Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
wiff_d
It's very much a show of my sensibilities. The lite-chuuni edge, the use of striking colors and bold shading, all wrapped up in 2000s vocaloid aesthetics, this show is a delight on the eyes and comes as no surprise as SHAFT did this visual style justice. Also a trademark of SHAFT's production, there's a lot of neat non-linear storytelling and strong symbolism that comes through in each episode; connections to witches and fairy tales, the snake in the garden of eden, medusa, there's a lot of cool imagery that supplants the visual style really well, and while I did struggle to connect to every character, at its best this show is spinning quite the sweeping story about outcasts in society and their efforts to live on their own terms, and I really vibe with it. I would recommend if you're a fa…
Read at the sourceKtElite
I give it 5/10. It has a good story, but the execution seems to be lacking I guess. Even when I really focus to understand the story I still left with no idea in some part of the story and some just outright happened without any explanation. The inconsistent timing of fast pace and slow pace scene also making it more confusing than it already is.
The story it self is good which is the reason why I watch all 12 episode, but the execution really bring the anime down in my opinion.
The fans of Mekakucity Actors seems to be telling people to read the manga and listen to the music to understand the story, which I might do in the future. But personally from the anime perspective they didn't do the story justice with the problem I stated above. Although I have a mix feeling about this show, I…
Read at the sourceDisapeared_Ghost
Mekakucity actors is an anime that is part of the Kagerou project multimedia franchise, which is a music video series created by vocaloid producer Jin telling the story about a cast of teens with supernatural powers.
The anime is not very accessible as you have to read the light novel and also the manga to really get a better understanding of the series. In addition, the pacing of the show is pretty frenetic as it has a lot of characters in 12 episodes with multiple backstories all interconnected with each other.
It focuses on Shintarou Kisaragi, a teen who has not left his room because of his obsession with Ene, a digital girl. He is forced to leave home when he has to replace his keyboard after spilling pop on it. At the store, Shintaro is caught in the middle of a hostage situation…
Read at the sourceTarukaja
Mekakucity Actors is half the length that it should have been.
This show is twelve episodes long with around ten characters in the main ensemble. There just isn't enough time to develop them and their relationships with each other AND have as convoluted a plot as this show has. None of the characters get the exploration and development that they deserve.
That said, some of them come pretty close. Each character gets a moment in the limelight-- either a full episode or a big chunk of an episode to explore his/her story. Most of these episodes are backstory, which helps these characters feel more fleshed out and interesting. Even though each character only gets one or a part of an episode, they're still compelling and fun. I like all of them. They have fun personalities and interesting mot…
Read at the sourcefeeshyfeeeshy
I might be a bit biased since I liked the music videos of the kagerou project but I quite enjoyed it, it felt kind of like Monogatari (by kind of I mean quite a lot) but the music was fire and the characters were enjoyable and the art is also quite well done so I would give it like 8 out of 10.
the part that made the anime kinda meh was the pacing because I felt like some of the arcs were a bit fast than they should be and I feel like they tried to add a lot of things into a 12 episode anime for example the final episode went from fighting a person to going seeing mary doing snek queen things very quickly and that fast pacing didn't like feel good with me.
Read at the sourcechaerrybee
this is my favourite anime, not sure why since i find it hard to watch despite being so short and very, VERY confusing. that being said, i loved Jin's music when it was coming out and maybe thats why I'll always have a soft spot for this anime. if you have any constructive reasons why you didnt like meka, youre probably right and i definitely agree with you. regardless, i will always say this is my favourite anime and for that extremely biased reason, i rate this 10.
the music and the very interesting world building is probably what sells this anime best. the general concept (teenagers with super powers save the world etc) is anything but unique, and the characters are in a nice spot between boringly typical and annoyingly 'unique'. without any spoilers, the story behind what causes the e…
Read at the sourceCheeseCard
The Kagerou Project is a story told through the different media (songs, manga, light novel, and anime) created by Jin. This anime is the finale of the Kagerou Project.
Piece of advice: if you want watch Mekakucity Actors please do it AFTER experiencing the songs, manga, and light novel that way you can experience the anime better. Watching Mekakucity Actors without context of the other media is like watching Endgame having only seen Iron Man, Captain America, and the Hulk on the movie poster. The songs+MV are amazing, the manga answers a bunch of info, light novel is so damn deep, and the anime gives a sweet reward for your dedication.
