AmishaelAL

Final verdict: Absolutely awesome. I can’t remember being this engrossed in a series for a long time; I couldn’t put it down from start to finish. Fantastic story-line, it had all the things one would hope for. Hero with a heart of gold, psychopathic villain with an existential crisis, incredible action scenes, moral lessons, and a few tear-jerking moments too – both happy and sad. Basically the only thing it didn’t have was romance (and I suppose you could even argue that if you wanted). The art was really good; I’m glad it wasn’t a cutsey style because it really wouldn’t have fitted here. The CGI was used well too – if anyone complains about CGI, just show them this! Music was catchy; the opening really got me pumped for each episode and the soundtracks were on point. The premise was nothing special – 2 people end up with powers as a result of a strange occurrence. The way they receive their powers doesn’t even matter – they could just as easily have been struck by lightning, and bitten by a cobra (

LIQfilms

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It’s a flying Grandpa! Perhaps it’s rather counter-intuitive to even mention this, considering how much we actively consume as fans of this medium, but anime is… strange. It’s a medium in which vigorously seems to try and go against societal norms; a medium not afraid to cover taboo or heavy topics such as incest or depression, and covers a myriad of different ideas and themes that if someone were looking for something incredibly specific from a piece of media, they’d probably find their incredibly niche want within anime. This is the main reason why I choose to persist as much as I do within this medium, not only since I enjoy strange pieces of media to begin with, but also because I can get stories and concepts in anime that I can’t get anywhere else, such as Haibane Renmei and The Tatami Galaxy to just name a few. I’m always looking out for something that is incredibly bizarre; something to fill that sensation I have to watch weird media, and the people over at MAPPA gave me what I was indeed looking for in the form of Inuyashiki (aka Flying Grandpa Simulator), a show in which a 58-year-old grandpa becomes a cyborg, with a multitude of different abilities, one of which being flight, as he becomes a vigilante of justice, protecting the weak, and curing people of their disease. Inuyashiki is a strange series and one in which I’m not quite sure where the writers were going with this story. For what I believe was supposed to be a moralistic battle against good and evil while presenting ideas of what it means to be human instead devolves into full-blown dumb shlock, and I loved every second of it! Don’t get me wrong, this show is bad. Quite bad in fact. But Inuyashiki has become one of my favourite guilty pleasures in anime with a concept and aesthetic so silly that I can’t take any of it seriously, even when it’s clear I am supposed to at times. Allow me to elaborate: Inuyashiki Ichirou, our senior male fantasy empowerment for this tale (laugh track at my totally original and clever joke) is not exactly having the greatest of times. Aside from looking much older than he actually is, his entire family resents him, for seemingly no reason. He has no affection for his wife, as they sleep in different rooms of the house, and his children also give him no time of day at all. To make matters worse, Inuyashiki receives unfortunate news that he has got terminal cancer, and, feeling that he can’t tell anybody about this, keeps it to himself, suffering in silence all the more than before. After a trip to the park to cry alone, suddenly, ALIENS! For no reason, and without any explanation at all, aliens accidentally kill both Inuyashiki and a man standing next to him, our main antagonist for this tale, Hiro (who just so happens to be standing next to him for some reason, but whatever). Realising their mistake, the aliens then rebuild both men, turning them into cyborgs in the process! While Inuyashiki uses his newly found powers for good, Hiro uses it for murder, as the rest of the series sees Hiro running from the police and becoming a bigger threat, with Inuyashiki trying to find him with the help of Andou, the once friend of our villain, who wishes to stop his murderous cyborg pal, leading to Inuyashiki’s and Hiro’s inevitable fight at the end. Flying Grandpa Simulator is fundamentally a tale of good versus evil, with each character’s respective ideologies being as basic as they come. Inuyashiki is the good guy, Hiro is the bad guy. While they do try and provide some introspection into Hiro’s character and the reason why he kills (which I’ll get into a little bit later in this review) this basic set-up is what allows Inuyashiki to be so damn senseless and fun! Flying Grandpa’s narrative is incredibly silly and over the top, but there was not a single moment in the entire show where I was bored and not laughing my ass off at how ridiculous the show could get at times, with the basic good versus evil narrative providing an amusing framework for all the stupid shit that happens in the show. This acted as an incentive for me to keep watching, just to see what the writer would think up next, and he never failed to entertain me on that front. The show is constantly trying to one-up itself every step of the way, with the narrative becoming more and more cheesy and ludicrous as it goes along, with Hiro proclaiming that he will kill everyone in Japan and even beginning to see through on this proclamation as he takes to the city buildings, and from there, kills hundreds with his finger banging, being the icing on the schlock-filled cake! The anime is all over the place, and the pacing, in particular, is so fast, that it actually works in favour of the show from an entertainment standpoint. One moment we see Inuyashiki flying through the skies accompanied by silly cartoon slapstick music, and then the very next episode we see him infiltrate a yakuza hideout, blind every single person there, and leave completely shirtless (not to mention that in the start of that very same episode, a Yakuza boss walks into a sauna completely naked and forces another guy to give him fellatio!) Even just all the little strange details the show includes makes it so enjoyable to watch as a piece of shlock for me. Such as is the case of the cyborg bodies of both Inuyashiki and Hiro. Not only is the prospect of seeing an old shirtless man flying through the air one that cracks me up, but the fact that this body, which was created by aliens, includes a USB port under one of the fingernails in order to connect it to an iPhone is such a stupid thing to include, that I burst out laughing when it happened! I guess Aliens also use USBs to connect their iphones to various other devices too?! However, we still haven't got to my favourite element of the cyborg bodies: finger banging! By just simply forming their fingers into the shape of a gun, much like a kid back when I used to play when I was like six-years-old, and then shouting “BANG” they fire off an invisible bullet of sorts, or, in Hiro’s case, using his entire arm to mimic a machine gun while screaming “DADADADADADA” when firing at a bunch of reporters. Just the idea of comparing Hiro playing with guns to that of a child is one that I found so hilarious, but it ultimately falls in line with Hiro's ideology and mindset; he too, thinks in the same rationality as a child would, so it does make sense within the context of his character to act as such. Inuyashiki’s narrative is comparable to that of a cheesy science fiction and seems to almost revel in that fact. However, there were some elements and ideas present here, that were actually not completely schlocky, that I thought were kind of interesting. Take, for example, where Hiro hijacks people’s phones and TV screens in order to murder them. It’s nothing great, sure, but I liked this idea since it meant that the killer could appear anywhere, at any time, striking people when they are at their most vulnerable, which added a whole new dimension of tension to those scenes in which Hiro goes on a rampage. It's an interesting concept to take a device which is so engraved in our everyday lives and present it as the biggest threat to our survival. However, despite as such, I would be lying if I said that much of my own enjoyment for Inuyashiki’s narrative is indicative of the schlock and stupid premise, which, while entertaining to watch to kill some time, doesn’t offer much besides that. It’s the type of show to watch drunk or high to get the most out of. If you’re looking for something that comments on the true nature of what it means to be human with themes of existentialism and the such, then you will find no such thing here. Much of your level of enjoyment of this show stems from whether you enjoy watching bad schlock, and if you can just turn your brain off (since, when you begin to think about each of the world-building elements and ideas then your brain will hurt since nothing makes any logical sense) and just watch all the stupid carnage unfold before your eyes. I had a blast watching Inuyashiki, clearly, and I think that’s worthy of praise if a show can be entertaining, even if that show is indeed bad, but that still doesn’t excuse all the poor writing the show seems to thrive in and the multitude of problems it has. One of the most prolific, and the one that would probably put people off from watching the show altogether is the strange tonal shifts the show has, going from goofy hijinks with an old man attempting to fly, to the straight up murdering of young children and babies. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the second episode of the show, which shifts to the point of view of Hiro, our antagonist, something the show does rather frequently during its run. At the end of this episode, Hiro walks into a random stranger’s house, and murders everyone inside, including a small child who is sitting inside a bathtub, as his father cries and pleas for his life, but Hiro finger bangs him regardless. This surprised a lot of people who were not familiar with the manga, including me, since it came so far out of left field, and the show has quite a number of these moments. The killing of children comes across as rather tasteless and a pathetic attempt to seem edgier than it actually is; it’s essentially shock factor, which reminded me a lot of Elfen Lied, albeit nowhere near as extreme as that show, which tried to hide behind a veil of being deep and mature. Inuyashiki has an air of dumb fun, and seems to almost partake in making fun of how ridiculous it can be at some points in the show, to the point where it feels that the original writer had just as much fun writing this insane story as I had consuming it. Although, there were a few moments in the show in which I believe were supposed to make the viewer feel sad, or perhaps tense, regarding those moments were people are killed, but I was having just as much fun with those scenes as I would any other in the show, and it’s this strange juxtaposition of what I believe the writer intended an audience to feel, and what I felt, that makes any serious moment fall apart in the show. The anime also has this strange tendency to randomly cut to a character who has no bearing on the overall plot at all, such as a working woman with terminal cancer or a woman on a plane visiting her family. This comes across as jarring and bizarre since the characters are completely inconsequential to the plot, and the show spends a good five to ten minutes on each respective character; it feels like needless padding just for the sake of such. While it does make sense in one or two instances, such as in episode four where we are introduced to two characters who are linked directly to the plot of that episode, which is what triggers Inuyashiki to go and infiltrate that Yakuza hideout I talked about a moment ago, most of the time it just feels worthless, and if it were cut entirely, nothing would be affected. I suppose the point of these random digressions in the narrative is to showcase what the public is thinking and to gain an insight into how Inuyashiki’s efforts are saving