Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Flippin-MAJIN
this show based off of vocaloid so the soundtrack is pretty amazing and it complements the tone and story. it also gives the show an exceptional introduction the tone of the show is a mix between serious somber and upbeat and this has to do with the way the story is told which is very hard one to follow as it jumps around.
the show has a single focal point and this is good as the show is only 12 episodes. the problem is that the show does not explain it at all until episode 9 so about 70% of the show is exposition by off screen characters. now don't get me wrong the show definitely isn't bad but in order for it to receive anything higher than a 7 it has to have a season 2 or at the very least 1 more episode as it explains nothing after the main villain is defeated .before we move on to th…
Read at the sourcePhantomfrettchen
I just randomly watched this anime and had to notice it really had a lot to it. With deep characters and a diverse storyline dotted with hints to the actual backgroundstory it keeps you watching it.
The background music is quite moving as is the art style, since it allows for an easy distinguishing of characters and also supports the feeling this anime shall transmit. Yet, it is not boring as one might think with a strong focus on interpersonal relationsships, but actually keeps you thrilled with humour and action.
I gave it a ten for one of the best examples of interplay between art, music, general mood and story that i have seen yet.
Read at the sourcehi-d-us
I came in this anime with low expectations, and I'm glad I did, otherwise I would have been so upset with the experience. But it wasn't all that bad, there were some good things that came along the way
Story: 5. It was supposed to be a 4 but since the plot was rather unique, I decided to add a point. I got the grasp of the entire story when I finished despite it being so messy , but in the end it's just super shallow. I didn't even get the whole of the story or the ultimate objective of the "Mekakushidan". They were trying to find a way to bring back their loved ones or ganged together just because they were different? Either way I think most of the time they were just messing around.
I liked how the story was narrated through different aspects though, it was confusing at first but if you…
Read at the sourceeskimoseb
If you’re familiar with shaft anime, Mekakucity fits into their portfolio perfectly, but that’s not to say the anime is perfect. If you’re unfamiliar with Shaft anime, it’s an experience very different to any other anime producer, and it’s very important to bear that in mind. I’m focusing on some of the flaws the show has in this review, but I enjoyed the show as much as I did some of the Monogatari series, and I’m very pleased to be able to say that. Regardless of your opinion on the director, Akiyuki Shinbou’s, polarising style, he has stayed true to it and to the source material, inviting viewers into the faithfully recreated Kagerou daze world.
Unlike a lot of anime, Mekakucity’s plot is not character-driven. The characters are actually a product of the story, and the behaviour of the…
Read at the sourceRWM13
The distance between a good Anime and a bad Anime can be quite a long way to go...
Well, this anime is either of it. It doesn't try to be good, but it has proved; it's better than we might have expected.
Let's have a short and sexy overview; the plot is strange, complex, confusing, interesting, colourful,... yes, I think that's quite a good bunch of useful words to give a short description... ou, different - quite forgotten - might be the best one! And it's different indeed. But yet; different doesn't mean "bad". It's nice to see something new, something, that is not afraid at all to present itself in a way different than we may have seen before. Undoubtedly, I believe many people will not like it because of all these things. However; the story is easier than we think: it explores all th…
Read at the sourceAreodus
I really enjoyed Kagerou before the anime came out (both the manga and music videos) and I was really excited/happy when the anime (named Mekakucity Actors) was announced, but I have to say the anime sadly didn't live up to my expectations. I gave it a 7/10, but it is probably mostly because I love Kagerou so much that the rating is as high as it is.
Some major cons to the anime: the weird head tilting and the terrible CGI at times scared me. The ending felt rushed with many loose ends, and some of the animation in the end wasn't nearly as good as it had been in the beginning of the series.
The pros to the anime: I do like how they incorporated the music (music from the music videos) and I liked how they animated the characters (whenever there wasn't fancy fail CGI or head tilting). The…
Read at the sourceSmugdear
Open with a unique set-up, Mekakucity Actors catch my attention among the other anime of Spring 2014 Anime. Adapted from a relatively great manga (the manga I liked totally) and novel.
At first, I have high hopes that it will be an excellent adaptation. But, that high hopes quickly turn to dust.
The main problem of Mekakucity Actors is the story that done poorly in execution. A combination of a relatively slow pacing and flashbacks brings a suicide bomb for Mekakucity Actors. The plot has many flashbacks on them and then leaving the main dialog not important. It causes the viewers sometimes don't understand what is really happening in the story. The pacing is not suitable for a 12 episodes anime. It has slow pacing at first and then increase speed 2x at the climax. To make matter worse,…
Read at the sourceluciferthesecond
Upon skimming over the top 2 reviews for Mekakucity Actors, I went into this anime with rather mediocre expectations, considering as well that the average rating was below an 8. I had not heard or read anything about it otherwise.
