Who Would Like this Anime?
I’ve no idea, honestly. Maybe if you’ve been living under a rock for the past 20 years. Or are 10 years old at most and haven’t seen much else yet. It’s a rom-com with, *cough*, sci-fi/mystery elements.
For: People who’ve been living under a rock.
Translation Where?
I’ve watched this release. The typesetted signs tend to flicker heavily, and the subs too, from time to time. The subs itself are okay. Not good, not bad. Okay. Mind the infamous “big brother” retardedness, though. I just realized there are two tracks, one with honorifics which might or might not spare you from the big bro retardedness, but I already deleted the release and it’s too poorly seeded to bother rechecking. I’m gonna keep the warning up.
Translation: Poor typesetting here and there, subs are okay-ish.
Premise
Protagonist can see flags on people’s heads that indicate what kind of events they’ll raise. At the same time, he’s got a death flag on his own head that he wants to remove.
Visuals
It’s rather on the bad side compared to what I’ve been seeing lately. You won’t get much eye candy here. But it’s not so bad that the art alone’d be enough of a reason to avoid it. Even episode one looks rather bland. The animations themselves are good at first, but will soon be reduced to the minimum.
Conclusion
It happened. An anime so bad, that it finally manages to score pretty damn low on my chart.
Here’s why I’ve got a paperback copy of the first volume of this series: the story’s about a boy who can actually see flags that he raises on other people’s heads. Flags in this case are the things that you (usually) raise in eroges and the likes. Basically, you pick a choice that then triggers an event of sorts or simply raises an attribute – for instance affection points. So the flag is the consequence of said trigger. And he can see them. This appeared to me like the perfect premise of an enjoyable, light-hearted rom-com. OR IS IT?
The first two episodes give a somewhat good impression of what I was anticipating all along, lots of fast, (more or less) decent comedy and a bit of drama ’cause hardly any anime can do without. Before long, the harem adds up to round-about a dozen (so at least one new harem member per episode), oh wow. And before long, you’ll find that the protagonist’s actually Keanu “Neo” Reeves. Yes, the world’s not true. I’m sorry if I spoiled you the twist right here, but if that keeps you from watching, you oughta be grateful. Seriously, going the Matrix route with such a premise is down-right retarded. I’ve no idea how an author can be so… wrong.
So the story’s a punch in the face, how are the characters? Let’s start with the harem first ’cause who cares about the dude? This, especially, is a matter of taste, but if you ask me they’re all beyond annoying. Even the voice acting behind a few chars is goddamn annoying. And their catch phrases are goddamn annoying. Down the drain, with all of them. This is one of the few cases where the vast majority of characters annoy the heck outta me. I don’t care what happens to them, they feel so fake and unreal, they can go into the virtual world’s trash bin for all I care. And they’re not original either. You even get a pretty blatant Yukimura (Haganai) rip off. Yay. Also, they grow way too attached to the protagonist for way too little reasoning.
Is the protagonist a good Keanu Reeves? No. He’s got a death flag on his head that he can’t remove and all he does is whine and grumble all day, and trying to save his own ass. Have some logic: his fate’s to save the virtual world and his friends and die, if he doesn’t do that the world’s gonna go to shit and he’ll probably die. Well, the story’s already beyond repair, why not die a hero at least? Because fuck everyone, he’s just out to save his own ass. And that guy gets a dozen of chicks swarming him, way to go. You may find fault with my stand on this if you’ve watched it until the bitter end, but I don’t want to explain any further here since it’d spoil too much.
If you really have to watch this, then go with the first two eps – at most half the series – and let it rest in peace. It’s a pity I bought this being sure that the author can’t possibly screw this premise up, but hindsight’s a bitch. If the whole anime’s not outside the canon, this series has gone to the dogs. There’s nothing about it worth watching. Save yourself the time. One point for the two episodes that hint how it could’ve been watchable and one for having comedy. If you watched this and enjoyed it, let me know why, maybe it’ll shed a bit of light onto my gloomy, dark opinion of this show. My rating’s rather on the harsh side anyway, since it could’ve been something much greater than it is.
Rating 4/10