Songs: Mekakucity M’s or just search “Kagerou Project all songs” in YT
Manga: Kagerou Daze
Light Novel: (also) Kagerou Daze
Anime: Mekakucity Actors
Tho…
Read at the sourceTomfu
Mekakucity Actors, a show I decided to watch purely based on the artwork on a random gif I saw one day. The show is definitely not perfect, but definitely a delight that I would recommend to anyone who likes complex stories, or just bopping music (which i’ll get to in a second). The show is most definitely a confusing one, both to explain and to watch, so I’ll try to explain it by describing my feelings watching the episodes, without going into the plot except when it is required, although going more into it for the first episode or two, so spoilers will be minimal.
We open with our “protagonist” of sorts, although he doesn’t really take the spotlight in many episodes, Shintaro. There’s also Ene, who seems to be a virus or AI of sorts inhabitanting all his devices. Im gonna be honest, Shi…
Read at the sourcePixelB
I don't generally rewatch anime I've already watched, especially ones that I didn't think were great, like Mekakucity Actors.
However, it HAD been 7 years since I first laid my eyes on the show, and I recently just finished Kagerou Daze novel and manga. I read them in the first place because I loved the album, so I wanted to finish everything, at least to say that I gave them all a shot. I wanted to see if the anime was maybe better than I thought, after reading the other sources.
When it comes to the first 9 episodes, it really was quite good. Shaft's my favorite studio for a reason, the weirdly paced plot and music videos that requires some thinking to adapt to an anime was shown perfectly. The highlight to me was obviously seeing the music videos converted to anime form. Those segment…
Read at the sourceZyooo
Simple, Mekakucity Actor is a series about teenagers caught up in some supernatural things while doing cool stuff, and i love that kind of stuff alot. But, this series has a bit of a problem here and there which i will explain it further later. The reason why i'm giving it an 8 despite it's mistakes because this series weirdly, with it combining the soundtrack, art/design and the story, it gave, heck! it's still giving me a really weird, unknown, nostalgic yet familiar, happy and nice vibe from it. Every episode i watched, i enjoyed it very much because the vibe of it despite some of the mistakes. I know the mistakes, i spot it few of them in every episode but yet, i still like it. i enjoyed it regardless. It felt so nice that i want to be in this series universe. To be honest, if i didn't…
Read at the sourceWhat_Zen
This is my first time reviewing an anime outside of the standard 1/10 listing, so bear with me. This was quite the enjoyable watch, but there are many things nagging at me after my completion. Firstly, and most striking, is the cinematography. During conversations and other events, the camera will constantly wip around and do funky things. If i had to describe it in layman's terms: it felt like i was experiencing constant wiplash visually.
During my watch i kept asking myself "what is this show? What am i watching? And why and how did certain things happen?". It felt like nothing about the main events of the story were being consistent, and if they were, i was always second guessing myself if what i was seeing was "real" or not.
Some of the characters were built up better, but then noth…
Read at the sourcepii_per
So, I watched this a few years ago since it had an interesting name and I'll be honest, I remember a lot of confusion. I'm not completely sure if I finished the show, but I always remembered liking it. After getting sucked into the utaite and vliver world, I ended up somehow rewatching it since I was reminded of it and wanted to watch it again.
Story (8)
Okay, so you'll need a good eye for this one. With the plot unraveled, it's a pretty good story. It's also the most important part besides the music since most of the songs with lyrics relate to the story. Watching it blindly, you'll most likely be confused, but just remember that most of the story is based heavily on the past. The concept of students with powers isn't new, but the diversion of it in this story was very interesting and ra…
Read at the sourcexyonahimex
It is undeniable that the Kagerou Project song series produced by Jin was absolutely revolutionary in the Vocaloid community, which lead to me having extremely high expectations for the anime. That was also because Shaft is known for their unique style and that it produced the Monogatari and Madoka series which again, was so well-liked and different to your usual anime.
However I was disappointed when I watched the anime. I really hope that Shaft would have done a better job with it.
Nonetheless, the covers in each episode were phenomenal and maybe I was just let down because of the expectations I had.
Kagerou Project definitely helped me through some trying times during my teenage years and till this day I love the story and universe of it -- it's just that the anime did not live up to…
Read at the sourceserastra
This. Anime.
