High school student Yuri Honjou finds herself lost in an “abnormal space” where countless skyscrapers
are connected by suspension bridges and “masked figures” mercilessly slaughter their confused and
fleeing victims. To survive in this hellish world, she has two choices: kill the masked figures or be
killed. Yuri is determined to survive in order to destroy this irrational world, but what will be her
ultimate fate?
(Source: Netflix)
__Disclaimer:__ _I want to start this review with a bit of explanations. To begin with, I haven't really writen any reviews in my life before and my writing skills are limited so my ideas may be disordered. Furthermore, My main language isn't English so my vocabulary may seem poor and I could misexplain my opinon. Anyway, this review concerns mostly people who read the manga and wonder what the show looks like and people, on the other hand, who wonder how the manga is and compare both. Obvisouly, this review contains spoilers but I try to stay vague._ # __Comparisons between the manga and the show__ _Even if this section is dedicated to the comparisons, I'm going to compare both the manga and anime later when I talk more about the details._ As a reader, I must say the horror and the mystery aspects are totally lost in this adaptation. The manga itself turns early into action with super power fights and all this stuff but it starts building its universe and its characters slowly. To illustrate it, learn that the end of the sixth episode is the middle of the seventh volume. The pace of the second part of the anime is way slower so I let you imagine how less the creators of the show care about the thrill. So, if you read the manga and want to rediscover it through the anime, be aware they chose to make an action show before all. ~~~img(https://i.imgur.com/2trvL6c.png)~~~ >Comparison between anime and manga at a random moment. Pictures are from episode 6 and chapter 88 so you can find more context. # __An average show__ Everything is average, from animation to direction including art. However, it is neihter ugly nor particularly bad and it is actually not so bad of an action show. To begin with, the charadesign is banal. It is not a bad thing in itself and to be fair it looks fairly like the manga so nothing I may complain about. The artistric direction, especially the decor, is a bit sober which is normal according the universe (skyscraper rooftops). However, what annoys me is the colorimetry who is always bright and shiny. The staff put most their efforts into action as I said and this color palette really doesn't help to transcribe the horror. Regarding mystery, the pace during the first half quite erase it. The rules are delivered drop by drop but so fast you can't wonder what's happening. At first glance, this show is the regular one you probably won't give a try because it looks too average and it is. I didn't enjoy to rediscover the first part of the manga through the show because they chose to neglect it. Because of that, I couldn't feel the empathy I had towards the characters while reading, especially the moment ~!the heroine finally gets the power up she deserves after she's struggled for days and then the manga goes action.!~ On the other hand, I must say that even if the anime looks like an average action show, the manga isn't deeper but is more intense. I personally quite enjoyed the last third of the show. The action scenes are quite good even if you can expect better regarding what's done nowadays. Many shows can't match a quarter of Tenkuu Shinpan qualities, especially for its 3DCG. There are several good directing ideas and cool FX but there are also many cheap animation trick times. To be fair, I think someone who didn't read the manga could really enjoy the anime for what it is. # __Conclusion__ So, yeah... now I'm talking to the readers. Despise its lacks relative to the manga, not everything is a complete throwaway. Don't watch if you like Tenkuu Shenpan for its atmosphere. However, if you like Pantsuu Shinpan for its action give it a try, you may appreciate it more than I did. As a reader, I can't give the show the average note because it doesn't match my expectations for much it adapts. However, if the show goes on and keeps up its action qualities (or becomes better, of course) I may raise my note to the average because I liked the action scenes and the show is far from its full potential where it stops.
__warnings for this review: contains mentions of suicide, incest, sexualization of minors, rape/sexual assault__ in all honesty, this might be one of the worst, if not, _the worst_, anime i have ever watched. i couldn’t even get past episode three, and even that was pushing it. i swear, i have never hated a show this much. usually i’m big on “suspension of disbelief” and just enjoying something; sometimes something is so bad, it’s good. this isn’t one of those shows. the series opens with yuri, the main character, waking up in a strange realm, instantly facing life-or-death scenarios, which she is - as any normal person would be - sorely unprepared for. “masks,” people being controlled by an unknown person/organization, in an unknown place, must obey every command given to them, which usually includes eliminating all non-masks. i must admit, the concept is interesting, and one of the things that initially drew me to begin watching (that, and i saw the sniper mask all over my twitter timeline. that man is so attractive). but the way that absolutely everything else about the series was executed is beyond awful, and i could hardly sit through it. almost every single scene had something that somehow managed to give me worse and worse secondhand embarrassment every time… and that’s coming me, arguably the most embarrassing person i know :/ i watched the first two episodes before beginning writing this, but once i got to episode three i decided this show was too outlandishly awul not to write a review about. so my details about the first two episodes might be a bit off; i apologize. i decided to drop high rise invasion after finishing episode three. i’m not even going to begin with how inconsistent yuri’s character is, especially towards the start of the anime, though i will say, it was aggravating how weak yet ~strong~ she was, especially during the first two episodes. her confidence flipped on and off like a switch, and once it was on, it didn’t falter whatsoever. this is entirely unrealistic and is just… not the way humans operate. other than that, the first thing i noticed was the main character’s “i love onii-chan!” complex, which is, in my opinion, one of the worst and most disgusting tropes in existence. the way that yuri and rika’s (her brother) relationship is portrayed is so similar to that of a romantic relationship that it made me sick to my stomach. yuri obsesses over rika to a concerning extent, practically flirting with him and consistently blushing every time they speak on the phone. not to mention a scene in the beginning of episode three where she basically creams her panties when he answers her call. ...which brings me to my next point: the shameless sexualization of the sixteen-year-old children that are the main characters. yuri in particular is so over-sexualized, given multiple panty-shots per episode, and - somehow, some way - her chest always, without exception ends up COMPLETELY out for the word to see. the first time this happens, she’s practically raped, which is terrifying and sickening, though something about the way it was animated bugs me. rather than focusing on the psychological and traumatizing aspects of this act, the focus seems to be on yuri’s moaning in fear (????) and on the slow, teasing removal of her clothes. very very few times is there a shot of the man traumatizing her, nor is this incident ever brought up again once she manages to escape it. this scene in particular bothers me, probably more than any of the other ones, though the other incidents of sexualization are all incredibly repulsive and wholly UNNECESSARY. there is, in few cases, reason that some of these elements could be incorporated into a polt; for instance, to make a symbolic point, or because it is part of a character’s trauma. _but there is a way to and not to portray scenes like this; it must be done with sensitivity, rather than with a complete lack of tact and morality_. high rise invasion completely misses the mark here, especially since this incident is never mentioned again, almost as if it never happened - almost as if its only purpose was to give the audience a glimpse at the sexualization (of children) to come. there’s also the issue of extreme queerbaiting (though that’s probably an inaccurate term; it’s more of the shameless sexualization of wlw, who are also CHILDREN. might i repeat myself. sixteen years old). yuri’s name really does deliver on its promise. both herself and nise (introduced at the end of ep 1 or during ep 2, i believe? could be wrong) are very oversexualized; i’ve already talked about yuri, though. nise also often shown with a ripped shirt, her chest out, and she has a few panty shots as well, but definitely less than yuri. in episode three, there was a “misunderstanding” regarding a sexual innuendo alongside unnecessary and strangely timed physical affection (a tight hug while nise’s shirt is ripped open), and the two are both blushing, nise visibly being the most flustered. and of course, right after this, there’s a scene where yuri is washing herself on a rooftop, completely naked in front of nise. completely. naked. there is a lot of other dialogue that hints at potential “attraction” between the two, but i really don’t want to make myself relive a single part of the shitshow that was the first three episodes of this series. not to mention the complete lack of a warning the audience was given that suicide would be a central feature of the show. there are multiple suicides per episode, and netflix leaves no warning regarding this. not unexpected of them, considering they have a history of doing things like this (ex. 13 reasons why), but it’s still disappointing. now on to a lesser, more lighthearted criticism. it was more important that i got the most concerning things out of the way first. it’s incredibly frustrating to me that a series this shitty is so well-received; i haven’t seen any real criticism of it, other than people saying that the content outside of the fight scenes was hardly watchable. in my opinion, not even the fight scenes were watchable; the animation was bland, there wasn’t much movement depicted, and the pacing was strange, moving either too quickly or slowly. the way new information is revealed is so slow and painful, and there’s virtually no impact considering the way it’s delivered. rather than being something viewers figure out slowly, it’s just told to them, without hesitation. the only question you’re left with at times is “huh?” - not even “oh, why is that?” ...rather than feeling genuine curiosity about what’s to come, i just kept rolling my eyes every time new information was revealed. it all felt so irrelevant, especially considering how a lot of other plot points were treated. the concept for this show is a solid 8.5/10 but its execution was maybe a 1/10, on a good day. i absolutely do not recommend this show, even if you’re looking for mindless entertainment, which is why i attempted to keep watching it… i just ended up thinking about how awful it was instead.