people’s lives, but it still feels unnecessary. The ending for the show too, while I won’t get into specific details about it, isn’t exactly the greatest in the world either, and may leave you feeling somewhat irritated as a result, although it didn’t personally annoy as much as it did with others. The characters of Flying Grandpa Simulator are probably the weakest part of the series and feel more so like one-dimensional cardboard cut-outs than actual fleshed out people. First of all, there is Inuyashiki, our protagonist of this tale; a weak and timid old man who, despite working full time to support his family, receives no love or affection for all his hard work. All of Inuyashiki’s family are just so cruel to this poor old man, for seemingly no reason at all! While it is implied that Inuyashiki’s son resents his father because he is being bullied at school because of his poor family income, he still treats his father as if he were a stranger! Perhaps it can be excused since he is young, and being bullied or something along those lines, but his resentment towards his father just comes across more as trite and forced, to manipulate the audience into feeling sympathetic towards Inuyashiki. The show does try to explore the history behind Inuyashiki’s daughter, however, Mari, whereupon we see that as a kid Mari cared for her father dearly, following him about everywhere and crying that he would pass away soon since he looked far older than he was. However, as she grew into adolescence, Inuyashiki explains to Andou that he has not spoken with his own daughter for years now, as she seems to actively try and avoid him at all costs, and it’s never explained why she does this, nor why she holds resentment towards her father. It’s kind of implied that she is trying to prove something to him, that being that she wants to draw manga, but the show doesn’t give any clear insight into why she dislikes her father as much as she does, making her feel more like a one-dimensional twat if anything else. While in the penultimate episode of the show she does once again begin to love her father as before, there’s not really any build-up to this event, aside from one moment in which Inuyashiki, in a conversation with Mari and her mother about her future, says that she should be allowed to pursue what she wishes, that is, drawing manga, or the few scenes where she was following her father around as he cured the sick in various hospitals, but her sudden change regarding her opinion of her father comes so far out from left field and feels jarring as a result. I expected a bulk on Inuyashiki’s character arc to be centred around him growing in confidence with this new found body and sorting out the various issues with the rest of his family, but that never really happens, nor is any justification given into why his family dislikes him as much as they do. While, certainly, Inuyashiki himself does seem to grow in his confidence, as he finally finds purpose in his life, and a reason for why he was born in the first place, as evident by his monologue in the penultimate episode in which he goes from person to person saving their lives, or healing them from their wounds, in a scene that actually had some heart to it, I wouldn’t say his character is anything substantial or even close to good. He simply represents the human side of the two newly-created cyborgs and that is it. Speaking of such, this leads me to the next character, Hiro, the antagonist of the series, and the representation of the loss of humanity when one becomes a cyborg. Hiro’s character, and the arc he embarks on (or lack thereof) centres around his loss in humanity, as he has to kill others in order to feel human once again, childishly playing a game to determine which house he will enter next to slaughter those who lay within it. Hiro is just a complete psychopath with no emotions or empathy, asking women if they enjoy One Piece while their entire family has been killed! While the show does try and convey this theme of what it truly means to be human regarding Hiro’s character, it falls flat on its face since it’s heavily implied that Hiro was a complete psychopath even before becoming a cyborg, as we learn that as a child he killed small animals and the such. This completely negates all the attempts the narrative has to present Hiro as a victim of circumstance; as a victim of losing his own humanity which acted as the justification he had for killing people, and makes all the moments in the show in which he is breaking down and crying over someone he loved feel all the more ridiculous, as I can’t feel any sympathy towards someone who kills children! His character has no chance to reflect on the misdeeds he has done in the past, nor do we really get a chance to delve into the psychological implications his murdering is having on himself, which just makes him feel more so like a psychotic murderer and nothing else. I don’t believe this is inherently a bad thing, and it works in the show’s favour regarding its shlock value as I mentioned before, but it makes Hiro’s character uninteresting. Simply put, he is the bad guy and must be stopped. Nothing more. Nothing less. The rest of the characters in the show are either just one-dimensional assholes, such as a group of kids in the very first episode who fire fireworks at some poor homeless man, a group of thugs, who, when told they shouldn’t push in front of the line for a taxi by a middle-aged businessman, then escort said man to a park twenty minutes away just to beat the hell out of him because they’re just that EVIL, or random kids making fun of a woman with cancer just to make her all the more miserable, or they’re absolute dumbasses! Every person in the world of Inuyashiki is so damn dumb that I wonder how they even know how to properly breathe! Okay, let’s first discuss Shion, who, after the news is revealed that Hiro is a murderer, and is thus on the run from the police, allows Hiro to stay with her and her Grandmother in her house as a means of protecting and hiding him since she doesn’t believe he would do such a thing. But, this makes no sense as there is no reason for Shion to believe that he isn’t a murderer as she knows nothing about him! To her, he is just a fellow classmate, and the only interaction that she has ever had with him was one case where she asked for Hiro to go out with her, confessing her feelings in the process, whereupon he said, “Thanks” and walked away. There is nothing to suggest otherwise that he is not the killer, and it always annoyed me how naïve she was in letting, essentially what is a stranger, inside her home! Her character, as well as that of her Grandma, are used mainly as a means for Hiro to learn to love people once again, and giving him some kind of reason and drive to fight to protect them, but it’s handled poorly. But, compared to the entire Japanese police force, Shion is a goddamn mensa student. The police force, for whatever reason, are incapable of tracking down one single person, and it’s not like Hiro stays inside Shion’s place all the time either. He comes and goes rather frequently, and, in one instance, leaves just to murder some reporters before flying back! With all this travelling, and considering that he is one of the most wanted men in the area, why did it take so long for the police to hunt him down? Even more so when there are hundreds of goddam surveillance cameras all over the place too; surely, they must have been able to catch him on camera or something? Additionally, when Hiro begins his crusade to murder every person in Japan, he takes to the buildings and kills 100 people there and then, before issuing a warning to the rest of Japan that the following day he will kill 1,000. However, despite this massive threat, and proving that he has the means to be able to pull it off, nobody seems to even care! The very next day, despite commenting that there are fewer people out, most people are still working and walking about the area where all those people were murdered, but above all, most people are still using their phones! It was established in the previous attack that Hiro can kill you through a smartphone, or any other device with a screen on it, and here we have idiots walking around with their phones still! Do they actually want to die?! Also, why are the police not doing anything to find Hiro? Like, clearly, he was snipping people with his finger banging from high up on buildings, but where are the helicopter surveilling each building to try and find this guy? Even more so when we learn that he doesn’t even move from his location and just spent the night sleeping on top of the same roof he killed everyone from the day before! What are the police even doing?! One final thing I want to rant about really quick is how each woman in the show, most particularly teenage girls, refer to Hiro as being “hot” or “cool” so much so that there have been several fan groups made about him, and when one girl, during the massacre of 100 people sees Hiro appear on her phone, she blushes and acts like a dumbass instead of being fearful for her life! Why is Hiro being idolised? This is the guy who murdered babies for crying out loud! While the show does too seem to question this, as evident by a couple of police officers who are discussing this fact, this element always bugged me, and I groaned to myself whenever a girl would comment about how “hot” Hiro was. Unfortunately, Flying Grandpa Simulator suffers from poor production values too, and while most of the character designs are fine by themselves, in motion, when the use of CGI is used, it can look pretty choppy. The CGI contrasts awkwardly with that of the traditional 2D animation, intermixing both within the same scene haphazardly, sometimes utilising CGI just for walking animation, and it’s incredibly inconsistent to bat. At best, it wasn’t too bad, and the CGI wasn’t obtrusive enough to really pull me out of the show, but at its worst, the CGI models can look hideous! Inuyashiki is far from the worst looking thing I have ever seen, but I wouldn’t say it’s particularly good either. As for most of the music in the show, it’s rather forgettable, barring one slapstick piece, that I remember above everything else since it was used bizarrely in a scene that didn’t fit the tone of the piece; a scene in which Inuyashiki has to stop several planes from crashing into the city to prevent hundreds of deaths! It feels pretty jarring and doesn’t work at all. The OP and ED tracks, however, are both excellent! The OP is perhaps one of my favourite opening tracks for any anime, and I’ve listened to it on repeat while writing this review for hours now, I can’t get enough of it. It hypes me up so much, and is so goddamn catchy that I love it! By contrast, the show’s ED takes on a much more sombre and melancholic tone, reflecting the attempted relationship between that of Hiro and Shion, and is also a wonderful piece of music in its own right. In conclusion, Inuyashiki is a bad show; one that is bogged down with poor writing, idiotic characters and mediocre production values, but I loved every second of it! It’s pure dumb shlock on every level, with a premise that I enjoyed due to just how silly it was. But, at the same time, this makes Inuyashiki hard to recommend to people since, as I said before, your level of enjoyment with this show is dependant on whether you enjoy shlock, and if this premise is one that you may enjoy as a “so bad that it’s good title”. As it stands, however, I can’t bring myself to hate this show, despite how poor it actually is, since it brought me nothing but enjoyment, and while I am disappointed on some level with this show, as I’ve heard amazing things about the original source material, this show is certainly a better one than MAPPA’s previous effort, Bukkakegurui, a show that not only was bad but also boring! Inuyashiki, in my opinion, is the good type of bad show. The type, that despite still being indeed bad, is still able to make an entertaining show despite that. With all that said and done, and finally ending my longest review yet, I thank you for taking the time to read this and, who knows… maybe your grandpa is also a cyborg too!

