Back to Chesed's Profile Chesed's Profile

Do you like shows with a fun story? How about shows with good art? Shows with a memorable soundtrack? Shows that do anything at all whatsoever to hold your attention?

Yes to any of these? Turn away now. This is the most milquetoast, poorly put together show I've watched in a while. I'd like to mention that apparently many important scenes/plot points from the manga have been taken out, so you're already getting a chopped up experience.

But if you aren't already warned away, let me go a little more in depth.

The two big offenders about this show? Visuals and characters. Seriously, the visuals are bad. Like, ... BAD bad. Characters are off-model more than on-model, close-ups frequently show characters with enormous noses or their eyes misplaced, the color palettes used make everything look way too shiny, and frankly, a show with such stiff animation shouldn't be trying to have action sequences. The action sequences are incredibly poor, with reused animation being a somewhat common occurrence, even in the very last episode.

The characters are much worse, however. The main character's gimmick is that he insists the supernatural don't exist. Which, this is fine and dandy, except when he's doing it constantly while staring at 50+ demons, watching inhuman creatures talk and move, etc. It's absurd and it's not even really played for laughs that much, he just constantly denies reality and substitutes his own. He is also incredibly selfish and never develops at all beyond that, making him a very frustrating character to have to put up with, especially because every other character is fawning all over him (usually for their own selfish needs). Speaking of, other characters are all one-note stereotypes, so they definitely don't develop. Their reasoning for their behavior is often incredibly shallow (when the show actually bothers explaining their reasoning, that is) and most characters seem to make decisions randomly on the fly. Another problem is that characters are always either super broken op strong or just get slapped around every time they try to do anything (even if the story claims they're strong). it does not make any interesting tension.

It's also hard to care for any of the characters due to how many there are. Later episodes just start throwing in more and more, and most of them have absolutely no personal details given about them. While a lot of the designs are unique and creative, it doesn't matter if none of them have any substance. Plus, with this only being a 12 episode series, most of them just feel shoved in to rush things along. Despite all the problems with the length and writing of the show, the creators still managed to somehow make a filler episode. I'd say it's impressive, but it's more depressing.

It's really not worth the time. If you're interested in giving it a try anyway, I'd suggest looking into the manga instead, because the anime is only really good if you need assistance with naptime.

It's not the worst manga I've ever read, but if that's the best thing I can say about it, then you know it's not a good sign.

The story is generic at best and outright stereotypical at worse, and of course, due to having gotten axed, there's not really a satisfying ending. Because of the axe, the majority of the story, unfortunately, is setting up for things that will never and can never happen. There was definitely concepts that had potential within that setting up, but the story wasn't cohesive enough to prop itself up. Things happen much too fast, then another random concept gets thrown ... in, explained too fast, replaced with another concept which is also explained too fast...and then it ends. The story also frantically jumps from bit to bit, almost feeling like it wants to be "monster of the week" but then going off the rails of that rapidly into weird in-drama between vampires which isn't totally properly explained.

The art is kind of below par. There are some segments that do look nice, but the majority of the manga looks surprisingly amateurish, with close-ups of characters often visibly looking rough and the monsters looking somewhat goofy.

I would say that the poor quality of this manga is definitely overexaggerated to a degree in online circles, but make no mistake: this is not a good manga. It's not the worst manga of all time, but it's absolutely a waste of time to read it unless you're trying to learn about what not to do when telling a story or just really, REALLY desperate to read everything that involves vampires ever. At its core, it's both boring and below mediocre. Huge skip.

This is one of those manga which is hurt badly by its length. If you're just looking for something extremely short and fluffy, this may be up your alley, but otherwise, it might be best to look for something else.

The general problem with this manga is that it actually has several very cute concepts, but due to its length, it can't really go anywhere with them and all the loose ends need to be tied up so quickly that it feels mildly unsatisfactory. It's also your usual affair of romance where the characters are already throwing themselves on each other before it really makes ... a whole lot of sense, plot-wise. I get it, you have to make it work quickly when you're putting out a short work like this, but it never really does get any less hard to believe people just suddenly speeding up into making out and then ten seconds later, they're again questioning if they like each other. Things like that are something I know are prone to either really taking people out of what they're reading or completely not bothering them, so I would keep this in mind if you're considering giving this manga a go. For the most part, I would say the majority of the plot ends up just being fluff with some necessary angst to move things forward. Basically: if you're looking for something plot-heavy, this is not it. If you're looking for very short fluff, you've come to the right location.

