is basically matching perfectly the world that we’re living in. From the very beginning, we were saying, ‘Okay, let’s make it so that [the anime feels like] there’s weird going on from the get-go. And every single time we worked on this, we tried to make sure that we infused it with some craziness because that matches our world.” Furthermore, despite being a death-game-themed premise, it actually fits more appropriately into the fantasy genre.

This then brings us to the show's creation, which just so casually happened between Yoko Taro and Hiroyuki Seshita over drinks and praising the former's works, though the latter opted that the former should be credited for the work, and as Yoko Taro puts it, “We were all kind of doing things in our separate ways. After we all got together and really joined forces, it all kind of came together in a kind of miraculous way.” Next, it's adding the eponymous people to the project: Enen no Shouboutai a.k.a Fire Force creator Atsushi Ookubo on character design and the homonymous series composer Jin, who's composed for many series, one of which was the Kagerou Project a.k.a Kagerou Days, which would shape the anime and make it work, quoting "put 100% of his being into creating something “really bold and daring” that would surprise people," push his limits while working on the anime to ensure that it would meet both his and his fellow creators’ expectations. It's the same for said manga creator, quoted: “For me, working on the anime was actually this feeling of total irresponsibility. Like, literally, I didn’t feel the pressure of responsibility at all. It was just pure fun. But if we didn’t have the ass-whipper [Hiroyuki Seshita] to be responsible and get the team whipped into shape, it wouldn’t have happened.”

But the series is best left said and taken in such a way as Jin puts it: “The thing is that even if someone in Japan says to you, ‘Okay, do whatever you want, right? Anything goes. Anything is fine.’ They usually don’t mean it. However, in my case, I literally took them at their word. I said, ‘literally anything goes. I’m gonna do whatever I want. And when I did, I was told by the director and the producer that they were kind of surprised, saying ‘Wow, this is kind of sugoi.’ The momentum [as a whole] that we had as a team plus the individual characteristics that we brought, I think, is what made this successful."

Back to the anime, we've pretty much seen every similarity and/or common fidelity to this genre, from Summer 2021's Deatte 5-byou de Battle a.k.a Battle Game in 5 Seconds, to Spring 2022's Tomodachi Game. As contemporaries of the psychological high-stakes themes set in a fantasy genre, it almost looks as if the base concept is nothing special, of high school students fighting each other in a battle royale for the chance to become God. But what makes or breaks the anime is how flaccid and unpredictable director Hiroyuki Seshita wants to envision the entire show's vision and make sure that "two wrongs (or rather, the many differences between high-profile people) will make a right," going as unhinged as possible so that everything still makes sense by the end of it. And at the very least for Season 1 here, it's only half the battle won, and I did make some sense out of all of the madness that KamiErabi GOD.app has to offer before its eventual return for Season 2 sometime next year.

That said, Atsushi Ookubo's character designs which are adapted into the anime, of which the main characters of Goro Ono (with his devil assistant Lall) and his many classmates (of Honoka Sawa, Yutaka Akitsu, Koki Ama, Mitsuko Okino, Chika Nojima and Iyo Futana) each having quite the eccentricity about themselves to understand that some entity is playing with their lives in the never-ending quest to "make a wish" to become God and rewrite the world, the biggest benefactor would have to been the one who first noticed the changes: Goro himself, being the typical nobody character before facing his crush (of Honoka) who attacks him out of nowhere, only to win and gain a power that builds from the sacrifices of his other fine details in life. It'd be pretty hard to imagine if the show took on full-on traditional 2D drawing, because the 3D models here were definitely purpose-built for a CG series such as this.

However, what would define KamiErabi, is ultimately the decision to go full-on 3DCG, based on Hiroyuki Seshita's experience with the no-name studio that is UNEND's production...I can tell you that out of all of the fully-created 3DCG works since the horrendous days of Winter 2021's Ex-Arm, KamiErabi feels the most polished within the AniManga industry, finally understanding the wane of the former's colossal failure in almost 3 years, though it still looks like ass from time to time, which isn't so much a nitpick if I do say so myself.

The music is surprisingly upbeat and whimsical, as if series composer Jin had put his all into the creation of the OST as well, which, considering the effort he put into Kagerou Days, he certainly did. As for the theme songs, ELAIZA's OP song certainly is one bizarre debut of a decent song, while Alisa had some experience working on her first theme songs for Carole & Tuesday before working on the ED song, which, as expected, is fine and nothing all that special (apart from the song being in English).

Despite all of the community's views about this show, it's ridonculously clear that Yoko Taro had intended KamiErabi GOD.app to be not just a battle royale death game that has the quote, unquote "edgy" theme going for it. Like Winter 2020's Darwin's Game, it too has its fantasy and psychological elements that work as if you're playing either one of his games, and while the ultimate takeaway is a show that either makes you bored or messes with your brain, the unhinge nature of Yoko Taro's vision for this still remains to be seen if it's ever effective at all to be on the same level of either Drakengard or NieR.

Take this show as you wish, putting yourself in the shoes of Yoko Taro, and imagine that score based on personal experience, at least for this 1st half here. I can't quite speak for all, but it's best if you try at least one episode to see if the show is for you.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Sep 27, 2024

sadoldman

Not Recommended

An edgy anime that falls into uncanny valley while it fails to impress.

Characters:
They're fine, I guess. If you listen to the story rather than watch it, they come off a little better.

Character design:
Nothing special.

Animation:
Bad. Not because it's 3D necessarily, but because the movements are all wrong. Uncanny. It takes away from the story telling. An unwelcome distraction. Simply put, the characters are animated poorly.
...
Soundtrack:
Alright. Nothing too memorable.

Voice acting (original):
About the only saving grace of this series was the voice acting, but even then, I don't know how many times I fell asleep, having to rewatch to find where I trailed off.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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	Poll: Kamierabi Episode 12 Discussion IzanaSolos - Dec 20, 2023	27 replies	by BENSTONE101 »» Oct 3, 10:44 AM
	Season 2 Announced KANLen09 - Dec 20, 2023	8 replies	by tsubasalover »» Mar 11, 4:04 AM
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	Poll: Kamierabi Episode 10 Discussion KANLen09 - Dec 6, 2023	7 replies	by MasterHavik »» Jan 3, 4:28 AM