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I have a more updated review on my website. You can go there by going to my MAL profile and clicking on the website link in the details section. I will not be directly linking the updated review here because of the MAL review guidelines.

Grisaia no Kajitsu.

Renowned as one of the best visual novels ever to be concieved, the first of the Grisaia trilogy finally received an anime adaption with the collaboration of animation studio 8bit, and Front Wing, the creator of the Grisaia trilogy. When I first heard of this adaption, I was beyond ecstatic. My favourite visual novel was getting a proper (at ... the time) anime adaption. Why wouldn't I be thrilled? Well, I can safely say now that this anime adaption doesn't exist, at least in my eyes. If you would like to find out my reasoning for this claim, then continue reading.

### WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE ANIME ADAPTION AND MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE VN BELOW ###

First of all, let's start with the first episode. The first episode of this anime adaption was fantastic, to put it simply. They introduced the characters very nicely, provided a mysterious aura for the protagonist (Yuuji), and expanded upon the fact that every student in Mihama Accademy has had some sort of psychological trauma in their past. After watching the first episode, I had very high hopes for the rest of the season.

At the time, the episode count of the adaption was not known / confirmed yet. But, everyone who has played the VN prior to the anime adaption (including me) was pretty much certain that it would have been a 2-cour series (22-24 episodes). It made absolutely no sense for 8bit to adapt the whole of Grisaia no Kajitsu, a 50 hour+ visual novel, into a 1-cour series (11-13 episodes). If they did go along with a 1-cour series, then they would have to cut out tons of content, rewrite key events and plot points, and skip on a lot of the monologue that made Grisaia no Kajitsu so popular in the first place. Sounds crazy right?

Well, what do you know, 8bit surprises us (or didn't surprise us) with a 1-cour series. At that point in time, the third episode had aired, and I started to feel a tinge of doubt for the series. The first 3 episodes that had aired were amazing. They adapted the common route with much of the original humour that was found in the VN to begin with, and they included many of the character-developing scenes that made you love the characters, and then have your heart crushed in their respective routes.

After hearing the news of the adaption being a 1-cour, or 13 episode series, I tried to be optimistic about the situation. 8bit could of course, instead of adapting the whole of Grisaia no Kajitsu, adapt just one route in full. That plan could have worked brilliantly. The first 7-8 episodes could have been common route to build up the characters, and then the remaining 5-6 episodes could have been a certain character's route. So, that's the mindset that I went with up until the 4th episode, where everything came crashing down.

The fourth episode, to put into layman terms, took my hopes and dreams of the series, stomped on them a few times, ripped them to shreds, tied them back together improperly, threw them out a window, and then left to rot on the street. Okay, that may have been a bit of exaggeration, but you get the point. Never have I been so disappointed with any animation studio before that fourth episode. A comment on the subreddit /r/anime by the user /u/Tenoia explained my frustration pretty well.

Basically, the fourth episode relatively confirmed that the remaining 9 episodes of the anime adaption would consist of each of the 5 character's respective routes, but condensed into 1-4 episode arcs. That was the /worst case/ scenario 8bit could have gone with. I mean, they gave themselves 13 episodes to toy with, and they decide to adapt each route into a condensed, sub-par copy of their source? The absurdity came crashing down on top of me that I could have suffocated under its weight. Each route in the visual novel has /hours/ of dialogue, and they suggested that they would take those hours, strip it bare, cut out character-building scenes, redo key events, and hand it to you on a silver platter.

Beyond that point, I didn't have many high hopes for the remainder of the series. The 6th and 7th episodes consisted of Yumiko's route, /completely/ redone and condensed into a single episode, and Sachi's route also condensed into a single episode. Much of the emotional buildup in either adapted route was thoroughly missing, while the monologue and some key events were altogether non-existent. The 8th and 9th episodes consisted of a 2-part arc of Makina's route, and to be honest, 8bit actually did a relatively good job on its adaption. They combined the good and bad endings, and removed the dreadfully tragic nature of the either ending that was present in the visual novel, but overall, they explained into Yuuji's past nicely, and kept most of the key events.

The last 4 episodes consisted of Amane's route, a.k.a Angelic Howl. Angelic Howl is very well known to be the best part of the entirety of the Grisaia no Kajitsu VN, and I can definitely agree with that consensus. It's hard to explain exactly why many feel this way if you haven't experienced the sequence yourself, but to put it simply, it explained Amane's backstory in a very thrilling, tragic, dark, and dreadful nature that forced you to sympathise with the characters' struggles. It also went into 2nd best girl's backstory a fair bit (Kazuki), but I'll skip that portion.

And finally, the last episode, which so happened to air today, concluded the adaption. To be completely honest, they made me WTF hard after combining the good and bad ending in this final episode, and /then/ moving the ending bit with Sakashita in the forest, to Sakashita in the school. That bit upset me at first, because the forest chase in the end of Amane's route is one of the best parts, aside from Angelic Howl. But, in the adaption, they made it take place in the school instead of the forest, and instead of a chase scene, Sakashita is holding the classmates hostage while taunting Amane. The whole attempted rape scene also completely caught me off guard. But, after thinking about it, the ending that they route instead of the VN's ending wasn't /that/ bad. It just was out of the blue, as the forest chase scene would have made more sense.

Story: 3/10. Too many key scenes are missing, the emotional buildup of the routes was overall lacking, and the sub-par rewrite of Yumiko's route altogether made too much of an bad impact on the series as a whole for me to give it anything other than a 3/10.

Art / Animation: 6/10. Many people don't like or find the adaption's art and animation appalling, but I actually thought it was slightly better than average. It kept the amazing feel and quality of the VN's artwork, while retaining a unique look that doesn't find itself in many anime series.

Sound: 4/10. When the first episode came along, I was extremely happy to hear that 8bit was using the original soundtrack from the VN. The visual novel's soundtrack is one of the best there is, so that definitely helped with the overall buildup of some scenes. But, to put it simply, they overused some tense tracks that were designed to only play in scenes of great distress or disorder. Two of these would be 「カサブタ」 (Kasabuta), and 「デッドロック」 (Deadlock). They also remixed some tracks into pieces that made no sense, and the transitions between some tracks were atrocious.

Characters: 2/10. I feel genuinely sorry for those of you who didn't read the VN beforehand. The anime adaption almost didn't build the characters /at all/, and they just threw the character's circumstances at you when their route was playing. 8bit didn't give you any time whatsoever to come to love a character in full, which is mainly the fault of the common route's overall length (3 episodes). If I hadn't have read the VN before watching this anime adaption, I would have thought Sachi was a terrorist with a very stoic personality.

Enjoyment: 3/10. The only time I can say I enjoyed this anime adaption to a sub-par degree was the first 3 episodes (common route), Makina's route (episodes 8 and 9), and Amane's route / Angelic Howl (episodes 10 - 13). Other than that, the whole of this anime adaption did not please me in the slightest.

Overall Score: 4/10.

I'm deeply sorry if you had to go through all of my ranting, but I personally believe I have a very good reason to be upset with this adaption as a whole. I'm sure many others feel the same as I do, but if you enjoyed this adaption regardless of it's many flaws, then continue to live that way, because I wish I could enjoyed this as much as you did.

Thank you for reading my long rant of a review, and I hope you have a Happy New Year!