Contains: Suicide, sexual assault, gore, violence Episodes: 12 Where to watch: Netflix (sub and dub) img220(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2VBY47rCwDI/YEL5GfwMZ5I/AAAAAAACHHE/WM4nX4t2Qps6s1Cykv3jbhRoDAs9y4b2ACPcBGAsYHg/s1920/High-Rise%2BInvasion%2B-%2BOP%2B-%2BYuri%2BAims%2BShoots.gif) Plot: People from the real world are brought to a new world where people wearing masks hunt them down. These masked people (soon known as angels) are given commands to pressure people into comiting suicide, if they refuse they die a horrible and gruesome death. These masked people cannot communicate and are usually killed if their masks become broken or damaged. The protagonist named Yuri is suddenly brought to this world, finding that her brother Rika is also here. Yuri finds that she is able to kill these masked individuals and her goal is to escape this world and take her companions in a helicopter that supposedly rescues them. However the rule is that only one individual can enter this. Yuri runs into Mayuko and develop a friendship after their challenging fight with sniper mask. Sniper mask escapes with a broken mask and meets Kuon, who he is instructed not to kill. She is a god cadet. Sniper mask unites Kuon with Yuri and Mayuko and wants to regain his memories. He is linked to Rika and desperately wants to find out what Rika means to him. img220(https://64.media.tumblr.com/1fc16b6c0c80c12439ccfb6cb43889c2/dda72d8a06560ae7-3c/s400x600/c4874adcb0d6a8dc52e4ec958e65ffd03abde238.gifv) Characters: Yuri: A naturally skilled fighter, she is strong willed and obnoxious however her intentions are pure and she becomes a likable character. Although she is a minor, she is sexualised which is unsettling and a downside to this anime. She fights with 2 guns Rika: He has a girly name despite him also being a natural fighter. Personally I don't like him, he comes of as annoying to me. He fights with a hammer and is intelligent. He also has a sister-complex and dislikes Yuri's idea of making companions. Mayuko: She is a friend of Yuri's and also has a slight crush on her. She is also a natural fighter which becomes a repetitive theme in this anime. I wish that their strength and power was a bit more natural and not as over powered. She has a bad past and doesn't really want to return to the normal world. She fights with a knife. Kuon: Another character that I don't like. She has a crush on sniper mask and is a very pretty girl. However her personally is annoying. She doesn't fight but she is closest to god. Her god candidate powers are very developed which made her a powerful ally. Sniper mask: A handsome man who is supposed to be an angel but is different from the others. I find that he is the highlight of the series and quite and interesting character. He is also overpowered but fights with a sniper rifle. img220(https://64.media.tumblr.com/7f5703d9247fac692443cec34c979c5d/d0dc722cfab621e7-0c/s400x600/c707f51deb4095783befd0a5e352fe05f7962cbc.gifv) Animation: The animation is actually pretty good, its colorful but also brings out the gore. Overall I quite enjoyed the anime. It has some predictable parts especially during the fights however there is a lot of jump cares and some parts actually surprised me. For a Netflix production it's pretty good quality. It's not the best quality but it's not the worst but personally I found it interesting and a fun idea. It's an original idea and I really horror anime's. I would probably watch it again and I would recommend to others. I don't understand why it's getting so much criticism. Thankyou for reading this if you did, this is my first review. x
Disclaimer: This is more of a rant than a review because this show really got to me. As a result I can’t recommend reading this unless you want to see how far one person’s psyche can plummet from watching a terrible anime. Also it's way too long, so apologies in advance. Lastly Spoiler Warning that I’ll be talking about the show’s entire plot. In the winter of 2020 I saw a teaser trailer for an anime about teenagers being hunted by murderers wearing weird masks atop tall buildings. The anime had everything to grip my attention, a unique premise, the rare horror tag and the simple fact that it was a new anime instead of another sequel. I patiently waited until the anime Tenkuu Shinpan (or its English name Highrise Invasion (which is what I’ll call it for the duration of this rant) aired in its entirety on Netflix. A few weeks ago I finally sat down with the lights off like an excited child ready to watch what I thought would become a new staple of the horror anime genre! And then after three episodes I turned it off because it seemed really dumb... The premise I was so enthralled with was undermined within the first five minutes of the show and it just kept going downhill from there. I took a break and watched another 3 eps on a later day. “Surely the show will get better,” I naively thought. “This premise is too good for it to become a mediocre battle royale ripoff right? There’s no way that would…” So after episode 7 I had lost hope of the show becoming good, but I had a new burning passion inside me. That feeling was righteous indignation toward the narrative abomination that was taking place before my eyes. I have never seen a story establish so many basic world-building rules and then aggressively break them. I was perplexed by the worst anime protagonist I’d seen in ages. And above all else I was disturbed by just how much I cared. I was dismayed that this anime was awful because I truly love this premise and wanted to fall in love with a new series. Not since Isekai Smartphone has an anime rubbed me the wrong way to such a degree that I felt the need to rant about it just to vent my frustration. I hope that this mindless jumble either validates your opinions on this show or if you liked this show, at least makes you reevaluate some of its elements. Now before I lay into this anime for far too long, I would like to talk about what I liked about it. I’m not a complete hater, in fact there’s tons of things about this anime that I really enjoyed even though I still condemn the overall product. There were many elements, decisions and characters that I want to praise despite how much I plan to complain about the show. So in no particular order here’s what I loved about this anime. The Animation and the Music The music and animation in Highrise Invasion is amazing. This may not be the spiffiest anime I’ve seen of late, but the actual animation is quality. There were virtually no scenes where the characters turned wonky or the visuals felt off. The fight scenes, while I have many grips with them for their content looked very good. The main thing I liked about this anime though is its soundtrack. The techno beats that played throughout this show were incredibly satisfying. I loved hearing the show’s battle theme even though it meant that the characters were getting attacked. Basically I would wholeheartedly recommend the ost of Highrise Invasion. The Three Good Characters There were three characters in this show that I really liked and the first one I want to talk about is Kuon. Admittedly, I’m not a fan of her character design. Kuon looks like she wandered in from an idol anime with her bright teal color scheme and ladylike appearance. Despite this criticism, Kuon easily became my 3rd favorite character in this show due to her light hearted and charming demeanor. Kuon is the most peaceful and reasonable character in the entire anime. She uses her special abilities almost completely to help others and even when she used her railgun offensively, she did so to break up Yuri and Aohara’s (the Doctor guy) fight or as a last resort in their fight with the Great Angel. If not for the fact that we have no way of knowing whether her first railgun shot actually killed anyone, I would praise her for being the paragon of virtue in this otherwise hellish world. Kuon’s peaceful nature was not the only thing to make me fall for her. I also found her romance with Sniper Mask, while one-sided to be thoroughly believable. Kuon basically relied on him for protection starting in episode 3 and by the end of the show she was fantasizing about their wedding. Though what really sold me on their relationship was that it improved over time. Sniper Mask originally referred to her as “woman” and barely talked to her. This annoyed Kuon and she kept pestering him until he finally opened up to her after the library fight in episode 6. From there they became more comfortable with each other as they grew from an unwilling partnership to the OTP of this show. Kuon did one more thing that I feel a quick need to praise, she actually did her generic anime tropes right. Kuon acts like a laid back ojou-sama from her polite speech to her reserved attitude (mostly). She also makes pretty good use of the over the top expressions common to anime girls. Kuon changes to a hopelessly lovestruck teen over the course of the show (see sniffing Sniper Mask’s jacket), however I’m not going to complain about mundane anime tropes when they’re done decently and Kuon succeeded in this department. I only feel the need to mention this due to how much I’ll complain later about some of the other characters in this show for their terrible use of anime tropes. Rika Honjo is the protagonist this show deserved, but didn’t get to have. He’s so stoic, adept and confident that I fell in love with him from his first appearance in episode 3. Rika’s cool and collected persona even got me to accept the scenario of a highschool student leading an entourage of multiple adults. He was just so competent and strong-willed that he made every scene he appeared in at the very least tolerable. Rika’s best scene was during his group’s fight with Aikawa’s Masks in episode 7. During this fight Rika battles the Naganita Mask and gets slashed in the head by the enemy’s blade. He continues to fight, but quickly passes out from blood loss and gets abducted by Swimmer Mask. This is one of the best scenes in this entire anime. It’s a very spontaneous fight between Aikawa’s flunkies, Yoshida’s masks and Rika’s knuckleheads that effectively highlights the strongest members of each group. The reason I liked this fight so much in regard to Rika’s character however, is that it brilliantly showed his vulnerability. This will be greatly expanded on later in the review, but there’s very little tension in this anime because the characters consistently feel overpowered (mainly Yuri) in regard to their opponents. For example, by this point in the series Yuri and Mayuko have already survived 7 fights and killed 4 Masked Assailants barely sustaining any injuries in the process (other than Mayuko getting hit