Oct 24, 2022
Stories touching on Lovecraftian mythos tend to vary between "okay" and "garbage" and C-Danchi ends up closer to the latter, but not without its bright points. If you're watching this for Cthulu terror or because it has Yoshitoni ABe's name on it, I'm sorry to say you're better off watching something else.
The plot is a very protracted mess of remote island and ancient cult mystery. It has some decent ideas, or at least borrows some them from other works in this sphere, but fails to deliver those well with appropriate set-up and pay off. Rather it wastes a sizeable chunk of its limited runtime with
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old folks gossiping and community drama. Neither of these aspects matter in the end - the meaningful content in the first three episodes could be condensed into one (and is, with an infodump for the first five minutes of the final episode). A few key points were neatly foreshadowed, but they didn't get any of the attention they deserved.
What makes this meandering crap even worse is that the dialogue is stilted and terribly written. As of writing, the show is only available in a mediocre English dub, but even with more experienced or natural voice actors it would be painful to experience. The most benign conversation will carry on for way too long, punctuated by poor attempts at setting tone with completely random interjections of dark subject matter. None of it feels human, it's like listening to two Oblivion NPCs talk about the weather.
The show at least looks serviceable and manages to impress occasionally with properly unsettling visuals. The animation correctly focuses on characters and scenes that matter, though these carry a sorry amount of screentime due to the aforementioned wasteful writing. Main character designs (Kan and Kimi in particular) are appropriately cute and unsettling, but the rest of the cast is extremely bland. The direction is pretty straightforward with few interesting or creative moments save for a couple of shots near the climax, and sometimes you'll get creative lighting with a flashlight or a close-up of an eye. For the most part though it leans on very standard framing, with a dreadfully standard color palette and artstyle, all working to the detriment of the tone it's trying to set.
C-Danchi can't decide if it wants to be a spooky gorefest like Another, an existential nightmare in the vein of other Lovecraftian works, or a tense rural thriller like Shiki or Higurashi. It fails to deliver any of these. I'm at least glad it was short, since the worthwhile bits at the end were quick to arrive. The last episode is fun if nothing else.
Would it have been better if it had a normal series length, say 6 or 10 episodes? No, because it wastes what little it had on set-up for inconsequential BS. Would it have been better if it had proper Japanese voice actors? No, because the lines they have to deliver still sound procedurally generated. Would it have been better under a different studio and production committee? Not even that could save the dozens of misdirected plot threads, cheap jump scares and hamfisted metaphors about "optical illusions". It would be better if you turn to your backlog and watch an entirely different show if you're looking for a good horror series.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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