Usually the mark of a mediocre anime sports somewhat unnatural or clumsy dialogue, and mundane art or animation. As such, I expected to encounter either. To my pleasant surprise, I immediately sensed a heavy dose of SHAFT animation, so I knew that I would at least enjoy the animation to some extent. The dialogue wasn't horrible either. I pushed on expecting to be disappointed by a dip in quality.
I think it's here that I'll begin to go into some details. Before I begin, I will state that I am a fan of SHAFT and that I did enjoy this anime, but I will obviously…
Read at the sourcerironka
Mekakucity Actors.
Having followed the Kagerou Project since it was first uploaded on NicoNico, the announcement of the anime came as no surprise to myself. For anyone already familiar with the Kagerou Project, the story was relatively simple. For sake of no spoilers, I won't elaborate any further.
First up: the story. This is by far the part of Mekakucity Actors that has let me down a little. It is incredibly complicated to follow at times, and even though it is at its very core a relatively simple story, it is presented in a convoluted manner that makes it quite hard at times to follow accurately or find enjoyment in. Don't mistake my tone for displeasure though. It is fun all the way through, but is confusing at times, and that lets it down to a 6.
One thing that needs mentioning…
Read at the sourceStark700
Shaft does their thing again. Plain and simple, the studio known for pulling out bizarre and avant-gante style of delivery strikes with this piece of work in their latest line of evolution. Mekakucity Actors, an anime adaptation based off of the light novel and manga, is what they excelled at when it comes strange twists. It’s also based off the Vocaloid songs created by Jin, recreational works that became a sensation on NicoNico. For a show based on songs though, this is one such animated work that strikes out as the pinnacle of bizarreness.
The story tells the lives of a group of characters with special eye related techniques. From the very start we have protagonist Shintaro Kisaragi, an 18-year old NEET. Then, there’s a spectrum of bizarreness that comes from the initial episode. In fa…
Read at the sourceGodlyKyon
(warning: this is slightly long. If you wanna read something grab to munch on or drink while reading)
If you either watch Anime regularly, or at least dappled into its online world; chance are, you have heard of Vocaloid or seen its icon, Hatsune Miku. One of the biggest confusions that I faced when first entering the online world was that whether Vocaloid was a show or not.
And it turns out, it isn't; and instead, it is a popular program used to create artificial voice to sing and much more. With a devoted fanbase promoting its artworks all over the web, it is one of the most recognizable icons of the Anime online culture.
Naturally, I was consistently interested in what would happen if a show were made out "Vocaloid," or any of the alike franchises; even though I was not a regular list…
Read at the sourceHomraryan
When I first heard that the Kagerou Project was getting an anime adaptation done by famed studio Shaft, I was excited. As a passive fan of the source material, I wanted to see the interesting stories come to life in a full feature anime. What resulted however, was different from what I was expecting, and in the end, I was wishing for more dedication to the plot and execution. Sadly, I feel that most people who decide to check out Mekakucity Actors will be deterred by the nature of its narrative, which is a shame since the way the plot unfolds is almost genius.
The story revolves around a number of characters who, for the most part, have a special ability hidden in their eyes. These abilities tend to be both a blessing and a curse, as our protagonists have to deal with both society and th…
Read at the source55
I love this franchise a whole dang heck of a lot, and I have to score it well as a result, but this anime is a bit of a mess.
It should be obvious, the inherent flaw in taking a vast, sprawling, and complex narrative, and cramming it into 12 episodes. It's certainly a common thing with anime adaptations, and because of that personally I often regard anime as sort of a sample package of a story, where if I really enjoy it, and want to spend more time with it, I can pursue the more unconstrained and unfiltered manga, novel, or game it's based on. Regardless, this one just hit me particularly hard. This story is simply not one that can be summed up easily in such a limited amount of time.
Bearing that in mind, it was very interesting to see the decisions they made to try to compress the sto…
Read at the sourceYugane
First review~ >D
I've been a fan of Kagerou Project for quiet a while, so I was very excited when the anime aired and literally followed the series every week.
The story in the anime can get pretty confusing; I suppose it's because there are actually so much to cover but so little time. Though, if you have been following the main project-- you'd be able to understand more of the story. Still, I think the story's progressing too fast and it got me pretty confused.