by a baseball bat in episode 6). So while it may seem like a minor occurrence, it really stands out as the only time a main character both lost a fight and was not immediately bailed out. Honestly my only grievance with Rika is that he barely got any screen time. He gets two fights before being kidnapped by Aikawa and literally ends the season captured. Given his coolness and actual vulnerability, I think he would’ve made a better lead than who we primarily followed. Sniper Mask (Yu) is the best character in this show. He’s competent and cool in the same way as Rika, but Sniper actually gets enough screen time to back it up. He has a simple, yet powerful motivation to regain his lost memories and save Rika. Sniper even allows Yuri to have one of few scenes in this show where she actually seemed like a normal person (when they had tea in episode 10). The only bad scene in the whole anime with Sniper in it, was when Kuon and Mayuko went into his dreams inception-style to rework his mask. This scene for no particular reason turned Sniper and Rika into kids and felt very out of place (especially with Masked Mayuko randomly appearing to provide exposition). Otherwise I was very happy with every scene involving this guy. Sniper even managed to make his own potential death (during his fight with White Feather in episode 9) look really cool. Many Angles for its Premise One last positive for this show is that it gave a glimpse into the many angles that could be taken with its premise. Now the anime doesn’t go anywhere good with these angles, but it should be noted that it did at least try. Highrise Invasion tries to juggle being a visceral horror while also being a gun-slinging battle royale in addition to having both comedic and romantic elements. And literally none of these are handled well. Though it does go to show how much room there was for experimentation with the premise of “we are being hunted in a world of tall buildings”. I also want to say early on that I really dig the mask aesthetic of the enemies, but I’ll go into detail on that later when I gripe about how much they ruined the masks overall. Anyway I’ve been positive for as long as I can, so for the rest of this rant I’m just going to talk about all the things I did not like about this anime. Yuri Honjo is awful The protagonist of Highrise Invasion is the apex of bad character writing. Yuri Honjo isn’t even really a character to be honest, she just seems like a hastily-blended mix of anime tropes molded into a bland yet horribly offensive form. She stole the brother complex from Oreimo, the gunslinger persona from Black Lagoon and the generic main girl energy from every romcom anime ever. And the impressive thing is, she doesn’t pull off any of these personas remotely well. Yuri starts with the simple goal of reuniting with her brother, but then almost immediately she falls in love with a murderous blonde girl and gets totally distracted. Yuri pledges in the second episode to destroy the game world, but then she immediately consents to its rules in order to suit her needs (becoming a god candidate in episode 7). Yuri even tries to combine being an energetic highschool girl with being a cold-blooded serial killer. None of her character traits make any sense or combine to form a coherent package. Moving right along with the gripes, Yuri’s fighting prowess in the early episodes doesn't make any sense either. How are we supposed to believe that this random highschool girl is physically capable of fighting all these random attackers with no aforementioned practice? It would’ve made sense if the anime said Yuri underwent combat training or was a gun fanatic, but no we’re just supposed to accept that she’s an amazing shot with godlike athletics. Related to this complaint, Yuri also exemplifies one of the worst aspects of this show, its lack of stakes. Yuri appears much stronger than any other character in this show (bar the Great Angel maybe). She never loses a fight or has to watch one of her allies die. We even see her fight four fully-grown men in episode 10 and lay waste to them effortlessly. Yuri is the core reason this show lacks any tension, because it almost seems like she’ll never lose. If we as the viewers cannot fathom the protagonist actually failing, then how are we supposed to be afraid of the possibility? Now to be fair, Yuri has had many scenes of peril, but only two of them stood out and both scenes were cursed for other reasons. The two scenes I’m thinking of are the scene where she’s threatened by the policeman in episode 1 and when she’s attacked by Student Mask in episode 11 (and wow that’s a large gap). I’ll give the scene with Student Mask it’s own section later (because I think it’s one of the worst scenes in the whole show), but I want to touch on this scene with the evil policeman right now since it stands out as the only time Yuri seemed legitimately helpless. First of all let’s address the elephant in the room (trigger warning for unpleasant subject matter) the rape implications from this scene are both overwhelming and incredibly offputting. It doesn’t help that this is the third scene of the show, which might lead viewers to assume that the series glorifies sexual violence (which while being a garbage show, it does not). Shockingly this scene is a good example of the one of the weird angles that the show could’ve taken. It's reminiscent of the video game Dead Rising where the horrifying scenario would cause some of the victims to go insane and become enemies to the player. That being said, no other maskless enemy ever reaches the level of this random policeman. As a result, the whole scene ends up being edgy and misogynistic for the simple payoff of giving Yuri her first gun. This scene also does not effectively counter my assertion that Yuri is overpowered. It takes place barely ten minutes after her entry to the world and while she’s disarmed. From the moment Yuri gets her gun following this fight, she remains basically infallible until episode 11. One last complaint I have about Yuri was her reaction to killing Maid Mask at the end of episode 1. This was a very quick and easily forgettable scene, but after shooting Maid Mask and watching her plummet to her death, Yuri herself drops to the floor and cries over having shot somebody. This is one of the few truly human things Yuri does over the course of the entire show. It made me quickly identify with her situation where protecting oneself would involve killing potentially innocent brainwashed people. This is why everything started to seem a little wonky near the end of episode 2 when Yuri wakes up after fighting Sniper Mask and immediately confronts the Mask with the wolverine claws. It felt like in the span of four hours she made the leap from “killing people is bad'' to “murdering these people before they can harm me is completely justified”. To be fair, it would really complicate the show if Yuri tried to pacify or avoid killing the masked enemies. However, it felt strange to have her express remorse over her actions if she would never see them as morally questionable again. Why Highrise Invasion isn’t scary There are a lot more reasons why Highrise Invasion fails as a horror anime.We already touched on Yuri being too strong, but another issue is how weak the enemies seem by the latter half of the show. In the first few episodes the appearance of literally any Mask was a cause for concern and they posed a noticeable threat. However when the series pivots to being a battle royale rip-off, the Masks change from a malevolent and random threat to the disposable foot soldiers of each God candidate. This is made even worse as the Masks also start acting more human as the series progresses. In episode 2 it's specifically said that the mask is controlling their brains and forces them to drive their victims to despair. Then in episode 3 we added the potentially interesting idea (that went nowhere) that certain aspects of the Masks’ old personality would be shown in their fighting style (with the baseball guy that Rika defeated). However, once we reach episode 6 and the Masks just start taking their masks off, all of their mystic just kind of goes away. I think the Masks were both visually unique and striking, which is why it’s so depressing how lame they got by the end of the series. The only masked character who managed to remain credible was Sniper Mask, who conveniently never showed his face (even when the writers saw fit to have him take his mask off). Basically as the Masks became easier to defeat and more human with their actions, they stopped being scary. The second factor that ruins the horror of this anime is the easy availability of resources. Passive masks consistently appear to give our heroes food and supplies. There’s also tons of beds, clean showers and lounges sprawled throughout this world for characters to relax in. This sense of comfort and convenient access to food really undermines the fear one can truly have in this world. Sure the Masks might try to kill you, but at least there’s no concern for hunger or poor hygiene. This is a very simple plot point in the narrative, but I think it really hurts the series as a horror show. To contrast this with a better horror series, in Corpse Party the threat of starvation is repeatedly forced upon the characters as they traverse the haunted school. Thus the characters are threatened on two fronts, either being killed by the monsters or wandering the halls until they inevitably die of starvation. The characters in Highrise Invasion however, have access to legitimate comforts that make their world nowhere near as scary, which really stinks since fundamentally the setups of both Corpse Party and Highrise Invasion are the same. A group of randoms are brought to a dangerous world governed by strange rules where their lives are at stake. However, while Corpse Party showcased a gritty, painful and unforgiving world, Highrise Invasion showcased the world that was only scary during its fights (and even then not very). Why Highrise Invasion fails as a basic narrative Highrise Invasion not only fails as a horror show, but as a narrative in general. The show sets up a myriad of rules and then blatantly undermines them a few episodes later. Also when the story pivots to being a battle royale ripoff, we never get a good explanation of the rules for said battle royale (why do we trust Aikawa again?). Heck most of the ideas in this show fall apart if you actually think about them for more than a few seconds. Let’s start with the worst offender though, the often broken rules of this world. This anime does an incredible job of establishing basic rules and then breaking them later on. I can’t tell if this is just bad