AndoCommando

> “Are my father and little brother dead too?” > “What does that matter? We were talking about One Piece.” I want to take you back to 2004, where an anime called Gantz was released; a gritty, gruesome action show from arguably the most inconsistent anime production studio: Gonzo, and it was a fucking train wreck! The finest example of a poor plot turned bombastic; gore, sex, nudity, profanity, it’s all here and is so nonsensical yet outrageous to the extreme, it can only be compared to shitty OVAs of the 80’s and 90’s that had next-to-no restrictions on what they could do. Unfortunately, due to factors like fluctuating quality in animation, marketing and just being a downright insane show, other anime such as Monster, Paranoia Agent, SAC: 2nd GIG and Elfen Lied found large fanbases and have been fondly remembered whereas Gantz has been somewhat lost in the shuffle over the years. And those who have seen the show, while there might not be much to say about it positively, can certainly agree that Gantz was one of the most enjoyable pieces of schlock they have ever seen. It’s been a long 13 years. Inuyashiki is this decade’s Gantz, albeit toned down in sheer crudity yet never eases on being an insane power fantasy romp. It is a sci-fi action series based on the manga of the same name from mangaka Hiroya Oku, and wouldn’t you know it, he’s the same guy behind the manga for Gantz. Coincidence? The story tells of Ichiro Inuyashiki, a middle-aged man that appears almost twice his age who’s down on his luck, being ignored by his own family and finding out he has stomach cancer. Just when all looks bleak, he is killed by a UFO before being rebuilt as an invincible superweapon capable of saving lives and destroying the world. That’s right, aliens pop out of nowhere to turn man into machine with the purpose left in question. But he was not the only person rebuilt as such, and while Ichiro sees this as a way to do more good in his life, Hiro Shishigami is an edgy teen that does what he pleases with his new power, most of which involves slaughtering as many people as he wishes. The plot may seem complex but it’s really just an eccentric take on the “Good v Evil” dynamic commonly used. The premise overall is very intriguing, but what matters more is the execution; how well-handled the show was, and this is where my problems with Inuyashiki begin. The series focuses on the two main characters, showcasing how they each come to terms with their newly acquired power in their own daily lives, whilst highlighting the contrast in their beliefs and newfound purpose. This contrast is not hard to pick up on, with Ichiro wishing to help those in need and use his power for noble and virtuous reasons, and Hiro…. Well Hiro’s reasons are never really explored – we only see Hiro abuse his abilities how he damn well pleases because he can. Hiro comes off as a child with this mentality, except even a child would have a more distinct personality than what we have here; a mindless psychopath devoid of human emotion – an android in both anatomy and mentality. Unfortunately, there are no flashbacks or scenes of Hiro’s past to show what he was like before the night he was killed, and that provokes one to question if Hiro is simply the character meant to be the villain and nothing more. Compare his situation to Ichiro, an old man that has his problems in life made evident, and when he gains insurmountable power he retains how he thinks and feels about others. Ichiro is no perfect character either; empathy for the man is difficult when personal issues are crammed into the first episode before being practically erased afterward, along with minimal time and focus on the relationship with his family, but at least I can say that Inuyashiki is a proper character that comes across like a real person. Whereas Hiro ends up feeling like the antagonist out of necessity for the plot to move forward, whilst allowing for a small group of fans to self-insert as the suave-looking overpowered badass with the world at his feet. The points above may seem small when looking at the overall picture, but these minor issues become heavy burdens on the story of Inuyashiki when you look at the structure of the series. The first episode is all about Ichiro and crams a lot of content aimed to put sympathy on his character. At first it seemed an odd choice by staff, but looking back it’s easy to see why considering how most of the following episodes focus on Hiro and how he causes mayhem. It’s hard to not see so much of this cool, calm and crazy teenager murder so many people with Wind Style: Air Bullets and not think that the show only cared about the amount of bloodshed they could animate across the show’s runtime. Initially Hiro also uses his strength for his one friend Andou to stop him from getting bullied, but even when he distances himself from Hiro it does not change Hiro in the slightest. The way the show tries to intertwine both Ichiro’s and Hiro’s separate arcs fails to get viewers to empathise for either main character with one only shown to be on his own one-man rampage from the start, and the other having his arc glossed over as he is thrown into having to be the one to stop the rampage. With the exception of a few times, Ichiro is chasing around Hiro when committing evil acts, stagnating much chance of his character development taking place and putting all the attention on the slaughter. This would not be as big of a problem if Hiro’s character wasn’t built on unexplained motives, coming off so bland and lifeless to the core that both men end up being as one dimensional as the show. The ambiguity was what peaked my interest, but that turned into disdain when you figure out many aspects of the story stays in ambiguity. The worst parts of Inuyashiki come when they try to take moments of pure schlock seriously and attempt to have viewers empathise with the people in the show. First off, it’s incredibly difficult to feel for a character like Ichiro when parts of his life are brought up at whatever time is convenient for the show. You can’t expect to exploit a character arc so sporadically and have viewers still feel so strongly for him when they themselves are trying to wrap their head around what is even happening with the story. And Hiro, while having more time and attention put on him, is even more laughable to feel bad for when all he does is murder in the most apathetic ways conceivable, from shooting at pedestrians on a whim to asking a girl what manga she likes after killing their family beforehand and her soon after. He is a psychopathic murderer with the most interesting part about him being that he’s a psychopathic murderer. Real sad. As for one-off characters, their screen time is more of a result of poor pacing than anything else, and it’s hard to feel sympathy for what is happening to random people in the show when the show itself is primarily concerned with being a bloody gore fest. Now a show like that is not inherently bad, but it needs to be self-aware enough to not rely on viewers feeling sympathetic for brutal acts on random bystanders, otherwise you come off as shallow. The pacing is also a constant issue – the ratio of chapters to episodes is 85:11, meaning that the show is going to be fast as fuck at potentially skipping key events present in the manga to compensate for the amount to content. This only adds to the already apparent problems in the narrative and characters, giving a show with so much violence almost no breathing room, its audience practically being bombarded with carnage being succeeded with more carnage, only separated by Ichiro attempting to save the day and a god-awful romance subplot that makes no sense even for blind teenage love. The ending also suffers from the pacing, being incredibly rushed that even with how cliché and contrived it was, any emotional impact it had on viewers had the weight of a slight breeze. Inuyashiki was never intended to be an emotional story and here it should have never become one. It is obvious that Inuyashiki is more concerned with being about senseless fun than a battle of morals between good vs evil represented by two men not even human anymore, but for a show about being entertaining at such a base level, it was a boatload of fun to watch. The ridiculous of it all works to its favour, getting away with some the most shocking yet hilarious moments I’ve seen in a long time. Seeing CGI-animated men fly through the sky at night alone is funny enough, but having a man-child act as if he were holding on to an imaginary assault rifle, before massacring everyone in sight while saying “DADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADA” takes the hilarity to a whole new level. Events such as shooting people through their mobile phones, fighting an entire crime syndicate with technique from World Star Hip-Hop and learning to fly from channelling… Astro Boy?? How one cannot laugh out loud when watching this amazes me. Even when the main lead’s cybernetic enhancements are never looked into over the 11-episode duration, I can’t even be mad at this point. This is schlock to the max and is only concerned about being schlock with no thin veil of depth hiding its true intentions. If years later if I forget the show or the characters, at least I’ll remember the moments that made Inuyashiki what it really is. The animation can be hit-or-miss depending on how you feel on CGI, and while I do think that CGI can be utilized well in anime, it feels out of place for the most part here. Initially this style is used only to show how complex Ichiro and Hiro are when they transform into the primitive mechanical lifeform, but from there its used more and more to where even basic walking will be computer-generated at some point. It becomes incredibly jarring when the show switches from the traditional 2D art style to 3D animation, and can also just look downright hideous, comparable to graphics from a PS1 era game. While it does makes everything look stupid and ergo more entertaining on a superficial level, it’s more of a detriment to the show overall. It’s such a shame that this show had this kind of animation quality behind Studio MAPPA, one that is praised for their high production values for anime the likes of Shingeki no Bahamut and even Garo: Vanishing Line, which came out the same time as Inuyashiki and looks much better despite being a lot less popular. Inuyashiki by no means looks like one of the worst anime ever – that’s asinine to believe, but I expected better. MAPPA, you got to stop letting me down. As for the sound, it has its own share of problems. The soundtrack is forgettable and won’t affect the experience at all. What is top-tier though are the OP and ED; both are awesome. The OP by Man on a Mission features the most metal theme I’ve heard all year and never skipped. Definitely the most hype openings and one of my favourites for sure. The ED however seems somewhat underappreciated, coming off as sombre and melancholic, envisioning the romance between Hiro and his lover and make it a little more bearable than what we were given in the show. All in all, both are great and one will probably appreciate them both more than the actual show. The voice acting here is very awkward, with some casting choices that have left me scratching my head wondering why were they chosen. Hiro’s voice actor is not good but at least I can say he sounds his age. Ichiro’s voice actor makes it as if his geriatric disease was out of control and he was in his early 20’s the entire time. Maybe an English dub will fix this, but as for now I can only judge it by how I heard it and it wasn’t pretty. All in all, Inuyashiki is the kind of anime you’ll enjoy on the surface, since there isn’t anything deeper going on than an edgy teen acting like a supervillain with Ichiro nearly always appearing too late to stop him. It’s definitely an experience that most anime fans won’t have seen before, providing the kind of shocks and thrills that will get you easily hooked to the show. Is it poorly written? Yes. Does it have poor characters? Absolutely. Are the production values bad? Well they certainly aren’t great. But was it fun? OH HELL YEAH! Some of the purest schlock I have had the pleasure to come across, and no matter how many problems I can point out with this show, I cannot bring myself to hate it. One could call it so bad it’s good, but terms such as “good” and “bad” do not do the show justice when it comes to expressing how I felt about Inuyashiki. If you’re looking for an anime that you want to enjoy and is unlike everything you have probably ever come across, this might very well be what you’re looking for.

