Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Daxonzion-
Before starting the review, I will not go in with too much details for each category, such as Story, Art, Sound & Characters. Instead, I will explain what this title did best and worst in a simple manner, knowing that this is an OVA with only 1 episode and a 38 minutes of runtime.
Now, let's begin
The 2016 Under the Dog anime was originally a crowdfunding kickstarter project funded by the fans who are willing to see what potential story the show could bring. The kickstarter campaign ended up being a success with more budget going in than the original goal. With that, Under the Dog project was made into reality.
After the release of the OVA, the fans's expectation of it being a good anime seems to be destroyed. Being an anime with a nice visual but a confusing storyline, uninteresting…
Read at the sourceO_T_T
Possibly the most pointless OVA ever made.
Under the Dog is pathetic through and through. I doubt the entire staff were inept, but it was at least most of them. I'm lost as to how this even got to release without any of the rest raising their hand and saying to the room; "Fellas, this is awful. Please tell me this isn't the finished product."
Supposedly Under the Dog was originally a concept for a 2-cour anime, with this OVA possibly acting as an episode 0. In that regard, it's even worse than a standalone work, as it fails to feel like a primer for a longer story. The world and lore isn't set up at all, and the supposed main character doesn't even do anything until the final few scenes. Like the design of the girl on the poster? Cool, you get about five minutes total screentime of her.…
Read at the sourceAntalk
Under the Dog. It had potential but one episode just isn't enough to build the characters and story plus I found the battle scenes over the top and not realistic. Bottom line is, I want more.
I am a US Army vet w/ time in Iraq driving convoys, so I am always interested in how anime treats the US forces. As far as the equipment goes, up-armored 5-tons were spot on as were the multiple variants of the humvee and yes, there is a variant just for the TOW Missile system. My issue is this: How can combat hardened vets of probably of both Afghanistan and Iraq be such piss-poor shots and one girl, Hana can take out soooo many. Case in point: We learned our lesson in Vietnam. For every enemy killed it took almost 1000 rounds to do so. Re-thinking the M-16 weapon system, tactics then training broug…
Read at the sourceKristiwazhere
I have never heard of this anime before, and I had nothing to do with the crowdfunding campaign, so I don't really have any overt attachment to it in that way. This may be why I didn't have the visceral reaction that some of the reviewers seem to have had. I honestly didn't find it either that bad or that good.
Story: The story was ok for what it was, they tried to pack as much into the OVA as humanly possible, and it surprisingly worked for the most part. I didn't have the problem of needing every minor detail explained to me, my imagination filled in the gaps fine.
Though I did have a problem with a couple of details. The first of which was the fact that the US military were presented as boogyman type bad guys here. There was no real explanation as to why they were hunting down the bo…
Read at the sourceWhacky0573
Not much to report on what we see on the show.
Some comment "This is a bad story, it didn't entertain me enough in those 38m", but look ...What is an original work is that in its planning was to tell a drama surrounded by much war and blood, where it was seen or made a little clear why this case is occurring. Due to this, both in the animation, as in his commitment to develop a little history and its characters that would finally stand out more in the show, so as not to be white at all.
All those explosions and gunshots were great, but they were enough to be bothering.
You see!!!!!
In the middle of the house frame / explosions / shot / blood, we see animation interlaced and well placed in size and visibly suited in the middle of the sequence.
Finally, it is a work that leaves something to…
Read at the sourceafsfsfs
Plot execution-6/10
Art and Animation-9.5/10 (- for the LITTLE CGI)
Soundtrack-9/10
Story- 9/10 (if what I hope for is true, the little suspense was enough for a 9/10)
Enjoyment- 7/10
The plot could have definetly been explained better. I mean come on, you cant just shove random shize at our faces only to create suspense. Suspense is induced when we get that anxious tinge for what may or may not happen. I mean everything FELT so unnrelated. It didnt generate suspense, it created confusion. Now it may not be a bad thing by itself, but this OVA didnt back up its "confusion" with a well defined framework of characters, of scene-execution, of action, I mean you NEED to create the mood for us to enjoy the fight, to cry over the tragedy. I mean people are having a perfectly normal(?) conversat…
Read at the sourceblackdragon88
Under the dog had great art, and sound.
The character's showed a lot of promise.... for what little we saw of them.
For the most part, the anime was 30 minutes of gratuitous explosions. The whole point of the story can be summed up in like the last 10 seconds of the episode. What that really was I couldn't tell you because the anime did not make that clear.