writing or if no one actually comprehends the rules of this world. Here are just a few instances that come to mind, at the end of the second episode after defeating the Wolverine mask, Yuri unmasks him and he tells her that if the mask is removed it forces the wearer to commit suicide. Of course once we start fighting the God candidates, this rule is completely abandoned with no repercussions. Are the God candidates actually modifying the Masks’ code? This is the likely answer, but it's not well-explained in the show. Or how about when the Masks all started out as violent hulking brutes, but eventually they all just start acting like normal people? Again, is this supposed to be Mask modification? And if so, why is the God Candidate making them act like their normal self? Or how about in the first episode when the Maid Mask dies telling Yuri to never put on a mask, but then we learn that the only way to get power in this world is to find a mouthless mask and become a God candidate? Did Maid Mask lie to Yuri or was this a random misdirection? This segways nicely into another problem with this show, which is how faulty most of its ideas are. The first thing that took me out of Highrise Invasion happened five minutes into the first episode. The show establishes almost immediately that the Masks’ primary goal is to drive their victims to suicide and not kill them. However if the victim refuses to commit suicide, the Mask will just kill them anyway... This is totally illogical. I cannot fathom why it matters how the victims die. Is being gored by any of the Masks really a preferable death to just plummeting to the ground below? I can try to extrapolate that the show is going for some kind of anti-suicide message, but if so it’s handled beyond clunkily. One could argue the world of Highrise Invasion is unique by providing its victims an easy way to commit suicide at basically anytime. That being said, suicide never comes up as a theme other than when Mayuko tries to kill herself in episode 6. And even then she was only trying to kill herself to protect Yuri, not because she had actually given up on life. All this suicide gimmick does is make the show feel silly. If they had to keep it in, they should’ve had the Masks attack their victims in non-fatal, but excruciatingly painful ways to make suicide actually seem preferable. The suicide gimmick is only one aspect of Highrise Invasion’s awful worldbuilding. This anime doesn’t actually tell its characters or the viewer what the goal of this world even is. At first, it’s simply to find the randomly spawning helicopter and be flown home. However, this idea gets discarded when the show becomes a battle royale to decide the new God of “our realm”. The new problem is that the rules for this battle royale are never fully explained so we have no clue how any character actually wins it. Sure the bad guy (Aikawa) tells us about the battle royale, but why should we trust him? While it’s easy to extrapolate that all you have to do is kill the other God Candidates, we have no way of knowing how many of them actually exist. Worst yet, more people could become God candidates over time by finding the mouthless masks. I mean who can even blame them? Being a God candidate is a clear improvement over being hunted by Masks while looking for the helicopter. Hell even the God Candidate system is nonsense when you think about it. When Yuri gets her mask, the program tells her that all of her abilities will be sealed within her memory. This means that every God Candidate can’t even use their full powers for the competition unless they happen to randomly recall them. This actually leads into another sort of praise, sort of criticism I have for this show, its inconsistent tone. First off, the last two episodes of Highrise Invasion are unironically a comedic goldmine. The overall show has a lot of crummy running gags (like Rika getting bullied for his girlish name or Mayuko’s outlandish jealousy.), but the last two episodes are pretty much a one-man standup routine by the Great Angel. And shockingly enough this actually worked. Introduced haphazardly in episode 11, the Great Angel is the definitive moment that this show jumps the shark as this huge man in tight black spandex asserts himself as the strongest entity in this world (though whether he could beat Yuri is unknown). This man catches a bullet with his bare hands, defeats three people easily (Mayuko, Takabe and Ein) and survives getting nuked! All the while he’s spouting insane rhetoric about punishing evil with an almost childlike naivete. It doesn’t help that Aikawa’s whole evil plan hinges on the Great Angel and Yuri not realizing that they both want Aikawa dead. These absurd circumstances propell the last two episodes to a Garzey’s Wing level of “so bad that it’s good”. Honestly if not for Aohara dying, I could legitimately call these last two episodes entirely comedic with their tone. If you have to watch this show, please only watch episodes 11 and 12. Funny finale aside, there’s still a few more elements in this show to complain about and the next thing to address is its fanservice. Now I am not a prude, in fact I’m actually pretty perverted, but despite this I could not tolerate this show’s obsessive lewdness. The amount of fanservice in Highrise Invasion is shameless and worst of all pretty much pointless. For example, Yuri flashes her panties in almost every action shot and NEVER replaces her torn skirt. I wouldn’t normally be so annoyed by this, but the anime goes out of its way to show us panties in the middle of every fight and it just feels distracting. Furthermore, it doesn’t mesh with the general vibe of the show. These characters are already fighting for their lives, why do we have to see Yuri’s panties and torn skirt every episode? Mayuko is also a member of the disappointing fanservice bandwagon. She not only flashes her panties mid-fight (and when getting up dramatically), but also gets her dress torn in episode 4 to reveal her bra and somehow does not change her clothes until episode 10. Since there’s clearly an abundance of clothing in this world, why do the main girls never replace their damaged outfits?! Highrise Invasion’s fanservice just feels incredibly forced, and uncomfortably aggressive. I haven’t even gotten to all the times the show made Yuri and Mayuko naked because of some random dream sequence. Basically some fanservice is fine, and a lot of fanservice can also be fine, but a lot of fanservice that distracts from the actual show as shown here is just awful. On the topic of sexualizing Yuri and Mayuko, (and yes I know I’m going to hell for that segway...) I couldn’t rant about this show without criticizing their incredibly contrived romance.This relationship is easily the most poorly handled aspect of the whole show. After meeting abruptly in episode 2, these characters immediately fall in love despite never sharing a scene together that doesn’t involve fighting (or preparing for a fight). This awful subplot follows Mayuko’s character like a specter and randomly destroys the little credibility that she has. Basically one minute she’ll be a competent badass, and then two minutes later Mayuko will be staring longingly at Yuri like an idiot. It’s mind blowing that when we first met her, Mayuko was a cold-blooded murderer killing innocent maskless people just to better her chances of finding the helicopter. However the minute Yuri pushes her out of the way of a stray bullet, Mayuko becomes a total simp for her and remains like that for the entire show. img220([img]https://i.imgur.com/AAuDshq.jpg[/img]) This seems like a good place for my mini-rant about Mayuko in general because she somehow straddles being a credible character and a terrible one. We get tidbits of her backstory to learn that she’s been the victim of bullying and abuse (which is more than we learn about Yuri I might add). Mayuko also gets into multiple fights where it’s clear that she’s outmatched and thus we can actually fear for her safety. What destroys Mayuko is that she juggles being a calculating fighter with being a lovestruck buffoon. And because the show never gives the pair a legitimate scene to get to know each other, their whole romance ends up feeling hollow. That isn’t to say that all the romances in this show are bad. I already mentioned how I enjoyed Sniper’s relationship with Kuon, since we got to actually see it improve over time. There were also huge overtones of a potential relationship (bromance?) between Sniper Mask and Rika. These relationships all had a sense of depth to them. With Kuon and Sniper, there were multiple scenes of them just talking and getting to know one another. In the case of Rika and Sniper, both of them risked their lives to save the other and also spent entire scenes hyping the other up. In contrast Yuri and Mayuko’s relationship feels painfully empty. The only thing it accomplishes is making Mayuko’s character impossible to take seriously. I assume the logic was that Yuri was the first person to show Mayuko genuine kindness and that’s why she became so obsessed with her, but honestly it just feels hard to believe. Yuri and Mayuko’s painfully forced romance also leads to the worst scene in this whole anime. This is a very quick and easily forgettable scene, but it exemplifies how poor Yuri’s character is. The scene occurs in episode 6 after Mayuko falls into a coma after her mask malfunctions. Yuri learns from the Guardian Angel Mask that she has to obtain a Mouthless Mask in order to save Mayuko. However right before Yuri leaves to get the mask, she kisses Mayuko on the lips. This is the most jarring thing to me because it's wrong in so many different ways. Not only is Mayuko unable to consent to the kiss, but it also comes out of nowhere from Yuri (who had been the more passive one in the relationship). Just imagine for a moment, kissing someone you’ve known for barely one day who's in a coma! Does that seem right? Does that seem justifiable even given the abnormal circumstances? I might have given this scene a pass if Yuri and Mayuko actually seemed like a real couple, but they never do. The closest they even get to mutual romantic interest is holding hands during the season finale. Basically this minor scene just made me hate Yuri even more, because she comes off as opportunistic and predatory. I can tell this scene was intended to be endearing, but it just came as horrifying to me. There’s a lot more terrible scenes in this show. There’s actually so many, that I almost want to do a scene by scene commentary on why virtually every scene without Sniper Mask or Rika is garbage. However this is already too long, so I’m just going to list a few more scenes that upset me: Yuri