CodeBlazeFate

*some spoilers ahead* Inuyashiki is a gloriously strange beast. It’s as tactless as it is hopeful, and about as schlocky as it is earnest. It’s this strange series trying to embody the best, worst, and moral greys of humanity while only working some of the time and falling gloriously on its face more often. It has commentaries on people and media, and so much more as well which it can only barely pull off sensibly at the best of times. Often contrived, stupid, and downright extra about everything, Inuyashiki has become the schlock beast I had hoped for while shooting for something more. This is a story about what two polar opposites would do if they became robo gods, and what people would speculate about them as a result. Apart from the unease on whether certain tertiary characters are about to die, probably the most solidly handled part of this show is how the Japanese citizens would often speculate on what our RoboGramp, Inuyashiki, and Teen-1000 Hiro are doing. They can shoot people essentially by pointing at them without there being any projectiles (seeing them through digital screens can work), they can hack all kinds of technology, use telekinesis on vehicles, fly, shoot laser beams that sometimes explode and sometimes don’t, heal people, resurrect the dead, a lot of shit, really. They’re even impervious to bullets despite the first few episodes establishing that bullet or baseball bat head trauma can still knock out RoboGramp. Yeah, inconsistency is a bitch in this show. At one point, Inuyashiki focuses on saving one plane cuz he can’t concentrate on saving the myriad of other planes that are also falling, but suddenly after saving the first one, the rest are all right behind it and perfectly safe. Later in the episode, he has to resurrect his daughter and then cries for four straight minutes because he just can’t, despite the fact that he resurrected someone from the dead in the fourth episode and that Hiro did it to two people at once in the eighth episode. Then, he saves his daughter’s friend in four seconds. This is worse than the show’s pacing which feels a bit cramped every now and then, and the show’s insistence on giving the MC an over the top trauma conga line for the first 11 minutes. Hell, it’s worse than how comically apathetic and evil a lot of the denizens in this town are. It’s even worse than how Hiro was barely fazed by Ando ending their friendship over all of the killing Hiro’s done, yet is heartbroken when at the end, he gets chewed out again by him. There’s more to unpack regarding this particular issue, but you get the point. This brings us to how damn extra the show is. We see in graphic detail how Hiro murders and tortures an entire family, including shooting the mother and then continuing to shoot her corpse, and shooting a dad protecting his kid in the full bathtub, causing his corpse to weigh down on top of the kid and drown him in bloody water. Episode 4 also introduces this rapist yakuza member who fucks, kills, and ODs people. The show later showed Trump being an ass because between this and a moment where the show almost pulls a 9/11, they really wanted gaudy parallels to real-world events/tragedies. I’d almost hate it for being as tactless as humanly possible if it wasn’t so ridiculous. I remind you now that the show wants to be taken seriously, between all of this and the CG action scenes involving RoboGramp and/or Teen-1000. The final episode is also a load of horseshit. You’re seriously telling me that Hiro’s self-destruction that can obliterate the Earth barely did a thing to the asteroid that was threatening all life on it, making his big self-sacrifice after everything he did be completely meaningless? Clearly, they needed some way to contrive our robo gods out of the story forever because we can’t have nice things! I know they wanted some way to get these things across so that’s why they introduced a meteor in episode 8 and then never spoke of it again until now but come on! I know the writing is so damn transparent with shit like the sappy lead-up to the finale or Hiro conveniently turning good twice before his mother commits suicide and two people that shelter him get gunned down --he heals them like two minutes later anyway so what the fuck-- respectively, but COME ON! I fucking hate anime sometimes, I swear. Just let me have nice things, dammit. Can’t even keep one anime gloriously bad from beginning to end. It has to really piss me off or bore me at some point. First Big Order, then Master of Ragnarok, now Inuyashiki. Let’s get back on track here by talking about the music, which I doubt there’s much of in this show. There’s the OP, “My Hero” by MAN WITH A MISSION, which is an epic banger, and the decent ED meant to soothe after each episode concludes. Then the only track of note is this one piano track. They reuse this track so many times, it’s insane. In episode 7 alone, they played it three times. Say what you will about the likes of Berserk 1997 and its small track pool; at least it didn’t use the same track three or more times in an episode. There are other emotional tracks and whatnot too, and they’re decent. It’s just that the show doesn’t play them 50 times like with that one piano track so that one, as well as this one calming guitar track that plays constantly throughout the show and episode 9 in particular, both dwarf the rest in terms of relevance. The production values are so dismal that this is easily the worst-looking MAPPA production I’ve witnessed. The titular protagonist himself looks so inconsistently drawn and modeled, even more so than everyone else who often either looks ugly or is drawn so inconsistently it almost feels intentional. The art style itself isn’t necessarily bad, but it clearly doesn’t benefit every character in terms of looks or even detail. There’s barely any 2D animation to speak of and when there is, it’s nothing special. The most animation we get from anything 2D is when a character is spinning in midair because Inuyashiki BTFOs them so hard they turn into SpinZaku from Code Geass before falling back down. Speaking of inconsistencies, several character models, particularly Inuyashiki, Hiro, and the dog, spontaneously turn 3D for no reason, even before our main leads turn into RoboGramp and Teen-1000. It makes sense when they’re about to reveal their robot parts to do robot things like fly around and shoot people, but not when they’re just eating alongside their 2D peers. You’ll be seeing this almost as much as you’ll be seeing PS2 CGI in this show, as it’s everywhere. So many character models and environments have them and sometimes it feels like they just made a 3D engine for this show and animated 2D models on top of it. Whenever CG is involved, there’s a good chance that the frame rate will become one of the many, many, many casualties in this show. The last thing I will say is that sometimes shots don’t flow together thanks to characters being in one position in one moment and then a completely different one the next, or when in the exact same scene, it goes from Hiro and Inuyashiki fighting at dusk to fighting late at night. There may be some decent shots here and there, but based on everything mentioned here, it’s safe to say the directing in this anime isn’t exactly great. Also, the characters exist too. Mari has a manga subplot that gets randomly introduced in episode 8 without any prior hints or foreshadowing in previous episodes because the show wants to focus on her now so her temporary death in episode 10 can manipulate the audience’s emotions. Inuyashiki just constantly whines about morality and people dying without there being any concrete character to him beyond “the world beat him down before he became RoboGramp” and “he can’t always save people” (bullshit). Ando gets this whole moral dilemma about ending his friendship with Hiro and trying to report him, yet we get nothing on how he feels about Hiro’s mom committing suicide after Hiro gets exposed and everyone harasses her. Apart from Teen-1000 Hiro, who goes so far past the moral event horizon that the idea of them trying to humanize him midway into the story is as laughable as his over the top killing sprees, there are guys like the aforementioned rapist yakuza member. That’s about it in terms of memorable characters. There’s a lot of entertainment to be had here, regardless of whether you cherish this show’s endeavors or its ridiculous, often meme-tier nature. Just...pretend the ending wasn’t a thing so you can say the show was a ridiculous ride from start to finish. Even then, the finale still had laughable moments like the dog tripping down the stairs because it and everyone else in the family knew Inuyashiki was rushing to his death and wanted to stop him. Frankly, I can see why some find the show extreme but resonant, and why some find it repulsive. I just think it’s too ridiculous to be taken seriously most of the time. To think, this came out on my birthday in Japan and I watched the 9th episode --which damn near pulled a 9/11-- on 9/11. Both of these things were purely incidental; I just thought you should know these things because if this show doesn’t care about being weird and audacious, then neither will I! Written and Edited by: CodeBlazeFate Proofread by: Peregrine