I have no idea what I watched, but I can assure you, that whatever it was, could easily have been summed up in the last 20 seconds or less before the credits.
Well hey, at least we got a gratuitous boob flash to go with our gratuitous explosions. /s
Read at the sourceseanmagicalweeb
When I started to watch this short show, I was sort of enjoying it, it felt very epic and very enjoyable to watch. The entire show is always trailing behind a mystery that is causing you to wonder what is going on. You would think they would explain all this at the end, but they didn't. Because of this we have a visually stunning show full of guns and explosions that makes absolutely no sense and that doesn't sound very good to me. If you don't care if a show makes sense and only want to see some epic explosions and visuals than this is the show for you. But if you are like me and for a show to be good it must make sense than you will be very disappointed with this show. I was very disappointed with the ending because I was hoping for some cool conclusion of what was going on, but it never…
Read at the sourceAllyssa_swain
It was hard to tell what was going on.
Spoilers beyond this point
There was a sci-fi military conflict about the U.S soldiers trying to take a high school boy, and some assassin girls trying to stop them. I really didn’t know what either side wanted. I mean I knew that they were after the boy, but I didn’t get why ,or what each side was planning to do with him. There are details you can infer but we never find out what they really mean or how everything connects. They kept saying he was the last hope for humanity, and at the end we find out he turned into a monster just like his father before him because he was “ black”. Not like a race thing, I think it means being closer to turning into a monster. They use the words black and white several times and you don’t get a hint of what it means…
Read at the sourceEincaster
When its Kickstarter campaign was launched some three years ago, Under the Dog promised spectacular animation, epic music, and interesting characters. Needless to say, it failed to deliver any of those. Instead, it tried to deceive its backers with a breathtaking trailer, only to present the viewer with half-assed plot and characters, and above average animation.
The plot of this 30-minute (or 28-minute if you exclude the credits at the end) OVA is non-existent at best. It's obvious the producers have tried to stir the curiosity of future backers for a longer UTD project by making the story purposely vague. Because of that, there is no explanation whatsoever about anything that happens in the OVA. Actually, the MAL synopsis gives a more detailed explanation of the story than the OVA itsel…
Read at the sourceProfaneValkyrie
Another One-episode-is-not-enough-anime :)
I have not looked into the background for this anime, from what I have heard it is a somewhat crowdfunded anime and it seems not that it did not live up to the satisfaction, but for what reasons why I do not know :)
Only watch this is you want to crave for more because the setting of the plotline does not stop with only this episode nor did it wrap it all up in a satisfying ending.
Unlike a one episode anime called "Kuro no Sumika: Chronus" which in my opinion had everything, plot, progress, interesting characters and were wrapped up quite satisfyingly :)
but was under the dog a mess? No, for me it was like an pilot episode, a longer trailer which shows the potential of the show and for that the show did do good :)
(but I must say it seemed lik…
Read at the sourcecomiclove
'Under the Dog' was actually rather......down the middle for a crowd-funded 'demonstration' video. Not outrageously terrible, but neither was it super impressive. With a very vague plot and lack of characterization came stellar art and sound work.
[Story - 4]
The plot was told in an incomplete manner (Girls With Guns are sent to assassinate monsters hiding as humans after a disaster), but I was able to follow it in the later half thanks to some exposition. I would have preferred it if they put that in the beginning, but I guess beggers can't be choosers. There are many questions left unanswered, but I'm guessing that's to provide interest for any potential studios to pick it up (apparently this was originally planned as a 2-cour series, hence the subtitle 'Episode 0'). I kind of hope tha…
Read at the sourceEblouir
Uhm, I'm seriously not sure if the people here watched a prequel or if this movie is part of an even bigger franchise---I just watched it by itself and despite some reviews saying that this is bad, I must say that I enjoyed this thoroughly.
The story is kind of vague at first and it started with this seemingly normal family and how they are in the eyes of one of the children, a teenager named Hana Togatsu. She described her family in the most normal way and without any background knowledge, you would think that this would be just another slice of life. Except that it's not. Minutes into the film, you will be introduced to the fact that Hana is no normal teenager. She is actually an assassin, with a mission to keep someone alive and to eliminate some sort of monster.
I don't want to spo…
Read at the sourceSlimyTentacles
Gore, guns, explosions, and one naked boob.