tossing the Needle Mask off the roof at the start of episode 7 Episode 6 ended with Yuri seemingly defeated by this Mask as its hook. So it felt very jarring to me that the minute episode 7 started, she easily escaped his restraint and grabbed the mouthless mask. Then she just tossed him off the roof effortlessly. This is the exact scene where I lost faith in the Masks being a credible threat. They were seeming less and less scary, but this scene really made the Masks feel mediocre. Not to mention, this scene was the start of Yuri becoming so overpowered that her fights lost all stakes, except for... Yuri being attacked by Student Mask at the start of episode 11 This scene was mentioned earlier as one of the few times Yuri was in legitimate danger and actually seemed vulnerable. However, my problem with this scene is that it felt totally out of place. It occurs right after Yuri killed four adult Masks without so much as getting a scratch on her. And now suddenly the show decides that her powers can randomly stop working just so we can have this random idiot harass her for like two minutes? It’s beyond stupid. If they wanted to establish that the God candidate powers had limits they should’ve done so in one of her earlier fights. Furthermore, this weakness never comes back for the rest of the anime. As a result this scene just feels like insanity to me as we watch Yuri destroy 4 enemies one minute and then almost lose to a much weaker enemy the next. The entire Sniper Mask dream sequence in episode 10 I hate this scene in particular because it prevents me from saying that every scene with Sniper Mask is good. While this scene is not god awful, it just feels weird and poorly planned out. I mean why is Sniper Mask a kid in his dream world? Why couldn’t Kuon recover his lost memories right then and there? And most importantly, why did we bring Mayuko along? She didn’t do anything productive the whole scene and it made even less sense that her Masked persona showed up. Admittedly this scene did give us the payoff of Sniper Mask joining Yuri’s team, but I would’ve preferred to have not seen the coolest character in this show as a powerless kid. The entire fight between Mayuko and Chef Mask in episode 4 This scene rubbed me the wrong way for so many reasons. To start, Chef Mask squandered the best surprise attack in the entire show. He seemingly tosses Mayuko off the roof, before we realize he’s just dragged her to the lower floor. The second problem was Chef Mask immobilizing Mayuko with the heads of her previous victims. This makes zero sense. Why would Mayuko suddenly feel intense guilt over the people she killed? Did Yuri’s hug magically reignite her humanity? And even so, why would this shake her to the point that she would completely abandon fighting back? It just irks me so much, and of course it doesn’t end there. The fact that this fight is won by Yuri shooting Chef Mask while suspended upside down by her clothing makes it the dumbest ending to a fight in the entire series. Finally we’re at the conclusion, or at least we would be if I didn’t need to answer one last important question. Why on Earth did I write this? Why did I post such a long rant about a Netflix anime that the vast majority of people will never see? Why am I lashing out so vehemently against an anime that despite all my gripes was still well received? Well here’s the reason. I love the premise of Highrise Invasion. I think it perfectly captures the elements that made prior horror anime amazing and memorable. You’re suddenly transported to a unique, but dangerous world where seemingly human, but completely remorseless assailants want to kill you. This could’ve easily been the grittiest and scariest anime in recent memory. How impactful could this series have been on the genre if it was actually good? What if ammo and supplies were scarce and the characters had to ration everything they could with the bleak hope of seeing another day? What if instead of ripping off battle royale, the series focused on the simple goal of returning home, which every viewer could relate to? Ultimately the reason I wrote so much about this show and the reason it left such an impact on me is that I really wanted this to be my new favorite anime. I went in as excited as possible and came out utterly crushed and frustrated. And so ends my rant about Highrise Invasion. I could recommend this show if you were intoxicated, because if you don’t think about the plot or fanservice it’s at least watchable. Honestly just viewing the last two episodes with no context would be the best way to approach this anime, because those episodes at least made me laugh. I do feel regret that I let this show ruin two months of my life and usurp Isekai Smartphone as my most hated anime series, but alas Highrise Invasion is really just that bad. As a final joke, here’s a drinking game I came up with for Highrise Invasion with the disclaimer that I have not tested this so be weary as you might die: The Highrise Invasion Drinking game: Easy Mode Take a drink every time: Yuri’s panties are flashed or shown Yuri or Mayuko are shown naked Kuon pouts or blushes Rika is made fun or feels self-conscious over his name A Masked assailant takes their mask off Hard Mode Take a drink every time: Sniper Mask lights a new cigarette Mayuko stares longingly at Yuri A Mask dies without injuring a named character Yuri says she’ll destroy this world or talks about her brother A bullet regrettably misses its target
# ~~~__Well. This was certainly... something.__~~~ Lol. That is quite honestly all I have to say about this show. A laughably bad, clumsy, cluttered, mess of a show. That is High-Rise Invasion. But, I will review this show, because of course I will. High-Rise Invasion was all the rage for a few weeks on anime Tiktok when it first dropped, and a lot of people where talking about it pretty highly. I didn't really have the time for it, and I didn't have enough context for the show, so I didn't really pay it any mind until my girlfriend said we should watch it together. I did a little research (read a plot synopsis lol) and was convinced enough to give it a watch. Besides, if it was bad, we would get some snacks and some drinks and have a few laughs. And laugh we did. A lot. To be blunt, High-Rise Invasion is bad. Not bad to the point where it makes me sigh and groan and is generally offensive and upsetting, but more bad in the same way that a B-Horror movie is bad. It's corny. It's trope-y. The characters hardly exist. You're not really sure if it's self aware or not, but you're laughing all the way through anyways. Unfortunately, it can't just be a laugh-fest all the way through. Believe it or not, High-Rise Invasion actually has some intriguing concepts and ideas that are lost within the dumpster of generic and shameless anime garbage that is this show. The main premise of this show is genuinely interesting and has so much potential. Basically, this anime takes place in an alternate game world in which everyone is stuck on these skyscrapers that are connected by rope bridge. There are masked psychos trying to kill you, too. Lovely times. Immediately upon hearing the concept of this show, I was intrigued. There is literally so much you can do with this environment and this idea. The concept of a world with few people and a ton of abandoned and empty skyscrapers could be an incredible horror anime. I personally love the idea of stuff like the backrooms (if you all know what that means) and creepy, abandoned liminal spaces like office buildings, and I would honestly be in love with a show where a small cast of characters has to explore a ton of em while avoiding monsters or psychos. But no, High-Rise Invasion instead exchanges this for a half-baked, vapid action show filled to the brim with an absurd amount of panty shots, cleavage, and a main character who is... obsessed with her brother. Oh joy. I don't even want to talk about the characters here because there's literally nothing to say. Normally in shows with insufferable characters I am able to at least find ones I like purely based on design. I don't think I can say that about literally one single character, none of them are sticking with me, other than the evil girl with the pink hair who was bad af. The main character, Yuri, is possibly the most empty husk of a character I have ever had the displeasure of getting to know. I honestly think this cast of characters is one of the most tried and true trope filled casts of traditional generic garbage churned out from the anime formula machine that I've seen. There's literally nothing interesting here, and I don't think that's an exaggeration. The way the plot unfolds is the only part of this show that is frustrating, I think. The first episode of the show covers what could have probably been changed and stretched into at least 2 episodes. If you wanted to make this show more serious and more tolerable, you could have had Yuri get used to killing masks, only to find out that she's been killing humans the whole time and have her grapple with that, all the while she aimlessly explores the skyscraper world all alone until she finds another person. Honestly, I don't even know why I'm saying this to begin with. What did I expect from a show that has a weird rape-y scene where we see Yuri's half-naked boobies no less than 7 minutes into the first episode? I digress. But really, the plot doesn't matter. Nothing matters. Like I said, there are interesting ideas that are thrown around every now and then, but once they started talking about "God candidates" and "perfect Gods" I basically clocked out in terms of trying to comprehend the plot, realizing all too late that I had willingly sat down to watch a show designed for 14 year old boys to consume en masse. Things happen and you just kinda fly with it. Nothing matters in this empty show. You can try and make sense of it, but you're honestly better off trying to talk to your schizophrenia demons; you'll probably experience things infinitely more nuanced and interesting than what High-Rise Invasion has to offer. Should you watch High-Rise Invasion? Well, if you and your friends (if you have them) are in need of something to poke fun at, go ahead and take a trip into the world of High-Rise Invasion. You'll get some laughs for the first 5 or so episodes, until it becomes background noise for what you decide to do after you inevitably get bored of how much of an empty void this anime is. Thanks for reading my review. I hope that you found it informative and maybe a little funny. Leave a like if you enjoyed. Maybe it'll justify the hours I spent watching this show, all of which have been permanently shaved off of my life, never to return.