The art is not very pleasing, in my opinion. Though it is fine. The art looks pretty stiff and simple. So does the animations. Thus, I'm giving it a 7.
The sound is decent. The voice actors look so natural and pro at voicing their characters. And the BGM are pretty fine. But it could be better.
Well, I guess my rating describes…
Read at the sourceBankPads
To preface this I should say that I have been a long time fan of Shaft/Shinbo, and generally don't have an issue with their style getting shoved into anything they do. With that said Mekakucity Actors is easily the worst show I forced myself to sit through this season. It's a fundamentally broken concept, held back even further by execution that was botched hard enough to make Studio DEEN blush. To cut the hyperbole, it would oversell the show to call it a disappointment, and leaves a massive black mark on Shat's, fairly solid, filmography.
Let's get the positive out of the way first. The show, while not amazing and a little generic in the Shaft canon, looks fine. The colors are vibrant, and the backgrounds have a generally nice amount of detail. It isn't Production I.G. or even PA Works,…
Read at the sourcexBonezBreaker
Re-evaluated and edited: August 23rd
First, I'd like to say that I'm a big fan of this series and I'm trying my best not to be biased.
Story - 3/10
Quite possibly the worst aspect, in my opinion, is the story. From the first episode, Mekakucity Actors (MCA) feels extremely rushed, the exposition thrown at the viewer may be hard to catch on the first viewing and , and nothing really happens until episode 9. I can imagine it can be really confusing to some viewers, and may choose to drop it rather quickly. However, on some forums that I frequent, I've seen that some viewers find joy in the mystery aspect of the anime's story. For individuals who have read the manga, novels/ watched the PVs you will most likely be very annoyed by the storyline. Many of the facts which were stated within th…
Read at the sourceSynchronous
"You're all like, 'The story ignores the source material' and ''The voice acting doesn't match what I had in my head' and stuff!" -Ene
Ene might just be predicting my review, but I'll try my best not to base this review on source material, although I may make some comments about the original songs or the manga.
I'll be straightforward. Mekakucity Actors wasn't very organized. In fact, it was a complete mess. Previously, I had written a very optimistic review, but after mulling over the massive disappointment that this anime gave me, I decided that I must rewrite this review.
Mekakucity Actors is an anime that does not seem to deserve such a high score, yet is still decent after one's careful consideration.
I've realized that my greatest, and possibly only compellent in watching this ser…
Read at the sourceGoodLuck
This review could be biased since I read the manga, novels, and was a fan of the music before this anime came out. So I'll try to be as unbiased with these as possible, and only make small references to other things related to the Kegerou Project.
Story:7/10
*Spoiler* Our protaginst Shintaro has been a neet shut-in for the past two years, ect. Basically it's basically the adventures of the Blindfold gang, or Mekaku Gang (I don't know what gang is in japanese.) Anyway I thought the story was pretty good. I liked how they had covers of the original songs in each episode. (Go Lost Time Memory!) However this series was based off of a 20ish song series each song being like 5 minutes each. They have a novel with 4+ novels, and manga with 20ish chapter (it's monthly.) Have the whole story fit i…
Read at the sourceHypermoyashi
Story 9/10
As a fan of the source material and someone who was never confused as to what was going on throughout the entire anime, I love the story and I think it's one of the most interesting stories I've ever encountered. However, the anime doesn't portray it well and is often two minutes of explanation, ten minutes of characters derping, and twelve minutes of heartbreaking scenes that don't make sense to anyone other than people familiar with the source material. The ending, however, was incredibly rushed and almost completely lacked a resolution.
Art 2/10 and Sound 9/10
Normally I give the art and sound one rating, however there was such a stark contrast in quality between the two that I just couldn't. The animation was horrendous. I liked the style itself and I thought it fight wi…
Read at the sourcePhilosophorum
(This is my first review so be gentle)
Mekakucity Actors was definitely among the most anticipated anime this spring season gone past. With an already well-established fanbase, an intriguing premises, and animation done by none other than SHAFT (Puella Magi Madoka Magica, the Monogatari Series), the series garnered a lot of attention from the anime community. Not only that, but the creator of the Kagerou Project (the vocaloid song series from which this anime is based), Jin, also had input into sculpting the series. However, after finishing the final episode, I can summarize my feelings towards the series as a whole with one word: disappointing.
(NOTE: I have been exposed to the original source material, that being the vocaloid song series, the manga, and the light novels)
Story: 5
This…
Read at the source