Meistro

~~~img(https://i.imgur.com/aY85O3P.jpg?1)~~~ Whenever people think of anime, there's an ingrained impression even today that it's full of giant robots, ninjas, pirates or other crazy and fantastical elements that are, in an oversimplified manner, "cartoonish." Even nowadays, there's a communication barrier between those who got into anime and those who didn't. There are certainly many reasons for it, and I won't patronize anyone by assuming that I understand such reasons, but more often than not, anime has impressed me on just how broad a range it has in its thematic variety. Aside from the most common mainstream anime like "One Piece" and "Naruto", there have also been poignant anime about the neutrality of nature and its cyclical life and death like "Mushishi", anime that portray mental illness in a lighthearted fashion like "Kuuchuu Buranko", or even anime about the innocence of crossdressing like "Hourou Musuko". Furthermore, each anime I mentioned has a very distinct artstyle of its own, so the reasoning of "I don't like anime artstyle" never really convinced me either. Then there's "Inuyashiki: Last Hero", an anime that's the equivalent of Pixar's "Up" but far more tragic and socially relevant in its tackling of ageism issues in Japan, an anime about a superhero old man. Based on the manga "Inuyashiki" by Hiroya Oku (creator of the popular sci-fi manga, "Gantz"), the 11 episode seinen anime (anime targeted at adult males) tells the tale of Inuyashiki Ichiro, an old man dying of stomach cancer. He has lost connection with his family and even the world at large, and he feels left behind without any meaningful purpose in life. That is until an accident caused by extraterrestrials that changed his life (and body) forever, along with another teenage kid named Shishigami Hiro. Their body is replaced with a robotic one, and both of them take a different approach to their newfound life and body; Hiro chooses to kill while Ichiro chooses to save lives. ~~~img(https://i.imgur.com/ctmbLTY.png?1)~~~ Beyond its ageism issues on the surface, Inuyashiki is also about the human capacity for both good and evil, and how people can sometimes take for granted the life and the time that they are given. There's a very clear duality to both Ichiro and Hiro with both of their viewpoints on life practically mirroring each other. While Ichiro is forgotten by the world at large, including his own wife and children, Hiro still has friends and a family that cares very much about him, not to mention a female classmate who has a crush on him. While Ichiro remains compassionate towards a society that's cold and indifferent towards the elderly like him, Hiro feels that it's logical for someone to only care about his own loved ones and friends while remaining apathetic towards the lives of others. What's similar between them, however, is that they have both lost touch with society long before they became machines; their attempts to heal and kill people are ways that they could feel alive again in their own nihilistic existence. I haven't read any other work of Hiroya's except his most famous work, Gantz, but it was easy to tell from both Gantz and Inuyashiki that his works are very critical of the Japanese society, or perhaps even humans as a whole and how we are becoming more cold and indifferent towards one another in the digital age. While Gantz deals with this more explicitly by exposing people's hypocrisy and prejudice, Inuyashiki seems like an antithesis to Gantz, showing the humanity that still exists within what seems to be a cruel and uncaring society on the surface. It's almost as if Hiroya was calling out on misanthropic readers who have misinterpreted his works as advocating violence for violence's sake. In fact, other than a yakuza gang that committed heinous acts of violence and assault, most characters in Inuyashiki aren't portrayed as the kind of inhumane monster that Hiro definitely is. No matter how callous or selfish people act in Inuyashiki, Hiro's senseless violence feels far more sadistic every time. ~~~img(https://i.imgur.com/HbwRAV3.png?1)~~~ There's an especially disturbing scene in episode 2 where Hiro gradually kills off members of a family while soaking up their emotions and trauma simply to feel alive again. Unlike most violent scenes in mature anime, this particular one feels harder to watch because it's more focused on the emotional pain of the family members that Hiro feeds off of like some junkie, not to mention how the entire murder is slowly drawn out as Hiro forces the father to talk about his feelings in the moment and how he feels about the death of his wife. Needless to say, Hiro is established as a complete monster from the very start, and yet he too is later shown to have people he cares about and protects, whether it's his mother, his childhood bestfriend, Naoyuki Ando, or the girl who has a crush on him, Shion Watanabe, and her grandmother. There's still love buried somewhere beneath this monster, and it's only after his loss of these few connections to the world that he goes off the deep end and goes on a rampage against the entire humanity. In contrast, Ichiro uses his newfound powers for the betterment of humanity by going around hospitals healing terminal patients, saving people from burning buildings and helping the homeless. While it's easy to simply classify Hiro as the villain and Ichiro the hero, that's oversimplifying these characters, as they are two people trying to find significance in a life that has become meaningless for them, in a world that they feel they no longer belong to. More than just about something shallow like good and evil, Hiroya's works have often been about the contrasting subjects of nihilism and existentialism (though not necessarily existential nihilism). Even though Ichiro actively helps people, his actions are not necessarily altruistic. Rather, much like Hiro, Ichiro admits that he does what he does to feel human, to confirm to himself that he's not just a machine after the alien reconstruction, but someone who still retains empathy, kindness and that feeling of catharsis from seeing cancer patients become well again and reunite with their family happy and in peace. ~~~img(https://i.imgur.com/88ASIPr.png?1)~~~ Something that caught my attention was Hiro's love of manga and manga characters over people. He shows more interest in fictional characters than real people, something that's been prevalent among Japanese youths who value "virtual girlfriends" rather than going out and actually find a real partner, thereby partially contributing to the country's decline in population and birthrate. There's this pervasive feeling of disconnect between people in the anime where Hiro's mother was doxed by some kid on the Internet, or the reporters who preyed on the her after she's exposed as the mother to a serial killer, or the students who glorify Hiro as some kind of idol, discussing among themselves how sexy he is in spite of all the horrific acts he has done. Both the author Hiroya and the anime Inuyashiki tread this fine line between the apathy and compassion of people, with both Hiro and Ichirou embracing this duality of humanity. Inuyashiki doesn't paint humanity as entirely malicious or entirely loving. Instead, it tells us that there's an innate goodness in all of us, that there's potential for people to care about one another even if they sometimes need a little reminder from their elders. Like many anime worth praising, Inuyashiki's opening and closing theme songs are noteworthy as well for their representation of the show's themes. "My Hero" by Man with a Mission is an intense battle cry signaling the two protagonists' fight for their place in life, with lyrics like "Are you losing your way, or are you lost? Where are you going? Tell me, my hero, where are you going? What do I need to end my war?" Meanwhile, "Ai Wo Oshiete Kureta Kimi E" ("To You, Who Taught Me Love") by Qaijff is a more somber and tranquil song lamenting the appreciation and love one might have wished to give their loved ones while there was still time, while they were still around, featuring lyrics like "Is there a special person in your life? They're closer to you than you think, but you probably don't see me." Both songs convey that burning need for connection people have towards the world and their loved ones, even if they're not always willing to admit. ~~~img(https://i.imgur.com/DBCBpTy.png?1)~~~ At its core, Inuyashiki is a moving story full of heart and loneliness. There is rarely an episode that doesn't either disturb you with Hiro's violence or make you cry from seeing the people Ichiro has helped and how grateful they are for a new life, just as Ichiro has been given his. It's one of those rare spiritual journeys in anime that reflect on the more profound questions of life rather than simply entertain the viewers. Inuyashiki touches me deeply with its sincerity towards life, and while it could sometimes be heavy-handed in its preaching, it's nonetheless a unique reflection of our place in the world that I wish to see more of in the evergrowing medium of anime. If it's proven anything, it's that there can indeed be an anime out there for everyone, even the despondent elderly who have been neglected and forgotten.

edgythehedgy

This anime does a great job depicting the good and evil that's living in our world. It‘s a great watch from start to finish and definitely worth your time! Sounds, music and especially the opening are amazing at creating the right atmosphere at the right time. The animation might not be the most detailed, but it’s seriously no issue here. Everything that matters to the viewer has been executed perfectly. And what’s really unique: The main characters and their machinery. It’s almost horrifying to watch those animations because it’s just so creepy to see humans open up in such a weird fashion and revealing tech inside. It’s so scary it’s actually captivating! The story isn’t very complicated, but genious. Inuyashiki, a regular white-collar 58-year old guy, learns that he has cancer and only 3 more months to live. He loves his family more than anything, but unfortunately, as he was about to tell them about his horrible fate, nobody wanted to listen. He ends up going to the park with his dog to cry his heart out, where he is eventually killed by a stranding UFO. Hiro, a regular, but handsome high school boy was hit by this as well and it’s unknown why he was there on that same day. The aliens want to go home unnoticed, so they immediately restore Inuyashiki and Hiro – but they actually end up as ultimate war-robots with a human appearance and heart. Now, where do I even start? This premise is amazing. Giving humans such insane powers and letting them do as they please makes for one of the most interesting plots out there. They can kill with just pointing at people, hack into any electronic device and even heal injuries and illnesses. It’s thrilling to watch Inuyashiki uncover his new powers and use them to save as many lives as he can, while Hiro kills random people just ‚to feel alive‘. Hiro, our main anti-protagonist, has been a cold-hearted killer since his childhood. Instead of killing small animals, he now uses his powers to induce despair into people and kill them afterwards. This anime does a great job depcting what society and human relationships do to people. He lives with his divorced mom in a small apartment and it’s shown that she is very depressed and unhappy. This environment is without a doubt not beneficial for a developing child’s mind. It’s also shown that he has already felt emotionally drained as a kid and that he only cares about the people closest to him. Meaning his mom and his only friend, Andou, who gets bullied at school and ends up working against Hiro with the help of Inuyashiki. Later, he ends up losing more people who he grows attached to and actually have the power to change his ways. ~!He was ready to give up killing people in order to stop upsetting the people close to him in two instances. Both times however, these people got killed right in front of him because of how society works. His mom commits suicide after it's revealed to the public that the inexplicable recent murders are Hiro's doing. The media and people on the internet start harassing her, plus Hiro escapes, leaving her all alone in an already vulnerable emotional state. The second time, his class mate who has had a crush on him decided to protect him in her home together with her grandma. They both get killed by a military force breaking into their house and shooting everything around them. Just before that, Hiro promised the girl the stop killing people and they even saved many people’s lives in secret, as this was the only way for Hiro to really show remorse after his horrible actions. Luckily, he manages to revive the girl and her grandma in time, but from then on, he has to part ways with them again, in order to protect them and figure out what to do against the whole country who’s against him now. Hiro clearly has a mental problem that gets triggered again in his high school years when he sees a man commit suicide in front of him. After telling Andou, his only friend at the time, and showing him his powers, the latter starts distancing himself from Hiro, fearing that he is the one killing people and ultimately working with Inuyashiki to stop his friend and save his own life. The problem here is that after a certain amount of deaths, Hiro starts killing hundreds of people, like guiding airplanes to their demise in the center of Tokyo. One can argue that he has already lost everything at this point and that there was no way to ever atone for his sins and live on planet Earth, but it still seemed so odd to me. He initially started killing people after seeing them suffer in front of him, so his big killing sprees are lacking in an ulterior motive. He might have said that he wants to erase all of Japan, so the ones dear to him can live peacefully in Hawaii, but obviously, killing the entire country won’t restore any peace.!~ I would have loved to give this anime 10 stars, but there is a few things that take away from that. It’s realistic to not have an ultimate mastermind who does everything perfectly until the very end, but Hiro’s character still seems flawed in a few aspects. Inuyashiki on the other hand is an ordinary old man who feels good when he helps others - which is debatedly just as selfish, considering that he could have spent 24/7 healing people instead of doing it as a ‘hobby’ if that really was his true, selfless motive. Still, Hiro’s moves are very over the top and inexplicable at some points, which might give him the character of a normal, faulty human, but sometimes it doesn’t fit with his usual, calculated manner. I feel like what could have given this anime more substance and color would have been more story, more backgrounds and definitely more different settings in which the main characters use their powers. Everything happened so fast in these 11 episodes and I still have so many questions. It would have been great to witness more character (and story) development, which is currently more or less limited to Hiro’s. I also think that it could have helped to give the aliens a more significant role to help with that.

OneGles