Now, when I heard about an entire anime based off of a Vocaloid series I remember getting SO excited. It was fun to look at the designs and say “Oh, she looks like Miku!” or “Oh, he looks like Len!” However, I must admit... this anime took SO long for me to finish.
The plot is... okay, I suppose. In a way, when I saw the characters I believed each of them are based off of stereotypical roles of characters in a large variety of animes. We have the edgy one, the idol, the computer program, the NEET, the emotionless one... but, at the same time, it almost felt like these roles were pushed onto the characters themselves.
It’s almost like they made an idea for a character that was incredible. However, they watched another anime, saw the roles characters played in it, and tried t…
Read at the sourceasolored
Mekakucity Actors was very good if you read the manga and/or the novels. Without context, understanding Mekakucity Actors is a tall task. With how Kagerou Project works, this isn't exactly an independent story. Technically, it could be considered standalone, but it shouldn't be.
Kagerou Project is not exactly accessible, and adapting it into one of the most accessible formats possible is not an easy task. Jin did an okay job, but still left out a lot of important details.
Kagerou Project uses a story telling method called "routes". Each media type tells a different route. The anime is technically the final route, and doesn't make much sense alone. If you want to get into Kagerou Project, here's the order you should consume it's various media formats in!
1) Read the manga! It's called Ka…
Read at the sourceRealElkin
Mekakucity Actors made by the Studio shaft, it was an anime that caught my attention for its aesthetic, in which I also expected a decent story, but it was very disappointing. It should be noted that I haven't read the novel so I will not make comparisons with the original material with the series.
The story in Mekakucity Actors has several problems is its poor execution, the pacing in this show is mostly too slow and with many flashbacks shown in a random way, which apart from being heavy to watch is somewhat confusing to understand what is happening. Then in the last episodes everything happened too fast and the end is open ending, which leaves us more questions.
The characters are also another problem, most of these are bland and quite boring, although they tell us about their pasts i…
Read at the sourceMaximinoe
Mekakucity Actors is perhaps the only show of it's kind that requires outside consumption of other media to understand or appreciate. While it can be viewed as a standalone show, it's actually the final arc in the Kagerou Project, a mixed media story featuring multiple albums, a manga, a light novel series, and an anime. Each arc in the series correlates to one of these mediums, with a shared backstory that is given in pieces through each medium. This presents a unique problem for the show: How do you create a show that can be a standalone experience while also being the last arc in a long story, while being considerably shorter than the other mediums with a budget of $3?
This problem is what causes the shortcomings of this show; The shows spends almost half of it's run time explaining ba…
Read at the sourceConcordff
I picked up this anime about a year or two ago, and I liked the provided story, and liked how unique each character's personality was. I've found one main issue though. Midway in the series, it gets really confusing. As soon as I've finished it, I had almost no clue on what just happened.
Recently I decided to pick up this series again as manga, and found myself loving the story and characters a lot more than I did the anime. First of all, the anime leaves out some major details for the story. For example, it was almost impossible to understand the main character's(Shintaro) ability. I knew he had one, I just didn't know what it was.
Second of all, they removed the event where the Mekakushi Dan goes to the amusement park. This removes most of the building of character's personalities and r…
Read at the sourcetunaomi
I have been in the Kagerou Daze fandom for quite some time and found Jin's music through the anime. I remember enjoying the anime a lot, but now things have changed. Rewatching the anime now, I can see the major faults that were in the show.
*THIS WILL CONTAIN POSSIBLE SPOILERS*
Story 6/10
For the first few episodes, the storyline was fairly solid until it started to go downhill. The ending was probably one of the most rushed endings I've seen and felt so cliche. It uncovered a big reveal than solved it immediately by just saying "Oh they were planning this the entire time!" Without giving the watchers time to react since the pacing was so fast at that point.
One of Kagerou Daze's important themes is to accept one's death. We see that with Lost Time Memory but that theme was ruined by…
Read at the sourceNivo3041
Wow, I think, for better or worse, I found those "strange" anime that win that category, not because of their humor or crazy or random characters, but because of their weird plot and narrative.
Well, with that simple introduction I would like to clarify some things, being the first one that I saw the anime in unison that I read the manga and read the novel (although it only has a reading volume) and that I have also seen the music videos, so I could contextualize enough (despite everything it was complicated to follow the anime, which I will explain later), despite having heard many bad things and going with little hope of watching the anime, somehow I end up liking and entertaining enough to see it complete without thinking "ok, this is trash"
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Read at the source