Ok, lemme just say something:it's not horrible, all right? The story it's actually interesting if you pay attention to it. The problem is the way the characters are used. Most of the characters in this anime are underage (like really young, they're on the first year of high school wtf) but they have their bodies exposed __EVERY SINGLE EPISODE__!!!!! The protagonist, Yuri, has her breasts exposed at least once on every episode....it's disgusting, it's unnecessary and __ILLEGAL__. All characters have little to none personality. I mean, they're not interesting at all bro!!!! The only one that gets me curious about their past it's Sniper Mask. He's the only relevant person in there, and he should be the protagonist, you can't change my mind. I know I said that the story it's interesting but...it's SO CONFUSING!!! It'll probably make more sense on season 2 (if we get one, that is), but I won't get my hopes up. We get introduced to a bunch of random information every second and NONE of them are explained further on the show. Oh, yes, how could I forget it? __WAY TOO MANY PANTIES SHOTS!!!!!!!!!!__ As someone that doesn't enjoy Ecchi content, I hate that kind of fan service, but when it's done properly and in moderation I can tolerate it (like One Piece, we get some fan services here and there but Oda doesn't create a situation to show Nami's panties, for example). Besides, they're underage high school girls, man! Do I need to say something else to prove my point? I don't think so. I saw some people talking about Yuri and Rika's relationship (Yuri: protagonist; Rika: her older brother who's a high school senior) and saying that they get weird vibes from them (inc3st vibes) and stuff like that, but personally I don't think it's true. They never met in person to begin with (Yuri's goal is to meet with him, after all), they only talk on the phone and it was some pretty basic conversations (at least that I can remember). They do all kinds of crazy sh1t to be able to survive and meet each other, but they're siblings, you know?! Like, they're family in the real world.... I don't know, I didn't think so much about this, I just thought it was a standard sibling relationship, but honestly I wouldn't know how brother-sister relationships are, cause I only have a sister-sister relationship, and we're really close to each other, so....idk. Final thoughts: Garbage. This anime is horrible, it stinks, it makes my eyes hurt. Wouldn't recommend it to anybody, unless they're into suffering. The story is poorly told and doesn't make any sense; the characters are uninteresting and shallow; and to put a cherry on top, there's exploitation and oversexualization of minors. So, if you're into bad anime with disgusting sexualization of high school girls, watch this. But just know that the world hates you and if you like when underage girls are sexualized, seek help :)
As always, I've read some of the previous reviews for this anime. I saw many hate reviews, which I can and cannot agree on. I started to watch "High-Rise Invasion" because some people on discord kept talking about it. They were actually pretty amazed about this anime. So I watched it too. Let me start the very first nice comment to this anime: # 1. Story The anime "High-Rise Invasion" is about a girl -Yuri Honjou-, who finds herself one day on top a skyscraper which are connected between other skyscrapers through bridges. The horrible part is, that masked figures are running around, trying to kill the "normal" people like Yuri. img220(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-628oQlxJoSE/YEL5GedmyYI/AAAAAAACHHE/8oeysYvZZ6o7H_vDRKqUE6ZlWaG4SPaeQCPcBGAsYHg/s1920/High-Rise%2BInvasion%2B-%2BEpisode%2B1%2B-%2BRope%2BBridge%2BScary%2BHeights.gif) In this horrifying world, she tries to survive and find her brother who got in this world too. She gets herself out of danger at first and watches people die in front of her eyes but still manage to not loose her mind. This horror, escape anime is very exciting to watch with many really realistic human choices. The anime shows how cruel humans can be to just survive. img220(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-W3SUaqF0-4o/YEL5GYogYnI/AAAAAAACHHE/EIslwR7b2wcDDP7pVXzB_hkCgjmEgPZ7gCPcBGAsYHg/s1920/High-Rise%2BInvasion%2B-%2BEpisode%2B1%2B-%2BYuri%2BWatches%2BShocking%2BBetrayal.gif) The anime also shows how people easily use the situation to their favor. So it is only natural, that the anime has scenes with sexual content. It is really realistic on how people would change when they get to a situation to their favor. ~!img220(https://ahegao.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/High-Rise-Invasion-Episode-1-Yuri-Starts-to-Pull-Down-Panties.gif)!~ Just some scenes with sexual content could have been reduced. ~!img220(https://yuriempire.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/mayuko-panties.jpg)!~ # 2. Characters The main character Yuri had a really great change of personality which was nice to watch. I really love to see character development in general. All the main character were pretty cool and relateable. My favorite character would be the "Sniper mask": img220(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ExlkkN8UcAEngG0.png) I love how the character worked with each other and tried to find a way out of this world. # 3. Animation / Art / Soundtrack As always, I can only say: amazing art and animation. It was really smooth and I didn't got any hard times to get used with the art style. I just don't like the animation of the blood... It seemed more like tomato soup than blood. img220(https://media.tenor.com/images/fee2a9210b94b3532e2a43eb014d5c11/tenor.gif) To the soundtrack, it wasn't really my favorite one. It was a bit too loud in my opinon. But it really suited the animes style. The thrilling sound and fast beats makes it suit the horror anime. youtube(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzkH-tvdQPQ) # 4. Anime adaption from the manga For this point, I really have to talk about how sad it is, that the anime left or changed many good parts from the manga. As High-Rise Invasion wasn't finished when I watched it, I started to read the manga since I want to know how it ends. I really have to say, that the manga is way better than the anime. I'm a bit disappointed about that. When I only watched the anime, I wouldn't have known the fact and would have probably rated it better. ~!For example the maid mask never revealed her face in the manga and Ai's introdution is way more earlier in the anime. Some scenes got cut away on the anime too, for example Nomura, Nishimura, Nozaki and Nishimura's scene. For some reason, the anime switches the order of the scenes too. The "Great Angel" isn't as scary as in the anime either. The most bad part is, that Rika -brother of Yuri- got masked waaay too early! It sure does help to improve the excietement for season 2, but it also trashes the story from the manga. !~ img220(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b1/03/ae/b103aee3a65ec512a9f9a34e36eda621.png) The only good thing -which I think was- is, that the anime adds more flashbacks. # 5. Conclusion All in all, I did liked the anime until the point, I read the manga. The anime makes the story more rushed, half-hearted and less thrilling. Still, the anime was nice to watch, the animation great -just blood...what was that..- and story ok. That is why I will give this anime a 6/10. It was better than I thought, but it did trash the manga a bit. I really think people should read the manga first for that. img220(https://netflixjunkie.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/high-rise-invasion-trailer-release-date-synopsis-1280x720.jpg)
THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS If you are like me, you'll feel attracted to stories of normal people who suddenly find themselves amidst a distressing situation where survival depends on casting aside most civilized societal norms and morals to stay alive. Or, if you're also like me, you just like the notion of anime girls with firearms. This anime has both, but badly executed (or written?). Trying my best to avoid any spoilers, I can tell you that the character's personalities and their morals are all over the place. Yuri Honjou is a typical high school teenager who reacts somewhat as you'd expect when she is transported into the Skyscraper World (does it even have a name? I may have missed it), she is scared and confused. However, just like a robot, she changes completely as the situation needs it. She quickly observes the "rules" and the masked people's behavior, draws a correct conclusion, gets her hand on some weapons and easily kills in cold blood any masked people who stand in her path. Instant convenient adaptation. When she meets Mayuko Nise things get even weirder: Let’s just say this character’s actions would make anyone who has some sort of moral compass instantly hate her. She is cruel, unforgiving and edgy, probably a fan of Tanya von Degurechaff (that hair, uh? Guess morals as well lol). Yuri has a good justification to kill her on the spot, but she not only refuses it, she saves her life. Mayuko completely changes after that into a “good kawaii anime girl” from the power of kindness and friendship. Who would've guessed that murderers just need a panty shot and a hug to become a good person? Maybe it's part of the story that the bad people and the masked people we see were good people before this strange world corrupted them, but it just feels weird. Seeing that guy who had no qualms about murdering innocent people just an episode ago suddenly being portrayed in a good light as one of the Good Guys as if he was as kind as Yuri or Kuon is honestly quite insulting. Kuon is perhaps the most adorable of the characters, and ironically, her stereotype of a carefree, gentle and pure person ends up leaving her as one of the most consistent personalities in the whole story. The opening and ending sequences are pretty good and are likely part of the charm that kept me from dropping the show (and I guess the potential for a good story that ended up not existing). Despite the (IMO) bad writing, the character's designs are pretty damn cool, although I wished to see Yuri using other firearms instead of just revolvers and pistols, something tells me that rifles would look pretty nice on her, (doesn’t seem that far off considering one of the masked enemies had a M32A1 grenade launcher). Sound design is okay, although the same sound effects are easily recognizable due to how often they are used, a particular “zyooon!” noise was used during rail guns firing, kicks, cannon balls, rifle shots and handgun shots and I’m only mentioning this because it can get distracting, and kinda funny. I can’t recommend this one for anyone who wants to feel immersed in a good story with decently-written characters, Tenkuu Shinpan is a good anime to pass the time when you’re bored or when you have nothing else to watch during a snack, but it is extremely forgettable. I’d even dare say that Highschool of the Dead has better-written characters, and if you are not a fan of that one, you’ll likely not be one of Tenkuu Shinpan. My first review on this website, I'm too lazy to write reviews for every anime I watched in my life, so starting with the ones I just recently watched seems fair.
Let's just get it out of the way. I... kind of _loved_ this? If you've read other reviews by me, especially my horror ones, you probably expected me to fucking hate this. And to be fair, I did. I hated the manga. So maybe it's because of not really liking the manga or maybe my expectations for any anime tagged under horror are so low that they're just automatically underneath *the fucking floor*, but I really did enjoy watching this. Pretty much the whole way through. But if you take *anything* from this review, then let it be this. Despite everything I just said, this is still very much trash. ~~~img500(https://i.imgur.com/ZSXysSr.png)~~~ #WARNING: THIS ANIME HAS A WHOLE BUNCH OF... of gore. Why... why am I even bothering to do a content warning for this? *"I was real shocked when the series about skyscraper fights ended up having gore in it!"*# ...oh wait no hold on I actually do have a genuine content warning for this review fuck, sorry #WARNING: ___FANSERVICE___# *okay there we go* ___ #Thanks Netflix# img440(https://i.imgur.com/v4E7ose.png) Brought to us by the studio [Zero-G](https://anilist.co/studio/6117/ZeroG) via Netflix, High Rise Invasion is like one of the four horror non-Yami Shibai anime we got out of 2021. ~~And even then I'd be tempted to say it's more of an action series. But hey, who am I to complain? We got a whole bunch of blood, people jumping off skyscrapers to commit suicide, decapitations...~~ img(https://i.imgur.com/1XDSYZO.gif) An adaptation of the [2013 manga of the same title](https://anilist.co/manga/85388/HighRise-Invasion/) by [Tsuina Miura](https://anilist.co/staff/116991/Tsuina-Miura) (story) and [Takahiro Oba](https://anilist.co/staff/118699/Takahiro-Oba) (art), I really just had the absolute lowest expectations for this possible. img(https://i.imgur.com/JtgE2fL.png) When the anime got announced, I did kind of predict I'd probably like it more if it was animated but... Why did this get this good of an adaptation? Like what. For this??? Some manga about characters waking up in a skyscraper realm where other characters who have *SUPER COOL AND DEFINITELY NOT DUMB* smiley face masks chase and murder them or try and push them to committing suicide? img440(https://i.imgur.com/iKH7Jmg.png) But the animation of the action scenes is actually pretty good. ~~For what this is.~~ Like I genuinely had fun pretty much the whole way through watching this. To be honest, unless the art is incredible, I don’t really give a shit about action in manga. ~~I fully realize how terrible of a take that is, but for me it’s the truth.~~ Meaning unless an action manga *with art I don't really like* has interesting characters or an interesting plot, I’m going to have a bad time. High Rise Invasion’s manga didn’t really have either of those things. img440(https://i.imgur.com/HFmpCuf.png) To be fair, where I stopped in the manga was like episode 3 or 4 of the anime. It was like fifty chapters in. Most of the chapters are pretty short but god damn did the pacing of the anime feel way better. Point is, I was only right about where the “plot” was starting to show itself. A character even says no joke verbatim, “like what, you thought this whole situation was just going to be you running away from masked people on skyscrapers??? No, idiot, there’s a real… thing, going on here. And that’s the *actual* plot!” I mean yeah, I guess it just couldn’t be random masked people getting people to commit suicide for 250 chapters. But iunno… while the anime did get me back to reading the manga, I’m still not convinced this needed a plot… img440(https://i.imgur.com/v2bA1vO.png) And as for the characters, while I’ve warmed up to them, there’s still really admittedly nothing there… ___ #Characters# Yuri’s kind of psychotic. Goes from scared high school girl to gun toting action killer girl way too fucking quickly. img440(https://i.imgur.com/zhKEzuX.png) Granted, this transition only feels even shorter given the speedier pacing of the anime, but it’s somewhat unsettling when your protagonist is pretty much 100% okay with repeatedly shooting people in the face. img440(https://i.imgur.com/90DzUMe.png) I should note I’m only *kind* of complaining here. If she didn’t shoot a whole bunch of masked people to death, this would obviously be a far more negative review than it is. Also she has an annoying obsession with her brother. img440(https://i.imgur.com/G5FMeDt.png) Who I will get to, soon enough. Nise, is also kind of psychotic. img440(https://i.imgur.com/TImfTJl.png) Introduced via getting ready to shoot a man to death so she would secure a seat on the helicopter which is believed to be the way out of this skyscraper realm, Nise has already acclimated to this world. ~~AKA she’s a-okay with murder and she likes knives specifically.~~ And she tells Yuri after they agree to cooperate that she doesn’t plan on sticking around and she’s only looking out for #1. img440(https://i.imgur.com/Ez1ymqR.png) And as a person who has experienced many pieces of fiction, I definitely believed her and didn’t think she was going to undergo a complete change of heart within like two or three episodes. Oh, she also *very quickly* develops an annoying obsession but with Yuri. Her character rapidly becoming completely different like Yuri’s is similarly forgiven because Nise very quickly ~~through plot bullshit that I don't care about~~ becomes capable of severing limbs with her knife. img440(https://i.imgur.com/DQKxKxx.png) *"How could you possibly like this anime?" "A girl cut someone's arm off with a knife."