When I first knew about Akame ga Kill! it was because of some screenshots of the anime and some fan art around the web. I thought it looked pretty cool, but deep down I suspected it was going to be as stupid and boring as Danmachi or Sword Art Online.
Well, it kinda is, but I do respect this work as well, because even with all the bullshit it has, it has some nicely done work with the animation, the fight scenes and some of the designs.
Even with all that, I reaaaaaaaaaally wanted to like this anime, but I just couldn't. I'll tell you why: It
...
feels rushed. Not as rushed as Hitsugi no Chaika's second season, but still very rushed. I'll get deeper into this later, but let's first talk about what is it about, the characters, sound, and all that stuff.
STORY: 5/10
The story takes place in a fictional, fantasy-like, medieval country, where fantastic creatures and magic are everyday stuff.
In the big city, there's an empire ruled by a very, VERY young emperor, who, because of his inexpierience, is being "guided" by the greedy and ambicious Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister rules through the emperor, and cruelly punishes anyone who dares to stand against the empire.
There's also a group of rebels known as Night Raid, whose objectives are aimed to bring down the empire and kill the Prime Minister.
Now, this kind of story is not very original AT ALL. There's a LOT of other media who has been using this kind of premise over and over again.
But even so, I gave this series a chance to show me how are they going to apply this premise to make it as good and enjoyable as possible.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention: There are also 48 or something magical weapons called the "Teigu". They were created a long time ago for whatever reason, I don't really remember, and now they're being used by different people between the good guys and the bad guys.
The Teigu give many different abbilities and skills to their owners. Each one of these is unique and its use varies on each wielder.
But seriously, there are A LOT of these. Almost every character has one. It's like they're giving them with discount in a popular store or they're a kind of fashion thingy everyone needs.
ART: 5/10
The art style is... okay. It doesn't stand out at all, and for being an anime from 2014, it should look a lot better. The color schemes waaay are too simple. It uses primary colors with no elegance and it's just plain boring. Every character has one color or two colors, so they look just boring. Probably the most outstanding one is Akame herself. Too bad she's not the main character (WHAT?? Yeah, yeah, I know, I'll get to that later).
The character desgins are actually pretty good... for most of them at least. Their clothing styles matches pretty well with their character's personality and even fighting style.
The backgrounds are... okay as well. Just what you can expect from this kind of series.
The animation, however, is done nicely. The fight scenes
SOUND: 6/10
The soundtrack is pretty forgetable. I seriously can't remember anything else than the openings. I gotta admit it, the openings are FUCKING AMAZING!! Probably the best thing out of all this series. The second ending is pretty nice too, but it's a bit simple too.
The voice acting in the japanese dub is also just fine. Not much to say about that.
CHARACTER: 3/10
I kinda hate to say this, but the characters are GENERIC AS FUUUUCK.
Each one of the characters, main or not, is the cliché-est of the cliché-est of their personality. This is not very surprising for a 90's anime, but again, we're now on the 2010's!
I'll talk about some of them individually:
Tatsumi is our main protagonist. Yes, you read that right. The protagonist is not the one whose name is on the title. It's this twerp. Actually, there's other anime, like Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu, whose protagonist ain't either the one in the title, but some other guy, who we don't even know his real name. But even HE is a million times more interesting and relatable with the audience than Tatsumi.
Tatsumi is exactly what you can expect for a generic protagonist of an action anime. Someone who left his hometown to make some money working on the capital, knows a bit how to fight and is innocent, pure and really dumb.
He then joins Night Raid and gets better, but he's still boring.
Akame is the, um, secondary main protagonist, maybe. She doesn't stand out that much either, but she's still A LOT more interesting than Tatsumi.
She has a pretty decent and sad backstory, in which her parents were murdered and she and her sister, Kurome, were severely trained to become soulless soldiers, and eliminate anyone who is against the empire. Akame then betrayed the empire, leaving her sister behind, and joined NIght Raid with the hope for a better future for this world.
Oh, and she also likes to eat. A lot. Uhh, just like Goku or Luffy. If you wanna be badass, just be the one who eats a lot and you're guaranteed a badass. (Kurome, her sister, is not very different from this)
But anyway, SHE should be the one as the main protagonist, not that little nosy kid.
