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If you took every trope you should avoid when making a psychological-thriller anime and clumped them together you would get Mayoiga.

Mayoiga takes place in Nanaki village and is based upon the fact that it’s inhabitants are trying to start a new life and escape their “harsh” past, if I can even call some of those lame backstories that. I fairly enjoyed the first 6 episodes, they kept me entertained and made me want to keep watching, but it all went downhill from there. In the early episodes of Mayoiga , the anime provided subtle information to the watcher which would be used to infer ... what was happening; however, eventually the anime just started to shove everything in your face and it got to a point where it was irritating.

This show loves to constantly drive the point into the viewer’s head, stuff is constantly repeated as if we didn’t understand the first 10 times they said it. Not only was the writing below average, the pacing was too. In the first few episodes, events are paced proportionally and everything seemed to be occurring naturally. However, bu the last few episodes of the show, it’s obvious to see that the production team was trying to cram as much as they could because they knew they wouldn’t be able to maintain their prior pacing and fit the whole show into only 12 episodes. Stuff was happening so rapidly at the end and I eventually just didn’t care to keep up. Major plot twists would be announced and I had no reaction because so much stuff was being thrown at me compared to before.

Depending on taste it can be argued that the plot is good, but the characters are objectively just bad and unlikable with the exception of a few characters which I will mention later. The protagonist of this story, Mitsumune, is about as dense as a character can be. He does whatever he’s told and has to be guided through absolutely everything. Like every other character which falls under this description, he tries to change himself and become “stronger” so he can help others around him. The only good thing about Mitsumune was that he wasn’t an absolute creep like some of the other male characters. Mitsumune’s character seems very incomplete, many aspects of his backstory just aren’t explained and nothing is clearly summed up about him. Overall, he’s just a bland character with nothing special about him.

The 2nd Protagonist, Masaki, had some distinguishable attributes, but it just can’t make up for every other negative thing about her character. Masaki’s character makes no sense at all, over the course of this show I feel as if she became a completely person 4 different times. She is introduced as a character which is visibly mentally unstable, but the very next episode she’s a shy, reserved girl which is incomparable to what she was displayed as. She also avoided Mitsumune at one point but all of second she was clinging on to him as if she wasn’t ghosting him a minute ago. Half of this show is just the rest of the cast looking for her in the woods because she holds the “key” to escaping Nanaki Village. It’s essentially a big game of hide and seek which literally no one asked for.

Besides the 2 protagonists, the entire cast of this show was equally as bad except for Nanko, who was my favorite character. Nanko is a young, female detective with a soothing voice which gives the viewer a break from the extremely strong personalities some of the characters have. Nanko seemed to be the only character along with Valkana who had some common sense.

Despite all of these massive flaws, I still enjoyed this series because I’m a sucker for psychological anime. Mayoiga deserves credit for creating an experience for viewers who are able to relate to the characters and are also wishing to erase their psychological scars. The music and sound did a great job of creating a certain atmosphere when the show simply wasn’t able to do so. Also the character design for all of the character’s Nanaki’s is pretty cool and creative except for the silicone boob monster which I wish I could erase from my mind.

Overall, if you are interested in a show which tackles how internal conflicts morph into external conflicts along with an element of thriller incorporated then I would recommend you watch this show. If you are looking for a show which incorporates gore, good combat scenes and a bloodbath plot line then this show probably isn’t for you.