~~~__INUYASHIKI LAST HERO REVIEW (SPOILER ALERT)__~~~ ~~~img(https://www.staynerd.com/wp-content/uploads/d9b6c363ad5f3af836fa7219fc76ac02.jpg)~~~
__PREFACTION__ I state that these are my personal opinions, if you disagree _unlucky_. Having said that, I can say that after viewing this work, I was quite __disappointed__ by many aspects that this "anime" offers. I am also __ surprised__ by many positive ratings given by other weebs who view this work as an anime that shows you the __cruel view__ of society regarding particular social events. In any case, I am not convinced at all that this is the case, so here are the various points that have disappointed me or triggered me of this anime which, all in all, could have reached a decent grade, such as a 7 or an 8. __THE PLOT__ img(https://i58.servimg.com/u/f58/11/27/27/42/last-h10.jpg) What can I say about the story? __ Nothing__. The story in fact has neither a beginning or a development, indeed, there is not even a real story in the anime. The story begins with a depressed family made up of 2 stupid children, a mother and a father who looks like the grandfather. Later a dog will also join, obviously useless to the plot. The family just moved into a new house built by the ~~ grandfa ~~ father himself. The house is located next to the villa of the homonymous _Oda_, a rich man with his father who is a manga author (nice reference). The poor old man's fate now seems to have been sealed: he has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and has no more than 3 months left to live. Subsequently both the old man (Ichiro) and the antagonist (Hiro) will find themselves _ by pure case_ in the same place at the same time with no particular reason, where they will be given powers by _no one knows_ that will make them become generic liquid-powered robots. As you can understand, the plot takes a completely random turn, giving destructive powers to characters whose names we barely know, and the character development factor does not change over the course of the 11 episodes of the anime. The biggest problem of the plot is in fact that it is completely random and the characters are not characterized or developed, the only characters that will be slightly touched are precisely the protagonist and the antagonist, even if in a totally superficial way. The protagonists will also speak to each other just twice throughout the anime, exchanging only a few quick words, to avoid destroying the fragile plot on which the whole show rests, or to avoid making the antagonist understand that killing people is not the only way to feel "alive". Another serious problem of the plot are the motivations that push the antagonist to be such, making him a completely __nonsense__ antagonist, and consequently __all__ the story of the anime. We could probably have understood his needs to kill with a specific deepening of his history and his life, which obviously did not happen, the anime in fact explains to us that he is just a depressed weeb who doesn't give a damn about others if not people he knows, such as his childhood friend. We can therefore conclude that the plot lacks impact and meaning, indeed, the plot is totally lacking. We could sum it up like this: 2 random people in an evolved society become robots and start doing random stuff. __PARADOX OF FEELINGS__ img(https://pa1.narvii.com/6685/70fb18f49afbb2993c1747ca1f3ff9937ca11724_hq.gif) One of the worst problems that this anime has is the __paradox of feelings__, on which all the present poor plot is based: the protagonists in fact, once they become robots, will try in every way to _"feel human"_ again by performing various actions, like treating people in a vegetative state or killing entire families for __no reason__. The paradox in this case is present precisely in the search for the emotions themselves, in fact, if you feel an irrepressible desire to feel "alive", you are automatically experiencing an emotion of nostalgia or sadness, and this makes you a human in all respects, given that machines have no feelings, so they don't want to feel alive. Once again, therefore, the whole plot on which the anime was clinging falls, or the _research of human emotions_ by the main robot characters. In fact, many times we see the characters feel different emotions when they don't kill or save people, thus making the whole story of the search for emotions on which the whole anime is based useless, since they already feel emotions even without going to look for them. I suspect that the search for feelings that the anime offers us is just an excuse to be able to make the antagonist that, otherwise there would have been__ no story at all__. __ANTAGONIST & PROTAGONIST__ img(http://www.nerdlog.it/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Inuyashiki-750x450.jpg) In my opinion the main characters of this anime (the antagonist and the protagonist) are the most __ flatter __and characterless characters I've ever seen in anime history, for the duration of the show we have only a very superficial development of the story and the characters, I even struggle to remember their names and I just finished watching the anime. We can summarize the main characters in this way: The protagonist (Ichiro Inuyashiki) is a depressed and ignored old man who would like some attention at least from his family. It seems that even the voice actor of the protagonist has entered in the character, in fact it is difficult to hear him speak during his rare lines that are mainly formed by verses of amazement and despair such as "_Eh? _". The protagonist then, after becoming a robot, decides that to experience human emotions he must help people, and in fact he feels happy when he does. With a lot of imagination then we can already deduce that the antagonist will feel human emotions only when he kills innocent people, making him completely forced and meaningless for the purposes of the plot. As for the antagonist (hiro shishigami), I think he's one of the worst antagonists I've ever seen, he has no motivation or character, and he didn't even have that before he became a robot, he's just an apathetic weeb who likes One Piece that does not feel absolutely empathy for society and people, he only feels it for the people he knows, the others could even die for him all killed (which he will personally do towards the final episodes). I could write whole pages about how much the antagonist's actions don't make any sense of logic, but I'll stick with it. Let's start with the fact that Hiro, after becoming a robot, witnessed the suicide of a person under a train. After spectating that scene, he suddenly felt _alive_. So he decides on the spot to kill random people to feel alive, without even trying to do anything else to avoid killing innocent people. Initially, the fools can fall into the error of thinking that he does not feel any emotion except when he kills someone: in reality it is absolutely false. There are so many moments in the anime where he starts to cry for various reasons (ex. when he is isolated from society, when his parents commit suicide, when special forces injure his friend and her grandmother) and where he enjoys himself, such as reading manga or having dinner with the family who hid him from the police. We can therefore conclude that he was killing people just for the sake of it, other than "feeling alive", all this then makes the antagonist a __ crazy idiot__ and ruins the whole plot of the search for feelings and the pressure of society. But we get to the most serious point: after killing dozens of innocent people, the police suddenly set out on his trail and manage to find him, but he manages to escape and hide in a friend's house. So far everything normal, the problem comes later: Hiro one evening sees his mother crying for the actions performed by him, saying that he apologized to everyone for having raised him like this, and he starts to cry because he made his mother feel bad for some actions __HE DID HIMSELF __ (killing innocent people), which is irritating and nonsensical, if you are a sadistic murderer, stay on that line until the end, you can't start crying over bullshit. Later, after both of his parents committed suicide because he committed other killers, he decides to take revenge on the people who committed suicide his parents by killing another bunch of random people + other people from a weeb forum who insulted him. At one point his friend who was hosting him realizes (in good time) that he is really a killer, and then asks him to stop killing and redeem himself by treating people with incurable diseases, and he does (__W T F__). This twist does not make the slightest sense, given that in theory he should not feel any empathy for strangers, and instead at any moment he starts to treat hundreds of people achieving some success, I must admit that I was really triggered at this point of the anime, but I still continued. After some time, the special forces break into his home and injure his only two friends, even if he manages to rescue everyone. Once again, Hiro is seen suddenly feeling emotions for his grandmother and her friend, thus destroying the already weak plot. So he decides to take revenge (is this a sentiment?) By going to the police station and killing everyone, even the other special forces arriving from outside. From here on he realizes that all of Japan is his enemy (__??__) and therefore decides to kill everyone, massacring 1,000 people a day (here we return to the sadist Hiro). In the end it will be Ichiro who stops him in an unwatchable fight at the latest CGI. In the last episode, however, Hiro decides to self-destruct together with Ichiro to divert the trajectory of the asteroid with the excuse of "I also have people to protect" (Will it be bipolar?). As you have read, all of Hiro's actions are inconsistent with his ideology, making him look like a madman with more personality, who one day is a sadistic madman, and the other saves 200 people. It was really embarrassing to see him doing random actions for 11 episodes, ruining an anime that might be decent but what a spolier: __ it isn't__. __VIEW OF THE SOCIETY__ img(https://www.animeclick.it/immagini/anime/Inuyashiki/gallery_original/Inuyashiki-59dff3190a0c8.jpg) And here we are at the only decent part of the anime: __ the judgment of society on people .__ Personally I found this point of the anime quite interesting, too bad it was partially ruined by the technical choices of the authors, in fact the opinions of society towards the murders of Hiro and the meteorite that loomed on Earth present several contradiction and weird judgments. To begin with, when it became known that Hiro was a killer, the girls in his class started making nonsense comments like "_Ah I didn't know he was a killer, and saying I liked hihihi" _ completely canceling out the atmosphere of tension of having had a mad sadist in class. Later when Hiro killed several innocent people at random, "Hiro fanclubs" started to be created to support him for his actions. Another unrealistic vision of the society that rewards serial killers. All these judgments of society are meaningless and unrealistic, thus undermining the only decent part that the anime could offer, plunging it into a bottomless abyss. __CGI ANIMATION__ img(https://www.animeclick.it/immagini/anime/Inuyashiki/gallery_original/Inuyashiki-59dffecce904b.jpg) Another disastrous point that "the anime" presents are the CGI: in fact it would be offensive to call "anime" Inuyashiki Last Hero towards real anime. I state that I am not necessarily against CGI, if used well it is fine to me, but this is not the case. CGI has two main problems on this show: it's being used too much and it's really hideous. The animation studio enjoyed using an unsolicited CGI that makes my eyes bleed, in fact it's really bad to see, and when they switch from hand animations to CGI, the impact is really strong. Plus, CGI has been over used for most of the anime (even when Ichiro was scratching his back or walking his dog), and I have to admit that, along with the nonsensical plot and cringe characters, it's a really devastating combo for the viewer. __FINAL COMMENT__ I can conclude by saying that this anime had some potential in some areas, but it was completely destroyed by an embarrassing plot and characters without development and meaning. The whole anime feels like a jumble of random things put together that purported to create something interesting, but __they couldn't.__ The only thing I really liked are the One Piece references. __Final rating: 3/10__

moistmossyroc

**Overview:** At only 11 eps encompassing an entire story it is not a very long or in depth one. There are 2 main characters the show shifts focus to for some eps on one and the next few eps on the other. In the first episode the 2 people involved are killed and reincarnated by unexplained means into robots. It is explained what happened and that they did get reincarnated but not described or gave any answer as to who these things were. This was probably the biggest unsolved question I had even post series. Both of the main characters are opposites in some cases and similar in others. One is clearly shown as a villain as the other good. Each of their actions to make themselves feel human again. About halfway through we are introduced to an asteroid that is later brought back up in the final arc. The rest of the episodes are showing how each of the main characters go about life with their reincarnated bodies with an inevitable clash at the end of the series. **Visuals/Music:** The visuals are good enough, but it does use a lot of CGI models. Some might be very turned off by the fact they do but it is not a big deal to me. The animation of them compared to the style of animation of the show itself went well together and complimented itself so it didn’t look too out of place. The music I found to be very good. Its opening was done by `MAN WITH A MISSION` and like most of their songs is highly enjoyable. The ending at first, I didn’t feel suited the anime but by the end it complimented it nicely where once the song started playing you’d just sit there staring at the screen as it played through. Unlike some companies ~~F/A~~ the explosions and other sound affects sound as they should, not mic rupturing effects. **Final Thoughts:** From an enjoyability standpoint this was highly enjoyable and fun to watch, as for a story perspective, its pretty simple but simple doesn’t mean bad. From a story perspective it’s a 3/5 but overall enjoyability 4/5.Read through some comments and saw people complaining about the meteor in that it seemed to take immediate precedent. It is true that it did and that the ending was very sudden, nothing being dragged out or prolonged hype for what was to come. This was both good and bad as it didn’t allow the expectations of what was to come get too high and you are immediately thrown into the final act so to speak knowing full well what to expect but at the same time going `Thank god I was wrong` only be immediately proven that you were right all along. The ending is very sad, and I was not expecting to get as attached to any of the characters as I had throughout only 11 eps. The emotional conveying, they did was top notch imo. The meteor was shown halfway through, clearly stating in better or worse terms the final boss lol. The episodes previous were just to swell up your emotions for the characters more. Another thing not explained alongside their bodies is the smartphone/screens incident. There isn’t any explanation given and can’t think of any way it could happen which is sad the creator didn’t try to flesh that out a bit. Due to their bodies being unexplained it does however leave open any unexpected thing to happen without proper explanation. Its supposed to be an incomprehensible thing. It is also inferred they are completely the same people as before but not explicitly stated, as far as we are shown they are just near perfect copies of both mind and body from before their death. Some may call it a plot hole but it really is not one as the series itself is not one that states it is supposed to be bound by our current understanding of science but rather one that takes place on what appears to be very similar and near identical to our world, basically exactly what they became, very close to the same but not necessarily the same. ~!This will be a slight spoiler paragraph, want to talk a bit about his reasoning for why he killed so will have spoiler brackets. There was a lot of complaints I did see regarding hiro killing others. They explained in the beginning of the series how he views others lives that he did not come into contact with. His views were – If you saw a person on television or read about somebodies’ death you did not know you could not care for them as you would a person you are close to and know – Due to this ideology he does not care about killing others as he harbors no emotion towards them and sees them as nothing. The people around him he was close to do not view things the same way and point it out to him. With the people in his eyes turning their back on him he only furthers down into depression and resorts to killing more not to remedy himself but to eventually come to the point where he can make the ones he loves and cares for happy again. His logic is flawed where it’s the opposite he should be doing but he cant not do it because he is being hunted. He is stuck and doesn’t know what to do so continues what he has been doing. He was not mature mentally and the family he grew up with them being apart which was shown to have major effects on him mentally. Should he have gotten this body when he was older and had time to mentally mature into an adult I do not feel he would have acted the way he did. His mind was conflicted throughout the entire show and him losing his body only further pushed him into a downward depression state he couldn’t recover from. Making matters worse is that killing while also doing the above was the only thing that could remedy the feeling of not being human. Both situations only hurt him causing his actions to be what they were.!~ I would highly recommend this to nearly anybody. Only people I would recommend to are those who do not like to see death shown quite explicitly from both children and adults. I would say one of the worst scenes a person would not want to watch is where a child drowned, and they showed him squirming until his last breath. The scene accomplished what it set out to and I am glad they left in, it was there to set a precedence of what was to come. ```Overall Rating: 4/5```

