I am, perhaps, a bit late to the game on Kiznaiver, considering it was released in 2016. But as the saying goes, better late than never, and I don’t really want to miss a chance to share my thoughts about this anime given how little I really see it talked about in the first place. The anime itself is a bit of a conundrum to me with the way it manages to juxtapose the very good against the very mediocre in story that by all accounts should be refreshing and new. And Kiznaiver‘s success in doing so, or lack thereof, is something I want to delve in just a little more.
Genre: Psychological thriller, slice-of-life
Studio: Trigger
Release Date: April 10, 2016
Number of Episodes: 12 episodes
Episode Length: 24 minutes
Recommended For: Those interested in interpersonal relationships with a sci-fi twist
NOT Recommended For: Someone looking for an action-packed adventure story
MAIN CAST:
Yuki Kaji as Katsuhira Agata
Hibiku Yamamura as Noriko Sonozaki
Yuka Terasaki as Chidori Takashiro
Tomoaki Maeno as Hajime Tenga
Rina Sato as Honoka Maki
Nobunaga Shimazaki as Tsuguhito Yuta
Misaki Kuno as Nico Niiyama
Kotaro Nishiyama as Yoshiharu Hisomu
SYNOPSIS:
“Everyone wants to connect.” When these words are spoken to emotionally detached Katsuhira Agata following his reunion with a girl he faintly remembers from his childhood, strange events follow. Seven high school students, Katsuhira included, suddenly find themselves inexplicably linked to each other in a psychic bond that carries their pain to each of the subjects bonded to them. From brash and brawny Hajime Tenga to the mysterious Honoka Maki, these students find themselves forced into an experiment that puts them in uncomfortably close quarters with classmates they’d never cared to get to know. However, when the bond moves from simple pain to sharing deeper emotional hurt, further complications occur. Friendships are questioned, memories resurface, and the Kiznaivers face with the reality that “connecting” may happen in way they never could have anticipated.
REVIEW:
PLOT:
The thing that really hooked me from the start with Kiznaiver, besides the art style, was the premise of forming positive relationships with others through the basis of physical pain. It’s such an odd idea, something I’d never really bothered to think about before but found that I wanted to see presented nonetheless. At the heart of the story is the idea of “connecting” – be it physically or emotionally. It is a look at the human need for forming and strengthening relationships with others, despite how comfortable with solitude a withdrawn person may seem. And that seemed like a really fresh idea for an anime, especially given the sci-fi twist of this concept being examined in experimental groups.
I appreciate how there was reason children were used in the Kiznaiver experiments, and that it never boiled down to shock value. The detail taken to include a backstory there made it apparent that the cast of adolescent Kiznaivers weren’t young simply to provide a relatable group of protagonists to the presumably young target audience. Or at least that thought had been put into this aspect of the story to make it believable.
I think the worst that can be said is that the story itself is a bit dry in its presentation, and that it definitely loses some steam as the plot progresses. Without getting too spoiler-y, I will say I found the ending underwhelming and almost abrupt in its delivery. I’m not opposed to leaving questions up in the open, or future relationships ambiguous. But as the credits started to roll I couldn’t help but be struck by the question of: “Oh, that’s it?” The pacing was great for the first third of the anime, seemed to stagnate towards the second third, and then picked up pace so fast in the last episode it almost gave me whiplash.
CHARACTERS:
I can’t quite decide if Kiznaiver turns certain character archetypes on their head or perpetuates them to a dangerous degree. Take Noriko, for example. She’s just your everyday mysterious, pastel-haired exposition anime girl. That is, the one to show up and play sidekick to the male protagonist while providing just information to keep the plot moving but not enough to be anything but cryptic. As far as character paradigms go, I’m not a fan of hers. In fact, I couldn’t really find it in me to like her at all until episode 10 of the series, where the writers succeeded in changing my opinion about her character by providing an answer to the question “Why?” Without revealing any major spoilers, I think they gave her the best possible backstory they could with the type of character she was. And if she still rubbed me the wrong way by the end of the series, at least I could sympathize with her, which was a major improvement.
Tenga, on the other hand, was a very eclectic mix of characteristics that made him something new and unexpected to me. He’s basically the roughhousing jock with the heart of gold, but his physical appearance – i.e. bright red hair and spectacles – wouldn’t really tell you that. He wasn’t the most interesting of the bunch, and his backstory is basically nonexistent, but I appreciated his strange sort of flamboyance anyways.