I will say that the art style is genuinely adorable and would be the main thing I would consider picking this up for if you're still interested despite the concept of a rushed plot. It's very cute, the kitten featured in this is adorable, the main characters are drawn very nicely and it's overall a very soft manga. If you're here for good art alone, I'd say it's worth it. If art can't hold up a manga solely on its own for you, then you may want to skip this.

Overall, this is a very short manga with a cute art style and a simple plot. People looking for something more complex will likely be disappointed. People looking for something with a plot that doesn't go very far with its themes and is mostly just cute and simple fluff will likely enjoy this. Because of that, it's hard to give this anything other than a mixed rating, because there are very little things this manga does to stand out in any way that would make it appeal to a larger audience than the crowd it will naturally gather.

This is just straight-up bad. It's genuinely embarrassing as someone who really enjoyed the game this was based off of when I was younger.

Let's ignore how bad the animation is for a minute and just focus on the story: It's borderline incoherent. None of the characters really have any logical reason for any of what they do. Not only do they have nothing to do with the original characters from the game at all (because the plot mentions at the very start that the game characters are fictional to the world of this movie as well), but they're all completely forgettable. They have the personality ... of cardboard, collectively, and it's not like you're ever concerned about what's going to happen to them. They exist, that's the best compliment I can give them. Because these characters "just exist", it makes the rest of the plot barely matter, because even though yes, they're driving the story forward by existing, the story doesn't MATTER. There's a huge plot twist I won't go into near the end, and clearly you're supposed to be like "Whoa! That's crazy!" except it doesn't matter because nothing about this show has any tension or anything to feel anything about.

But yes. The visuals. They are shockingly bad. Like, if you thought the Ao Oni shorts were bad, at least those were stylized and looked okay. This? This is like if someone went into MMD and forced out the worst product possible. It doesn't help that everything is pretty much the same color palette, so it constantly looks bland and uninteresting. There's certainly ways to use a limited color scheme to look interesting...this isn't it.

I like to try to challenge myself to see at least one good thing in shows I watch or games I play, and I just can't. There's nothing here. If you don't know the series, this is incoherent. If you do know the series, it's still incoherent. I can't recommend this for anything other than maybe to watch it and laugh at how bad it is.

Let me start out by saying that I'm not one to default to being biased towards children's media or 3D animation. One of my favorite shows of all time is children's media that utilizes 3D animation.

However, there is a certain bar of quality one needs to hit. Either the 3D animation needs to be actually good, or at least passable, or the story needs to be good enough to make up for the animation. Onyankopon fails on all fronts in this regard. And unfortunately, when your show is shorts, that tends to kill it, badly.

On top of the generally hideous, poorly done animation that involves ... such delights as the hair clipping upwards randomly when connecting too much with a character's arm, content actually gets reused. In fact, one of the running gags of the series is just to repeat the same thing over and over again to attempted humorous effect. Sadly, it doesn't make it enjoyable. Somehow, hearing the same four girls yell the same thing out multiple times in a row doesn't make me laugh.

I get it. Not everything that a kid would find funny is something I, as an adult, can find funny. But that's where another issue comes in. This show is clearly aimed at young children, but the jokes are aimed at tweens-younger teens, who are not going to laugh at these jokes or waste their time on the series in the first place. Children aren't going to think these jokes are funny because they'll likely go over their head. The jokes that aren't obviously aimed at tweens come off as boring and crude at best.

About the only thing that's remotely enjoyable about the show is the random music number thrown in near the end of each episode, as the background music for some of the songs is quite nice. This is again, ruined by repetition, because the characters can't stop singing "Onyankopon." The lyrics that aren't the name of the main character/show are nonsense lyrics about what the writers clearly think young girls think about, which they don't. Nobody does. None of the problems presented are real.

Speaking of characters, I remember the name of exactly one character. Can you guess who? Surely not the character who gets his name said at least twenty times an episode, half of which by himself. The four girls that are in this show probably had names. I've already forgotten, and I'm writing this review right after watching the show. If they were meant to be memorable, they weren't. They don't even have different personalities beyond the girl wearing glasses kind of appearing to be the "smart and calm" stereotype. The other three just blend.

I can't even recommend this in the sense of "it's so bad it's funny," because it's not. It's just incredibly dull, unfunny, and badly animated to the point of being insulting. Huge avoid. This isn't even something to throw on for the children to watch.