Stefannofornari

It’s not always you find a piece of media where the main character is someone on the end of their lives, a senior person dealing with problems on the last few days left. The odds of finding this kind of story get even lower when it comes to action stories, all dominated by predominant archetypes. Writer Hiroya Oku, Gantz creator, dares to subvert expectations with Inuyashiki – Last Hero, manga that became an anime, adapted by Studio MAPPA. Subversion is what least lacks in this series: Inuyashiki constantly surprises its audience in the best and worst ways possible, guaranteeing impact and confusion on its viewers. img(https://i0.wp.com/elpalomitron.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/impresiones-finales-de-Last-Hero-Inuyashiki-de-Hiroya-Oku-destacada-el-palomitron.jpg) # __TELL ME, MY HERO, WHERE YOU GOING?__ In Inuyashiki, we accompain a main character with the same name as the show: a senior man, husband and father, who spends his days being despised by his own family and society. Eventually, he discovers he has a cancer and he only has a few days left, in which he prefers to spend without telling any of his family members about it. Suddenly, Inuyashiki is struck by some kind of flying robotic object of unknown origin, and when he wakes up, he realizes he became a cyborg. The man decides to use his powers as a machine to save and protect the others, but his limits are challenged when a teenager with the same powers does the contrary as to Inuyashiki, putting the entire country at danger. Inuyashiki’s synopsis makes the series look like a simple and by-the-patterns story about “hero vs. villain”, “good vs. evil”, but with a different kind of protagonist. However, it’s nothing like that: Inuyashiki – Last Hero is a more “psychological” story than “superhero” and “action”, especially when it comes to its protagonist and antagonist, their parallels and such, something the series never dares to forget. In fact, this contrast between action and psychological is the most consistent/persistent thing in the anime itself, besides the dosage of focus on both of them. The main problem of Inuyashiki is on how the focus is worked on. Inuyashiki is inconsistent. This is the most notable thing about the series. All aspects suffer from some kind of problem: the direction (by Shuuhei Yabuta) always at some point chooses the weirdest of ways to narrate the story, many scenes and narrative arcs are completely unnecessary in general, and some secondary characters are introduced in odd ways that don’t even make sense seeing how they impact the storyline later on. The protagonist Inuyashiki is left aside in many occasions to give some space to Hiro Shishigami, the antagonist, who in many points of the story shows an odd path in his development, sometimes it doesn’t even feel like it’s going anywhere. The plot features many plot holes when it comes to logic, to the point that viewers may even get angry as to how the side characters and extras act towards the story’s events. Not only that, but one of the most random events of the show, which would be the origin of the object that transformed Inuyashiki into a machine, is completely ignored, just serving as a catalyst for the story to begin and nothing else. So many of these problems could have been solved in simple ways, all that was needed was more focus on the screenplay and direction. However, as it was said before, Inuyashiki is inconsistent. So, at some point, all that is extremely bad will break the pattern and become extremely good. Fortunately, that’s what happens in the series. img(https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3hauY1o0x58/Wll0DGQckRI/AAAAAAAEvyU/ZJvu3DJ7hxoXoJ_WEZohcBgE4rQYWApYgCLcBGAs/w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu/Inuyashiki-01-22.jpg) When the direction and script of Inuyashiki get it right, they don’t just “get it right”: they hit the mark one hundred percent entirely. It’s undeniable that the show makes you feel something more than frustration due to the inconsistency: at various moments Inuyashiki can make you smile, fear, get shocked and even cry. Right in its first episode, the empathy developed over the protagonist is enough to make you feel sad for his life and happy when he makes the difference. In the next few episodes, the anxiety and hatred for the antagonist are planted inside the viewer easily, and then all of that is subverted as soon as you understand the reason of specific actions he takes as the story goes by. Even if the antagonist Hiro Shishigami keeps confusingly going back-and-forth in his journey, the series manages to make you understand his psychological state and confusion as what to do, even making you hope a little bit he comes to terms with himself. Meanwhile, the protagonist Inuyashiki might not get the focus and development he needed, but the small scenes about him are enough to make you get emotional even if a little bit. The secondary characters may be introduced in a weird way (and also be a little one-dimensional), but the relationships they maintain with the titular characters are so strong that you feel they make a difference by being there. Besides, the contrast Inuyashiki and Hiro share, even if more metaphorical than directly debated in the story, is a strong thing that would be even better with more focus on it. That’s what makes Inuyashiki an emotionally confusing experience: it’s a good show that often loses itself. It’s not the kind of story in which the good aspects eliminate the bad ones, because all the wrong things are still there, right in its core, always knocking on the door. But the good aspects manage to be so good they save the entire show. All that’s left for us is to imagine how better could Inuyashiki be if the direction and script were more polished… and some more polishing for other factors, as well. img(https://www.animeunited.com.br/oomtumtu/2017/12/Bang.jpg) # __TWO OPPOSITES, ONE RESEMBLANCE__ When it comes to things beside script and direction, Inuyashiki still manages to find success and failure simultaneously. Inuyashiki’s animation is by far one of the most inconsistent ones that can be found in any anime series. Studio MAPPA utilizes a mix of 2D and CGI animation, even more so to animate the action scenes easily. However, even if they still have impact and strength, the CGI is not only incredibly notable: it is weak. Really weak. It’s totally weird to see a character previously 2D becoming a tridimensional model in the next shot, all of that because the artstyles of both don’t match at all. It’s not the worst use of CGI in the Japanese animated industry, but it’s still incredibly weak in terms of quality, and did not age well at all from 2017 to 2022. Once again, the action scenes have impact and strength. Seeing Inuyashiki and Hiro flying at open sky, passing by buildings with high speed, or even more physical fights between a character and another pass the necessary energy, Studio MAPPA does not fail in this aspect. The problem is the use of computer-generated imagery, which just becomes a huge inconvenience to the viewer, a really weird and ugly one. img(https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/207630/cache-344267-1528221784/image-w1280.jpg) The soundtrack of Inuyashiki is also full of hits and misses. In this case, the fault is more in the direction rather than the soundtrack as a whole. The music of Inuyashiki is simply splendid: not only the opening “My Hero” by Man With A Mission and the credits song, made by Akatsuki Rickhai, manage to be incredible, but the original soundtrack itself is good and emotional. The problem relies on how the soundtrack is used, as certain scenes contain music that don’t match at all, lacking tension or whatsoever. Fortunately, it’s not something that happens with frequency. # __VERDICT__ img(https://flxt.tmsimg.com/assets/p15532200_b_v8_ac.jpg) Inuyashiki is a huge mess. But even so, it’s a mess with lots of high points. It’s an enormous ride in a rollercoaster with good and bad points. Behind the constant struggle present in its direction, narrative and even animation, Inuyashiki provides a gem of a story, surprisingly captivating characters and a big emotional core. It’s an anime that deserves at least a chance: it’ll always surprise you in the best and worst ways possible. _[This review is not meant to insult anyone and their hard work on the production of this series, as it’s only meant to be a critical and fair analysis of it.]_

befalt

>#####___This review contains spoilers.___ >#####___This review was originally written on Dec 22, 2017; rewritten on Nov 26, 2022.___ ~~~

**〈 A messy and sloppy dish... 〉**

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I love complexity. I adore it when a show challenges me to ponder and examine its vast content at every step, engrossing me in its world and never letting me stop caring about it. In the same vein, I cherish anime that feature straightforward, easy-to-digest and merely entertaining concepts and narratives. Both of these opposites, if done appropriately and wittingly, can provide the viewers with a substantial amount of pleasure and excitement.

However, _Inuyashiki_ is a peculiar case. It shoots for the stars with its morals, even though they are uncomplicated beyond comprehension. It entertains you with its ideas and decisions, yet they are extremely poor, indecisive and chaotically sellotaped together. It is undemandingly enjoyable, though the schlocky nature peeks its head at every opportunity. The show is a crystal clear abomination with which I did not expect to have any fun. Surprisingly, I did.

