Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Anime_Spartan
This is the greatest anime if you like series with large casts and how the series works with each individual character. Resolving past trauma, dealing with current issues, and building towards a better future. Every named character in premier cours will come back by the end to have their issues and story resolved. How many other series have that? It's about 3 seasons long so be ready for the long haul, but it concludes everything from start to finish which most anime doesn't get.
Please just watch until episode 4, that's the series' biggest filter.
To please the filter, many characters improve themselves from the first season. Hell, Masaru goes from being a whiny baby to a total badass covered in scars in just 3 episodes. This anime caries a lot of trauma and almost everyone important…
Read at the sourceSuperSegaScrub
Story: 8/10, Art: 8/10, Sound: 7/10, Character: 8/10, Enjoyment: 10/10
Overall Score: 8.5/10
As a whole, Karakuri Circus is an anime full of themes like freeing oneself from the past, creating a better future, and appreciating the current present. Although there were pacing issues throughout the story, the characters and ultimate ending make up for it. I heard from other reviewers that this story line was really rushed, and I do agree with them. A story of this magnitude could’ve been extended to 60 episodes instead of compressed into 36. However, I truly loved the experience of the show. Seeing the development of Narumi, Masaru, and Shirogane as the story went on was really satisfying. But, yeah, the pacing issues still felt like an issue for me. If you’re looking for an action anime wit…
Read at the sourcesilencely
im doing a simple and spoiler free review
story:
the plot is actually amazing, deep unpredictable twists, and the world building is awesome (9)
art:
it is not good, moreover some battles r awkwardly animated making it worse (4)
sound: no memorable soundtracks, bgm sometimes weirdly used in peculiar situations (5)
character:
interesting characters, i like almost all of them, backstories r also interesting (8)
enjoyment:
pacing is weird and too fast sometimes, many anticlimatic moments, waste of good story (2)
overall
9+4+5+8+2 / 5 = 5.6
probably just read the manga i guess though i havent read it, the anime is overall a mess, many awkward moments, and waste of potential
Read at the sourceDivinityV12
For an anime not heard of by many I'd class this as a hidden gem of a masterpiece. It has a great story with development to it and the characters which keeps you interested and is very deserving of the 36 episodes it has. The circus theme seemed a bit weird at first but actually played into it really well and gave it's own quality to the action done in the show. It's one of those few which have made it into the top 5 of the hundreds of anime that I've watched so I'd definitely pick it up to watch if you haven't yet.
Read at the sourceMr_Yaz
✪ Genre: action (gunfights, martial arts, swordplay), drama, mystery, proxy battles, shounen, superpower (human enhancement), with elements of romance (love polygon, unrequited love)
✔Positive Aspects✔
◧ Character development: by far the most intriguing, and, eventually, satisfying aspect of the series. Even though the series started balls-deep in action, which persists up until the 14th episode, it started, gradually, building the protagonists and antagonists up (even some deuteragonists were included).
The series meticulously started filling in their personal histories (some of which were dating 2 centuries back), their current motivations, the intentions behind their actions (at both the situational and the broader level). and their thought processes. Furthermore, the emergence of…
Read at the sourcevief
(contains spoiler)
Having just recently finished Karakuri Circus I've been sitting on a review for the past few days.
It took me ages to get through this anime, at first watching it weekly, but it started to become rather frustrating, so I tried to catch up once it was done but I still struggled to even remember things (it wasn't my fault btw, they simply omitted a lot of plot points from the manga so nothing made any sense unless you had previous knowledge, and what was omitted from the manga simply looked like plot holes in the anime both in terms of plot and characterisation). Eventually I rewatched the whole thing and it was somewhat enjoyable when taken as a full story, but still left much to be desired.
Nevertheless, I don't know why they thought to adapt such a massive manga in…
Read at the sourceDisfemisef
This was a 36 episode anime that really shouldn't have been that long. It followed the adventures of Masaru Saiga, a billionaire heir who inherits his father's wealth after his death. With the help of lover of kids and certified Jesus Christ, Narumi and the mysterious and beautiful doll like Shirogane, he tried to uncover his dead father's weird secrets and evade the weird puppet creatures coming after him. It had some pretty good points and a lot of bad, but let's look at the good first.
