Jun 26, 2016
Kiznaiver's is a mess that devolves from a show with an interesting premise and wacky trigger-esq characters into a melodramatic, boring waste of time that fails to deliver any real depth and ultimately leaves you regretting giving it the time of day.
My biggest problem with Kiznaiver situates from its dialogue; the writing in this show is absolutely atrocious and towards the end of the show becomes downright cringy in its directness. Few of the conversations between the characters feel legitimate as the characters are screaming the situation at you and telling you how to feel. Dialogue is meant to be utilised to give the
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audience a sense of the character's personalities, their feelings and their goals. However, in Kiznaiver's case the characters just downright tell the audience what to think and it leaves you unaffected as there is nothing to care about as the character interactions feel so forced. For a show that is meant to be about friendship and the importance of communication, the show does a horrible job of developing actual friendships as all the characters and their supposed friendship feels disingenuous.
The Kizna system itself, what is meant to be the entire focal point of the show, eventually disintegrates and simply becomes a gimmicky tool to advance the story rather than tell the story. This really annoyed me as the system, though pretty ridiculous as a concept, introduced some really interesting themes that the show could of discussed and developed. The show alludes to some of these themes but are ultimately overlooked in favour of furthering the idea of "friendship can overcome anything" motif. By the end of the show every bit of dialogue is just repeating and repeating this same fucking point until it begins to drive you insane. I FUCKING GET IT ALREADY- FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC! The show ends with the characters having some big "we're all so close" scene which is splashed in unearned pathos as I felt nothing for any of these characters since the show has used its time to simply tell us what to think and feel rather than develop the fucking characters and their relationships.
On the topic of character development: there is almost none. Most of the characters in this show don't development beyond their cliche's and those that do like Honoka end up just reverting right back into their cliche outside of the forced sentimental moments. I don't buy that the characters screaming "We are good friends now, just accept it" makes them friends, characters need to actually develop in order for that to be the chase which simply doesn't happen. That being said the show does have its genuine moments. Honoka's arc is the best bit about the show and I feel some of the conversations between Honoka, Nico and Yuta display moments of genuine growth and investment. However, once this arc finishes it almost just reverts back to normal and the characters don't act like they've developed at all unless the show calls for it but overall it just comes off unconvincing.
The only other thing about the show I can be assed mentioning is the soundtrack as the OP and ED are both good and the soundtrack is pretty solid throughout the course of the show.
Overall, this show has moments of greatness but falls victim to bad writing, horrible pacing and pathos that ultimately leave the characters "friendship" feeling major league unconvincing and unmemorable.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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