* There’s actually a third girl main character, Kuon, but unlike the other two, she doesn’t matter. img440(https://i.imgur.com/hnWyDYQ.png) Maybe she does more later in the manga, but of what the anime covered, she only ever has two things to do. ~!Fire the big ass tower gun (but never to actually try and actively kill anyone with it) and to enter the minds of Sniper Mask and Nise after she puts on a mask so the mask doesn’t just fully take over and turn them into mindless killing machines.!~ When a series’ main draw is the fights and the gore, ___there’s no room for pacifists.___ And also she also pretty quickly gains an annoying obsession with Sniper Mask. ~~Because I guess every character has to be obsessed with someone.~~ Yuri’s brother, Rika, is kind of a worthless character. Admittedly, it is kind of funny that he has it in his head that he’s gonna go save Yuri but it becomes quickly obvious to the viewer a few episodes in that Yuri does not need to be saved at all. And that’s without even tipping our toes into the “plot.” ~!*AKA when everybody starts voluntarily putting masks on and starts getting stupid insane powers. Yuri gets literal bullet time powers, and also at least enough strength to be able to crush a cell phone with her bare hands. Although, she might have been able to do that all along, she just needed to be told her brother had been kidnapped.!~ ~~~img440(https://i.imgur.com/ubMJAHQ.png)~~~ ~~~img440(https://i.imgur.com/OzU64fs.png)~~~ But it quickly becomes a problem that we keep switching back to Rika. The way I thought it was going to go was that after that initial phonecall after Yuri woke up in the skyscraper world, that that was going to be it for Rika. img440(https://i.imgur.com/7DIniKT.png) Yuri even conveniently got immediately dephoned before Rika could really give her any useful information, so it’d probably be a while before Yuri got to talk with Rika again. Instead nope, Nise, give me your cell phone I have to talk to my brother. It’s super important. img440(https://i.imgur.com/dTO7A5b.png) Which by itself would have been fine, but no, we gotta switch and be shown Rika’s team. And look wow, Rika can bash masks with a hammer! How cool! ~!Oh wait, no hold on. He got kidnapped by the bad guy faction. Even though why kidnap him specifically…? Like okay I get it, they needed to kidnap someone, anyone, of the good faction to get information on the good faction and also possibly get them on the bad side but… there’s just no disguising that the actual reason it was Rika who got kidnapped was because the plot needed it. That way the bad guy could realize he had leverage against his true hitherto unknown rival. AKA Yuri. And also Yuri has a reason to really want to shoot the bad guy dead. My overall point being that despite apparently being a main character or at least a part of the main cast, basically all he accomplishes is getting kidnapped…!~ And then you have the Sniper Mask who… it’s like the mangaka sat down and said to himself “yeah, I’m gonna make a SUPER COOL character. The ABSOLUTE COOLEST.” img440(https://i.imgur.com/4jF8zN9.png) And what pisses me off about it I guess is that he genuinely is cool. He’s dressed in all black, is masked, he smokes, and has a sniper rifle. Yeah, *okay.* Sniper rifles are just inherently cool. And since most of the common masks are like… oh, my weapon’s a pair of scissors! Or a power drill! Or I'm a baseball pitcher and my actions are literally restrained by the rules of baseball! Yeah no fucking wonder the Sniper Mask is one of the strongest masks. ~~~img440(https://i.imgur.com/DuWdsVf.png)~~~ ~~~img440(https://i.imgur.com/k89Vm9K.png)~~~ But to be a bit more genuine, I don’t know, he’s the only character who really has *anything* to him? Him partially breaking out of the mask’s brainwashing and then trying to regain his memories is at least something. Better than I’m gonna shoot a bunch of masks while I work towards this vague goal of putting an end to the skyscraper world… somehow? Also, did I mention sniper rifles are cool? Oh by the way there actually are several more characters but I just can’t be asked to go through the rest. The only other one I’d consider going a bit more into is the bad guy of the show but his whole character up to the end of the anime is “I’M THE BAD GUY AND I’M GOING TO USE THE PLOT TO CHANGE THE WORLD!” and eh… img440(https://i.imgur.com/92DMrqw.png) ~!I’m tempted to say his motive is interesting but it’s very much bordering on being purposely edgy. “My dad committed suicide! Meaning he was weak, and because of my dad’s suicide, I now think the world should be changed to where weak people wouldn’t exist at all! Or something.” Eh. Maybe he gets fleshed out a bit more in the manga,!~ ___ #I really don’t know why this show didn’t annoy me# So… fanservice. img440(https://i.imgur.com/C1smg5R.png) To be honest, I don’t hate fanservice. No really, I don’t. When it’s used appropriately, at least. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still annoying. But like if it’s just panty shots interspersed with the action because of course Yuri and Nise are just hopping around everywhere shooting and stabbing masks all over the place… I’m fine with it. img440(https://i.imgur.com/eKdR6Hy.png) When fanservice really gets on my nerves is when everything is put on a halt for the sake of it. Like if they had just stopped fighting at any point and went like “Hey everybody, let’s go to the pool skyscraper!” Then, I would have been annoyed. ~~If I read the rest of the manga and something along those lines happen, *I swear to god…* unless they’re literally still just battling to the death in a pool. Actually that’d be amazing. You would think it’s going some ridiculously stupid fanservice route and then Nise just cuts someone’s throat.~~ Anyways… it should also be noted that since I read horror manga quite a lot, I’m just happy whenever the fanservice isn’t delivered via… well… rape. The farthest it goes is when the insane cop at the beginning tries to rape Yuri. img440(https://i.imgur.com/dAtzhPL.png) But of course he gets swiftly dealt with ~~due to a certain nearby sniper~~ and Yuri obtains a gun and then goes on to become one of the strongest characters of the skyscraper realm. #___Because she has a gun.___# I will say Nise does get her shirt cut open by one of the masks and then she’s just like that for pretty much the whole show. But I mean, come on. What is she going to do? img440(https://i.imgur.com/bMooA5q.png) Just find a shirt? Like there’s a clothing shop in one of the random skyscrapers they come across? ~~Actually, I think she does get a new shirt at some point near the end. Also thinking about it, Yuri's literally wearing the boots of the dead girl they find near the start of the series. Don't know why I didn't think about the absolutely viable option of "corpse robbing."~~ That’d be *really* convenient for some weird hellish skyscraper realm. Look, just because Kuon *really needed to take a shower* and a skyscraper *just happened to have a shower* doesn't mean there's a skyscraper *willed into existence to fulfill that direct purpose whenever it’s needed!* img440(https://i.imgur.com/OsluDLD.png) ___ #Conclusion# Frankly, I kind of feel like an asshole going this in-depth about such a fucking schlocky fanservice filled horror action series but against all odds… *I really liked it!* ~~~img440(https://i.imgur.com/qgpijC1.png)~~~ ~~~img440(https://i.imgur.com/Ah66EAA.png)~~~ I might only like it because of the animation and also the soundtrack but hey. ~~The soundtrack is so stupidly over the top, it's perfect. Genuinely, if the soundtrack hadn't been so *perfectly* complementary to this stupid show, I definitely wouldn't have had as good of a time.~~ High Rise Invasion’s anime for me, is an __8 out of 10.__ My recommendation is if you're *not* the sort of person who hates *any* presence of fanservice to give it a try while simultaneously *not taking it seriously at all.* I think ultimately that's the key. Because I had read the manga I already expected to have a bad time only to realize oh wait, seeing this stupid shit animated is actually kind of fun. Sucks that it's not gonna get a season two because it's a horror anime and ___horror anime don't get season twos.___ Even if there's an obvious postcredits teaser for one. ~~~img440(https://i.imgur.com/c8UzkhP.png)~~~ I'd love to be proven wrong, though... as I'd totally watch a season two of this rather than read the manga...