I liked some of the characters in Karakuri circus. The protagonists were well established and developed. They had back stories I could sympathize with and I was somewhat invested in their growth. The animation was okay, not spectacular, but okay. I liked that they did a bump of chicken song, so that was…
Read at the sourceRookieQueenOtaku
It took me a long time to finish this anime, but when I got to the end I felt very satisfied. The story line can be a bit confusing at times, and there was one point that it felt like a lot of random things were being thrown in out of nowhere in the middle of the show. It almost was like throwing in a brand new plot right in the middle of the series, which was somewhat confusing. But it's smoothed out in the end and is othewise a very good anime. It was very sad and just really makes you think about humanitiy and life and stuff like that. The puppets were fascinating, and a really well done part in the show. I cried a lot, there is a lot of sad parts in this show. This show also had very few problems with modesty, swearing, or graphic violence. There was very little graphics, though the sh…
Read at the sourceHatul
I'll start by saying that I think this series is a blast. If you like shonen anime like I do, especially the kind that hit you in the feels and hold no punches, I highly recommend it.
Karakuri Circus is an adaptation of a shonen manga from the 90s, coming from the same author of Ushio to Tora. It tells the story of Masaru, a kid raised by a rich family who just inherited a big fortune, since the father of the household died in a car crash. As a result, Masaru is being pursued by two separate groups of puppeteers who control super strong puppets that can kill people at the drop of a hat.
I'm not sure I should point this out, but this is a hot blooded, over the top series where some suspension of disbelief is required.
With that out of the way, I'd like to go over both the series' strengt…
Read at the sourceDuskmaiden_Yuuko
Story(5/10)- The story in Karakuri circus is unique because it involves puppets which are life-size, can speak for their own and each has their own way of battling each other, displaying a variety of emotions.The story development in the first 3 episodes os great but then it takes a down-fall as many episodes only involve going back in past than present.
Characters(5/10)- 1. Masaru, is a so called main character of the story which remains in focus for a very short and unsatisfying period of time whereas the side characters are burned out to make them seem 3-d and full of life but it fails real hard.
Fairly, the character's are highly flawed. The development from weak to strong MC like in Deku or Bakugo in Boku no hero/My hero Academica, you will be disappointed to find that nothing of th…
Read at the sourcewar0blade
This series has been airing since early October all the way until the end of June. That's roughly 8 months and eight months is a long time. If there's one thing this series does poorly, it's consistency. Sometimes the series really picks up and you can't wait to watch the next episode, other times watching paint dry would be more exciting.
Story - 7
This is a really long series so I won't go into much detail about the story as it isn't worth my time to write a summary as there would be too much details and things that would need to be discussed to fully explain the story. Instead I'll just write my two cents of things I thought while watching the series, from beginning to end.
The story starts out really boring. You wouldn't expect the story that would unfold if you didn't know anything…
Read at the sourceJiangHaoyi1979
Finally the 36 episode long anime has ended and it ended with a clean ending, not something that every anime does which always leaves an open ending, that the good part, the bad part about this anime was that to run for 36 episode was just too much of a chore, since we have to see a lot of back stories and info dump that were seemingly pseudo-science by nature, in one episode about the backstory of Yin and Bin it was 1758, that was the " Renaissance" that was the time that moden medicine was starting to develop in it's early stage, that was the time when modernity was in it's infancy , so how did a Chinese guy like Bai who traveled from China to Europe able to to created an virus or some kind of nanotech that gave people such disease like ZONAPHA , with tools that weren't even invented and…
Read at the sourceDaibaka123
This story is about tragedy, friendship overcoming tragedy through love and tragedy, and revenge. Oh! Specially to remind you what happens when you cock-block someone. The character development is amazing and very strong and so is the plot. It has a bunch of mysteries that all get revealed, and through the story there are two full circles that are nicely done through characterization. What do I mean by that? Well by the end of the series you will get why.
This is a story heavily involving puppets and circuses and alchemy. What Puppets, revenge, circuses, alchemy and forms of immortality or reincarnation do not interest you? Then, this is not for you.
The music is great and so is the art and the fights are very good. If you have seen Ushio to Tora, then you would most likely like this o…
Read at the sourceNotSoDeadZombie
I genuinely thought this story was pretty okay. It wasn't some God-tier kind of thing, but the concept was more or less unique and the plot was kind of a roller-coaster. That said, it's major flaws was just adding way too much extra stuff. Even for the crazy plot that this has, I'm pretty sure all of the characters had some tragic backstory for some reason and then it was roped in to the story in a way that felt like they did it just because. Not everyone has to have a dead family member or life-threatening disease to be an interesting character, sure some can but not when the entire cast has one or more of those.