First things first, the premise. The story of this anime takes place in modern-age Japan, where the titular protagonist lives his unlucky life. He is neglected, finds out he has cancer and is generally unhappy. One day, a blinding light comes out of nowhere, and [Ichirou](https://anilist.co/character/123583/Ichirou-Inuyashiki) wakes up in the morning, only to discover a group of aliens turned his frail body into a war machine. Truth be told, the concept sounds fun and intriguing, as following an almost sixty-year-old neglected dad who is offered a second chance at life and the means to do good deeds is not something that the medium tackles often. Yet, as is so often the case, I had my reservations at first, mainly due to the massive number of mixed opinions regarding its source material. Even though I tried to silence my precariousness, I expected the worst. As it turned out, my inner worries were valid.

~~~img600(https://i.imgur.com/6H07yMu.png)~~~

The debatable quality the show boasts becomes more than apparent when one examines its irritating and wacky writing. While it does have its highlights that take the schlockiness, the goriness and the mindlessness to an extremely entertaining level, the rest of the content is plainly horrid.

Take, for instance, the fourth episode. The show introduces an ordinary and innocent family to us to let the cliched, evil crime syndicate member ruin their lives. Fear not and cease your worries, as Inuyashiki is here to save the day. Under normal circumstances, this would not bother me. After all, I am willingly experiencing an anime about a personification of being good, and moments like that are unavoidable. They are part of a hero's life, and at one point or another, we would be exposed to a situation similar to this. Nonetheless, the show constantly uses this straightforward scheme to elicit some sort of emotional response from the viewer. Establish a character, less or more deeply, and throw them into a situation where Inuyashiki is the only hope for them. That is the golden formula. However, it simply does not work. It is entertaining when justice is rightfully served, yet it does not evoke anything resembling an authentic feeling or compassion. It is like observing a bunch of cardboard cutouts duke it out.

The already brought-up fourth episode might have the most eye-catching example of this, yet there are more examples of this technique. In the seventh episode, we meet a businesswoman purely to be cured of cancer. Technically, [Hiro](https://anilist.co/character/123581/Hiro-Shishigami), the antagonist, does it, but it still follows the same pattern. In the same fashion, in the ninth episode, we were shown a completely unimportant background character on a plane. As a result of Hiro's actions, the plane malfunctions and Inuyashiki, once again, steps in to save the day. Even though he only carries this one particular plane to the beach, all the other ones that were in the sky somehow cease to play up and land safely as well. The worst of them all is the case of [Mari](https://anilist.co/character/123579/Mari-Inuyashiki), the protagonist's daughter. The show constantly put her in the spotlight in an attempt to develop her. She receives this special treatment merely to make her "death scene" in the tenth episode tragic and emotional. Even though she should be dead by the time of his arrival, she is magically saved by her dad because he cried his eyes out for 3 minutes straight. It is almost like we are being instructed to cry alongside him, but that is not possible. I cannot lament or empathise with characters who exist to fill up the background or be a damsel in distress who desperately needs to be saved. It does not work like that.

The mechanical bodies the main characters receive at the start of the show exhibit how absurd and wacky the writing can become. On account of them being alien war machines, I was more than eager to grasp and accept that they are capable of tapping into the Internet, police radios, and security cameras from around the world. Even sending an American nuclear missile to China without breaking a sweat was convincing and understandable. We see their fighting capabilities, weaponry, durability, autopilot mode and general prowess, so it is more than probable that they can perform any technological task. Even though I was aware of all these pieces of information, I still could not get around the fact that the show managed to make these machines extremely convoluted, illogical and oozing with bullshit. Firstly, Hiro's signature weapon—the finger gun. Some sources claim that it is a telekinetic weapon that does not use ammo or powder, unlike an ordinary pistol, yet that sounds like a lazy excuse for a poorly thought-out concept. It would be much more intriguing if it used logical ammunition, like air pressure and whatnot, to kill the owner's targets. However, that would make the already senseless developments even more outrageous. For instance, holding an invisible rifle and shooting it like a real one would not work anymore, as the bullshit factor is no longer in place. Secondly, the protagonists can cure diseases and even heal people from fatal incidents like the one involving Mari in episode ten, where she is at death's door. Somehow, the alien tech brought her back from almost certain death. Thirdly, the USB port underneath Ichirou's fingernail. There are zero reasons why an alien race, which has access to technology far surpassing this of the earthlings, would go out of their way to use one of these, yet it is there because the plot demanded it. If this is not the textbook definition of pulling things out of your arse, then I have no clue what is. Lastly, the ultimate, most ridiculous plot device of them all is the ability to transport the finger gun projectile through an electronic device's screen and kill the person on the receiving end with it. It does not make a lick of sense. One could chalk it up to being yet another example of the alien technology's incomprehensible capabilities, yet to me, it looks absolutely goofy. Even machinery from outer space has to follow some sort of logic and be consistent, but this takes the cake in the stupidity department. It may look cool to some, yet to me, it is nothing short of laughable.

The series' pacing exacerbates its monumental issues all the more. There are countless instances of scenes transitioning between themselves with little cohesion intact. You sit in your chair with eyes glued to the screen as a scene plays out. You blink, and magically you are witnessing a completely different scenery that does not correspond to the previous one. Surely, we could attribute it to the poor, chaotic editing, yet the responsibility lies in the rapid-fire pace at which the series moves. Again, I need to mention the fourth episode since it is like an endless pot full of examples to use. Inuyashiki walks into the room where a drugged-out girl is lying and screaming on a bed. A second later, she is standing straight in front of him, as if she moved at lightning speed. We can connect the dots ourselves and grasp what transpires in the scene, but that does not excuse the severe lack of continuity moments like that produce. If it happened once or twice, I would not bat an eye. However, it is a constant element of almost every episode. It is almost as if the anime does not want you to lose interest in its endeavours, and as such, it cuts corners. Additionally, it feels like it desires to use its limited duration to the fullest by cramming as much content into an episode as possible. Consequently, it haphazardly and hastily jumps between scenes. It does not make the scenes more compact but rather makes them appear scatterbrained and constructed without a care in the world. It merely ruins whatever impact they might have had.

~~~webm(https://i.imgur.com/iG6c5gU.mp4)~~~

In the same manner, as the narrative surrounding them, the anime's cast of characters fails to be solid and remarkable. Quite frankly, it is astonishingly bad. None of these personages is multi-layered and intricately crafted; they are all absurdly one-note and one-dimensional. On account of that, there are no figures whom I could describe in more than a single sentence besides the main duo. The supporting characters are thrown in to serve as damsels in distress, merely fill up the background with their presence or be comically immoral purely for the sake of it. That is what their role in the story boils down to; being bloody morons, victims or sick psychos. They are more akin to tools that the protagonists interact with than flesh and blood people. It is merely uncompelling.

As the antagonist of the show, Hiro comes off as an inconsistent mess. At first, he appears to be a psychopath with no regard for human life, as the show goes to extreme lengths to depict his horrific killing sprees on innocent citizens that he performs to feel alive—a pure, unadulterated embodiment of evil. However, as the story continues, it appears as though the series does not comprehend what and who Hiro should be. We learn that he used to kill animals when he was younger, which outright states his psychopathic personality. His actions and how he responds to his crimes throughout the show exemplify this notion even further. So, what is the issue here? Well, his personality shifts as unpredictably as a drunkard's walk. From a cold-hearted killing machine to an individual who cares deeply for those around him. Then he reverts to being a ruthless murderer only to sacrifice himself in the end to protect the planet. He does not develop in a steady, organised way; it is erratic and chaotic to an improbable degree. It seems the anime genuinely desired to flesh out and humanise him, yet it had no clue how to do it. So, it decided to straight up alter his character at random times. Therefore, every element of his character, from his personality to his displays of emotions, comes off as superficial, fake and convoluted.

Sometimes not setting lofty goals and not attempting to make your straightforward villain more complex when you do not have the capacity and wit to do so is the correct choice, and Hiro might be the best instance of that. As it stands, it is impossible to care about him since he is a character who is so ridiculously wicked, superficially apathetic and painfully inconsistent. The show clearly tripped over its ambition, and it is vexatious to see it unfold and decay before your eyes.

Inuyashiki, on the other hand, is not that haywire. He is a generic personification of good morals and ideals—a goody two shoes. It might make him a fantastic person in his world, but as a character, he does not evoke any stronger, more passionate emotions. Without question, you desire to see him come out on top since no one in the right mind cheers on the evildoers, yet he does not bring much more than that to the table. Even though likeability and an ounce of relatability radiate from him at times, I cannot label him as anything more than an uninteresting individual who does not stand out from the crowd. Of course, he is leagues above his polar opposite in terms of development, as Hiro feels wholly inorganic and superficial. But, it is very apparent how one-note and painfully uncomplicated Inuyashiki's goals and personality are. He is not a tremendous detriment to the series. However, he does not redeem its other elements one bit.

As far as the visuals go, _Inuyashiki_ does not have a whole lot to offer. Truth be told, they make the already grim-looking, awfully crafted narrative considerably worse, even though they could salvage most of the show's flaws had they been more refined. While the art style is not of the quality I could gush over, it does fit with the established plot and themes of the show. The colours, the character designs and the backgrounds prioritise mimicking realism over all else, and it is understandable considering the type of story the show conveys. They do not look out of place or outlandish. They are simplistic and unimpressive to the bone, but they work well enough. However, they suffer from a severe case of persistent inconsistency and are overshadowed by the abundance of CGI. When the anime forgoes using computer-generated models, it has trouble keeping the art style at an acceptable level; it dips below it, stumbles like a drunkard and makes a mess. There are moments where certain characters appear in 2D in one scene, and in the following one, they are instantly transformed into their 3D model, even though the moment does not demand such a change.

On the topic of CGI, I believe that it is both overused and overly ambitious. Throughout the series, there are many instances of that unfulfilled desire and deviation of quality. Using CGI to present the intricacies of the protagonists' mechanical bodies and exhibit the fights between them is not an odd decision. It makes sense. Nevertheless, it does not justify its dodgy appearance that takes you aback. Most models made in 3D are merely painful to look at, and you cannot turn your eyes away from them as they are always on display. What is even more damning is the fact that the CGI populates even the most serene, uncomplicated of moments where their presence does not make a lick of sense. It leads to mind-numbing moments where both animation styles are blended as if they were thrown into a blender at full speed. Albeit they aid the show in becoming a funnily horrendous spectacle, I am convinced that it was not their genuine intention. It is just a byproduct of the apparent lack of quality which the anime constantly reminds us of. Add the awful camerawork and editing on top, and you have a combination that is so horrendous it is hard to believe it exists.

The sound of _Inuyashiki_ is both a lovely surprise and a disappointment. While it has an equitable share of questionable sound effects here and there, I cannot stress enough how much I adore the opening and the ending themes. They fulfil their purpose on an actually decent level, getting you in the mood to watch some gruesome action and energetic conflicts or soothe your nerves after everything is over. They create a fuzzy feeling inside your body and fill you with this sense of hype and amusement. It is an uncommon sight in shows with foundations as poor as this one. As for the insert songs, they do not bring anything memorable to the table. They might not be the most egregious tracks I have heard, as they do sound pleasant, but they fail to leave an impact in any way, shape or form. To top it off, a few of them are overplayed to the point that it becomes a pure nuisance.

~~~webm(https://i.imgur.com/XOYxj7h.mp4)~~~

I never bother to include a separate section dedicated exclusively to expressing the enjoyment a show provided me with since bits of it are contained in paragraphs discussing other components. Despite that, in the case of _Inuyashiki_, I feel it is more than essential. I genuinely hate labelling shows as a "turn off your brain" type, but this series might be the best example of such a phenomenon. It is so ridiculously awful. The number of times, when I scratched my damn head because of the stupidity displayed on the screen, was enormous, yet I could not bring myself to truly dislike it. Quite the opposite. I was enjoying myself through and through. You may fully realise that it is schlocky, but at the same time, you are having a great time, whether ironically or not. The sole fact that I rewatched the show instantly after it ended says a lot since that was the first time I had done something like that. Regardless of how you perceive the content's quality, the enjoyment it offers to the viewers, both the casual and the more critical ones, is immense. It is genuinely commendable.

_Inuyashiki_ is an incredibly bizarre entity. It is inconsistent, rushed, jumbled, and plagued with so many problems you could easily write a thesis about the issues' abundance. The horrible pacing, the awful characters that either do not feel tangible or are of non-existent importance and the completely broken logic are genuine eyesores that cannot be overlooked. It is a gory and shlocky mess that tries way too hard to seem profound, even though it is hilariously bad on multiple levels. However, it is not a show that brings forth genuine hatred. It is more akin to a fast-food dish that may be an easy-to-digest and fun-to-consume product, yet it provides you with barely any nutrients. Surely, it is enjoyable despite its glaring shortcomings, but it could have been even better if given enough care and attention to detail.

I had a lot of fun with it, so ultimately, it was well worth it.

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**〈 ...that tastes alright. 〉**

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