Story [4] - Not much can be said in an action focused OVA like Under The Dog. Instead of giving us a story we are given many questions like "Who is the enemy?" "How did all of this happen?" "Who/what are these characters?". The story feels like it can truly go places, but where that place is no one knows since all we are left with is questions.
Art [10] - With as large of a budget Under The Dog got it sure as hell should look good. There are no lush green forests or glistening oceans to look at, expect only bullet holes and blood smeared walls of lavish high school. The background characters are rather questionable looking at times but the design of the background, gore, enemies, and the fluid motion of limbs flying around makes you forget abou…
Read at the sourcefightclubmako
do not listen to the constant complaining in the review section. this is a 30 minute pilot, that gives us a glimpse, of what a full series can be. a pilot is meant to introduce characters, and and give a small portion of the story.
it seems like many people in the review section, were expecting to be told everything in a 30 minute episode. if you pay attention well, you can piece details together.
i hope to see more of this, but this is the problem with kick starter projects. with luck, they might be picked up by an anime studio, but i doubt it.
Read at the sourceOnlyFestive
From the synopsis of Under the Dog, I almost debated taking it off my list.
It was a triple threat for me. High school meets action with banal characters - just awful. Despite this, it was only around a half an hour long, so I doubled down and ran through it expecting it to be as terrible as I had predicted. Fortunately, I was pretty shocked. The action was well animated, the characters weren't entirely as cardboard as I thought, and the story (even though ambiguous) actually had me pining for more.
Most of the mistakes that Under the Dog made were positively shadowed by good performance, well-adjusted sound design, and an attractive plot. The level of detail put into some of the scenes made me smile, which is usually something I don't normally experience when I watch anime. I was impre…
Read at the sourceSidewinder51
Rate of 5
Seen via english subtitles
Plot: was too mass produced that it completely ruined itself. If you were to name one thing common in action it is guns. Here was no exception. Guns on the left and right. Upwards and downwards gunfire. Basically, the only feature i understood was there were guns.
I was not happy with this episode at all. Episode 1 or in this case episode 0 is meant to allure the viewer to watching the show. Mission accomplished. Yet, you also need to explain a good case what it happening. Mission:Incomplete. I was going to give them the benefit of the doubt on that from when the 'reveal' was to happen but given the play-out really? REALLY?! To make matters worse the writers flat out insult the viewers with their "i just told you" message. You can hint all you wish b…
Read at the sourceInfriga
While the animation is lovely, the rest is a rather incomprehensible mess.
We're given no context about the world or the characters living in it besides a quick, and mostly irrelevant, monologue in the beginning. Characters are introduced and abandoned randomly, things are referred to that the audience knows nothing about and are never elaborated on. The tagline of the series is repeated several times without any explanation so we have yet to find out what it means. I went through the entire thing not knowing what the heck the plot was or what the importance of the characters were, and had to look it up to make any sense of it. The most important aspects of the plot are referred to only vaguely, and the audience is left wondering what exactly anything means, and not in a good way like you…
Read at the sourceMaster_Torres
Ok, to be fair, I'll tell you the good things I found in Under The Dog: Nice backgrounds...and that's all.
Story and characters: 1/10
The story makes no sense at all since we never get an explanation of anything, seriously, if you didn't read the sinopsis on any website, you wouldn't even know in what year this takes places. Also, this OVA has teenage girls that can kill trained soldiers with badass acrobatics and dodge heavy artillery shots; erotic fanservice, and the power of gaining strength by screaming with anger, making it imposible for both the spectator and the OVA to take itself seriously, wich is what the story tries to do, making it pretentious. Now let's talk about the characters: Hana, the female MC, is only there to say "I want to protect muh family" and protecting Nanase,…
Read at the sourceMochiBalls
Did it live up to the trailer we were all shown?
No
Was it overhyped?
Yes
The OVA showed only one scene from the trailer and had none of its futuristic technology, the characters were generic and the main plot device (the Tokyo 2020 terrorist attack) isn't even mentioned in the entire 30 minutes the OVA had not even as some background exposition.
the high school setting is unnecessary and limits what could have been done
i am underwhelmed by this but had there been no hype for this show it might have gotten a pass, but it showed a promising trailer and was even endorsed some big names
It bit more than it could actually chew, i was hoping this would fill the cyberpunk void in my soul but it only made it bigger
Read at the source