I like how Nico subjugated the cute, hyperactive girl stereotype with her effectively creating her outlandish persona as a defense mechanism to make her less of a target from jealous eyes. It’s definitely silly, but the fact that a reason was given at all other than “we want to dress this girl in cute clothing” was something I could jive with. It also made the way she clung to her friendships with the other Kiznaivers more understandable, because she had never experienced that kind of relationship before.
I also enjoyed that Katsuhira wasn’t your relatable Average Boy™ shonen male lead. And while I can see how his apathetic, borderline dazed, personality could come across as annoying to some, I liked seeing him learn how to stop being so passive over the course of the show. His journey is a good foil to Noriko’s, who was rather insufferable in the beginning of Kiznaiver because we as the audience didn’t know why she was such a cold, uncaring person. Her development happens fast, and somewhat unbelievably. Katsuhira is notably less frigid, and altogether more malleable to the friendships he forms as Kiznaiver progresses.
12 episodes is hardly enough time to provide every character in the full Kiznaiver experimental group with a significant character arc, but the anime uses that time to at least establish that every character is important. I didn’t ever get the sense that one of the seven Kiznaivers was thrown into the mix to fill out the group, and they all actively had a role in affecting the story. A few more episodes would have benefited the anime to provide more depth to Yuta and Hisomu’s characters in particular, but they weren’t props by any means.
However, the teacher and school nurse that worked with the Kiznaiver experiments were tragically underdeveloped, and I couldn’t really find it in me to care about anything they did, or even remember their names. They get a strange sort of “Get out of jail free” card by the end of the anime despite never really earning that redemption and their motivation to be involved with experiments at all is blurry at best. They felt like plot tools or exposition devices more than characters to me, and definitely needed some more backstory or at least a stronger side-plot with this duo as the focus.
Additionally, the romantic aspects to the relationships between the Kiznaivers did come across as hamfisted to me. Especially with regards to Nico’s feelings for Tenga which seemed to have no build-up or evidence before they were suddenly introduced in an episode as a major part of her character. I think the story as a whole would have functioned much better with friendship as the basis the Kiznaivers’ connection and gradual understanding of each other; and it wouldn’t have been nearly as trite. The only two characters I felt had genuine romantic chemistry were Yuta and Maki, and as a result were the only couple I was rooting for. The change in their relationship felt natural and realistic, unlike how forced the mess that was Nico, Tenga, Chidori, Katsuhiro, and Noriko’s love pentagon. It also left Hisomu in a very weird place that made him more comic relief than anything else for a few episodes. Overall, this left me with some mixed feelings about the cast as a whole.
ANIMATION:
The animation is lovely, and right up my alley of personal taste. I have certain styles I tend to appreciate more when watching anime, and Kiznaiver‘s beautifully rendered characters and backgrounds are exactly it. It’s not really an art style the crops up in too many shonen mangas or animes, but suits the tone and subject matter of the show remarkably well. This anime has a knack for making certain scenes incredibly striking – something I would chalk up to music and the fantastic art and design rather than the events of the story itself. It’s cinematic, despite not much of the show being action-packed or inherently dramatic. It’s almost as if Kiznaiver uses its lack of motion to create an impact, and I can happily say the art was one of my favorite aspects about this anime.
MUSIC:
The music of Kiznaiver was never a distraction to the strange, almost unsettling atmosphere of most of the show. It was always the perfect accompaniment to the striking visuals of the animation, and the combination of the two was definitely a strength of show in its entirety. There’s something hauntingly nostalgic about Boom Boom Satellites opening OST for Kiznaiver, entitled “Lay Your Hands on Me.” Performed entirely in English, it’s almost like a techno version of a-ha’s 80s classic “Take on Me,” and I mean that in the best way possible. There are certain opening sequences I look forward to in animes and never skip, and I found myself eagerly waiting for the OP to begin at the beginning of each Kiznaiver episode because I loved it so much.
VOICE ACTING:
I love Katsuhira’s voice actor Yuki Kaji and the wonderfully mild tone he established for Katsuhira while still managing to bring emotion when necessary. Yuki Kaji’s ever-widening portfolio of voicing anime characters I absolutely love grows with Katsuhira, and he did him justice. The rest of the cast was equally as good in their delivery, and with the diverse collection of characters came the equally diverse sound of their voices. I found Nico’s voice actress to be incredibly shrill at times, but I’m not sure I could have expected something different given her character type. And I did feel that Tenga’s voice was almost unbelievably deep for a high school student but that’s neither here nor there. Or, it isn’t a problem unique to Kiznaiver by any means so that really is more nitpicking than anything else.
I have decided to trust your taste and added Kiznaiver to my watchlist