Overall I enjoyed the show, it may not be my favorite but it was interesting to see characters get developed in some way that made them more than just a bad guy or a good guy. E…
Read at the sourceYedine
When I first heard about Karakuri Circus, I thought of a cheap shonen anime about clowns and circus, and a man fighting other clown or whatever. Well, I didn't take it seriously. And it was a slap ! I really enjoyed this show. The plot twist, the evolution of every characters, the first and second opening, everything was fabulous. A lot of various emotions in sight.
I recommend this show to everyone who loves complicated plot. It may be confusing sometimes, but it's not a nonsense.
Just a bad point : it's kinda sad that the anime is this short (compared to the manga). I discovered the anime first, but I've seen that there's a lot of parts missing.
(for the review, i'm giving it a 7, but in my list I gave a 9, i tried to take more distance for the review)
Read at the sourceZB_Blades
Karakuri Circus peeked my interest all the way back in the fall of last year. It was another work from the mangaka behind Ushio to Tora, which while rushed as an anime I still enjoyed. So with Karakuri Circus coming out I knew I had to check it out.
The first episode actually blew away my expectations. It looked good, really good. It kind of gave me this Hunter x Hunter vibe which is a high compliment. For the next few episodes the story continued at an appropriate pace and any worries I had for the series were at the back of my mind. All was going well and then they reached a point where they crammed in a completely new story line without any setup or warning. Now, I have not read the manga so I am viewing this series from an anime only perspective, but even I could tell they were leavin…
Read at the source7point8outof10
I would like to preface this review by saying that I have yet to read the Karakuri Circus manga, so I will be discussing the show on its own merits, rather than comparing it to the manga. That said, there are lots of elements to Karakuri Circus that make it clear that it cut out a lot of stuff from the manga. This anime serves as a case study as to what happens when you adapt a great manga (or, at least, I assume it’s great based on what I’ve seen of the anime) from 42 volumes into 36 episodes. As you might imagine, the result is a bit messy.
If I were to choose two adjectives to describe Karakuri Circus, I would go with “creative” but “rushed”. The plot is full of all sorts of brilliant and entertaining ideas, but it breezes through them so quickly that few of them really hit you with th…
Read at the sourceKaidu-
This is one of the worst adaptation to ever come out in recent memory. Not only it's a bad anime, but it's also an insult to the original manga by Fujita-sensei which is considered a classic in Japan.
Let's go over the biggest problem: it's rushed like hell.
How rushed? Well...
Imagine if you had to adapt JoJo part 5 into 13 episodes...
Or HxH into 24 episodes...
Or FMA into 16 episodes...
Or... Well, you get the idea.
The original manga is 43 volume long. This anime is 36 episode.
This means that even if they adapted a volume per episode, it wouldn't do it. So they had two choices: either cut whole volumes or cut small content. They choose both.
Now to the problems that this causes: it's a mess.
There is barely any characterization for the characters we are supposed to care abou…
Read at the sourcebmoore07
People evolve. We venture beyond our comfort zones, adapting and adjusting to new environments. In the end, we become better versions of ourselves. However, for the shirogane (masters of magical puppets), this is not the case. Defined by their silver hair, slim figures, and seemingly ageless bodies, they’ve been fighting monsters for hundreds of years. Their reasoning for this lies within a traumatizing event from long ago; this event permanently affected them. While the seasons change, the shirogane stay the same. It's apparent in their fighting style (the manipulation of puppets). With the issues they confront, the shirogane insist on an approach that’s not only unreliable but is also (more or less) outdated. To me, the shirogane are frozen in time.
The same can be said of Karakuri Circ…
Read at the sourceStark700
Over the past decade since I’ve been reading manga, there’s one author that I always felt underappreciated. Kazuhiro Fujita is the manga artist responsible for works such as Ushio and Tora and Moonlight Act. It’s not his first rodeo of having an anime adaptation. Ushio and Tora got the treatment of a 3-cour show (with a split break) based on his manga. Both series ran a large chunk of chapters before their conclusion. Karakuri Circus takes place in modern Japan focusing on a young boy named Masaru Saiga.
The story itself contains elements of action and dark fantasy while the plot revolves with three protagonists. Masaru, Narumi, and Shirogane may all have different personalities but their roles are all pivotal for the integrity of the plot. Masaru’s inheritance from his family paints a t…
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