Studio
Madhouse is a really good studio. They
don’t always make great shows, but the standard of quality (and usually amazing
animation) usually means that every show they make deserves at least a cursory
check. They also made The Tatami Galaxy, a vastly underrated and
great anime with insane visuals, for which I am extremely grateful.
When I saw
that they were making this, I was… tentatively hyped? All of the summaries didn’t offer anything
beyond the interesting premise, so I really didn’t know what to expect. The genre is listed as fantasy (which is
obvious given the premise) and mystery (which is a genre that a lot of shows
that have nothing to do with mysteries are labeled as), so they didn’t really
tell me what I would get from any given episode.
This episode
was basically an animated version of those summaries I read, so I still have no clue what I’m
watching. For those of you who don’t
know, I’ll try to explain the premise in my own words.
Okay, so God
abandoned Earth. Now, people can’t be
born and can’t die. However, people can
be given grievous injuries and such, so he was nice enough to make an exception
to this rule for those who read the fine print: people whose bodies are buried
by ‘Gravekeepers’ will have their souls go to rest.
Our main character
is a loli Gravekeeper. They say she’s
twelve. She looks eight to me, but I
guess it’s better than them telling me she’s a high school student. She took over after her mother died.
One day, a
man shows up at her town. Then he violently
murders everyone. Yup, just straight out
murders everyone. No reason given, I
guess he just has issues. However, he
isn’t really framed as a bad guy (or even act crazy or something), almost as if
he had a good reason that the show forgot to write in. He has a comedic line with the loli, and he
spares her for no reason. I get the
impression that he’s going to end up being one of the heroes (an anti-hero, but
still), and I’m just finding myself confused.
The loli
initially is pissed at him, but, after a while, decides to follow him around
after he leaves. Because I would totally
trust a man who just murdered everyone that I ever knew for no freakin’ reason! The writers are probably trying to keep him
mysterious, but they should’ve at least hinted
at something.
Back on the
loli’s behavior… huh? She seems
appropriately shell-shocked, but she’s almost acting like the man who caused it
all isn’t standing right in front of her with his back exposed while she’s
carrying a shovel.
Massive opportunity here.
So, the white-haired
pretty boy tells her that she isn’t really a Gravekeeper, because she has a
mother and apparently Gravekeepers don’t have parents. Thus, everyone she buried is still writhing
in pain, buried alive, I guess. I
wonder why he felt it was necessary to tell her this, unless he’s just
intentionally trying to traumatize her instead of killing her.
End of
episode. And summarizing it didn’t help
me figure out the problem. Yes, because
there is a problem that I can’t quite put my finger on. I just wasn’t enjoying it, despite the
gorgeous animation and intriguing premise.
Perhaps it was the writing.
*claps
hands* Yes, that’s it. The way this episode
was put together and written just wasn’t right.
We start the episode with loli attacking the guy, and then cut to the
exposition explaining the premise and the loli’s life and the scene showing her
initially meeting him. It kills the
suspense in the first part of the episode, as you know that everything you’re
watching is pointless because you already know that everyone in the town is
going to die (so seeing what her caretakers are like is pointless) and you know
that the white-haired pretty-boy is going to be the cause of it (so the scene
of the two talking before the loli learns about what he did is also pointless).
The loli
comes across as rather stupid at points, especially when she believes the guy
is her dad even though she’s twelve and he looks like he’s twenty and
repeatedly tells her that he isn’t. And
I’m pretty sure that it isn’t intentional.
She also thinks out loud.
…oh. And that, too.
I don’t want
to sound pretentious, but, overall, the presentation here is just rather dumb. There isn’t a whole lot of subtlety to the
way the story is related, and it feels like the writers intentionally resorted
to just not telling the audience some things just to keep us watching to see
what the point is.
I’ll keep
watching, and maybe things will fall into place and I’m just too stupid to pick
up on this show’s genius now. Either
that or I’ll witness a trainwreck, which I guess would be entertaining in its
own way.
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