The rest of the NIght Raid members are also pretty generic, there's the big boobed girl that likes to be silly around her friends, the tsunedere bitch, the Kamina-aniki, oh so cool so badass (oops, did I spoil anything?), the clumsy cute girl, the pervert guy and the grumpy boss who can't stand jokes about her appearance.
Later in the series, there's another group formed by other weird and generic villains called the Jaegers, leaded by Esdeath, a MURDERING MACHINE WITH NO FUCKING SOUL, in which team joins Kurome, Akame's little sister. (Can you see where this is going?)
I gotta say, some of the characters feel VERY idiotic, like the emperor, who's will is just as moldable as clay, Esdeath who kills just because she enjoys it and a certain girl from the Jaegers who is OBSSESED WITH JUSTICE at the point of violently murdering anyone not considered "good" for her (the people who already watched the anime will totally agree with me with this point).
ENJOYMENT: 5/10
To be honest, after watching only the FIRST episode, I wanted to quit watching it, which is really RARE for me, because if I'm watching something, and there's stuff happening (or not happening) that ruins the whole thing or it's just plain stupid, I watch two more episodes to test if it's still bearable at some point (this only happened with Nisekoi and Medabots Season 2 as well, but I only quited Medabots 2).
But after watching episode ONE of Akame ga Kill, I really wanted to quit it IMMEDIATLY. But I didn't. I gave it another chance and watched episode 2, and it felt like it saved this series from oblivion... or at least me not ending it.
I mean really, some potentially useful characters DIE in the VERY FIRST EPISODE, only to be mentioned once or twice. And it's not even done good. That's why I almost quit it.
There are a lot of funny moments as well, but they're a little mixed up with the overall dark tone of the series, so it's a bit hard to tell when a character is being serious or not.
Something else I reaaaally hate on this series, it's that the characters get almost no time to develop or grow, or even to know more about their backstories. That's why it feels rushed.
The series format is semi-episodic. Night Raid has to accomplish a mission or beat a very strong enemy in about one or two episodes (some of these guys look REAAAALLY OP, but get beaten quite easily after a few fighting), and then it's like it never happened
Also, some of the main characters die throughout the series (Night Raid members and Jaegers), making it at least more realistic, since they're constantly fighting very strong foes.
Some of the deaths may be a bit over the top, like to make you feel sad about their deaths, but it feels a bit forced sometimes, so it's hard to really feel anything.
OVERALL: 5/10
Somehow, I still liked Akame ga Kill. Not to the point of loving it, of course not.
It's got some good stuff on it, it's pretty enjoyable, the openings are amazingly engaging, the combats are quite epic.
But it's not made for "smart people", because you'll probably see it as a lot of action and with little to no sense, mostly because of the exagerations with their powers or extreme, sometimes non-sensical badassery.
I would not really recommend it, since it may give you a few headaches with how much bullshit it throws at you, but if you don't mind the clichés and just want to enjoy some good action series, I say you should give it a try.
Nov 13, 2015
Akame ga Kill!
(Anime)
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When I first knew about Akame ga Kill! it was because of some screenshots of the anime and some fan art around the web. I thought it looked pretty cool, but deep down I suspected it was going to be as stupid and boring as Danmachi or Sword Art Online.
Well, it kinda is, but I do respect this work as well, because even with all the bullshit it has, it has some nicely done work with the animation, the fight scenes and some of the designs. Even with all that, I reaaaaaaaaaally wanted to like this anime, but I just couldn't. I'll tell you why: It ... 
Apr 3, 2015
Aldnoah.Zero Part 2
(Anime)
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After watching the entirety of the Aldonah.Zero series (except for the recap, I didn't consider it necesary for obvious reasons), I decided to write my very first review on MAL.
First of all, I would like to clarify something: I'm not a diehard mecha fan. I only watched other three mecha animes, specifically Neon Genesis Evangelion (including EoE and the Rebuilds), Gurren Lagann and Code Geass R1 and R2, and I could say I'm used to the genre by now. After clarifying this, now I can talk about what are my thoughts about Aldnoah.Zero season 2. I'll try not to spoil much, but I do need to talk ... |
