Review of Akame ga Kill!

WARNING

This review has a few spoilers here and there so I'll just say in advance that the series is not worth your time. With that said, it's a really famous one, practically everyone has already seen it and those who didn't already know what happens in it but whatever.

Hey! Remember about this anime? It was hyped as the best thing ever when it was announced and then it diverged from the manga and everybody quickly began hating it and thus it became a dead horse...and I'm kicking it but whatever.

Despite whatever opinion one could have about the series, its initial hook can't be denied by anyone. It's basically the same premise as Assassin's Creed, a group of assassins fights (and kills) corrupt politicians and armies and both sides of the conflict are initially presented as grey.

To make things more interesting, the fanbase of the source material wouldn't shut up about how there's no plot armor through power of friendship like in a typical shonen and thus a lot of main characters die, I remember very well how the series was compared with Game of Thrones and Shingeki no Kyojin because of that.

And even more, the show was adapted by White Fox, a studio which received nothing but praise for its Steins; Gate adaptation. Also Taku Iwasaki, one of the most popular composers in the medium nowadays, was in charge of the soundtrack. So here you have a series with an interesting premise, a big fanbase comparing it with two big mainstream titles and big names behind its adaptation, what could possibly go wrong, right? Well, absolutely everything.

Starting with the visual department, it's easily the blandest such a story could get. The characters design is terrible, first of all, they look generic, just to name a few examples, Akame looks like a black haired version of the ninja girl from Angel Beats! and Leone and Esdeath are basically 2d versions of Yang and Weiss from RWBY respectively (hell, they even have similar powers). Just look at Tatsumi, the main character, and tell me he can't be replaced or mistaken by any other main character in the medium, he totally can.

And no I'm not implying this show ripped off those series in its characters design, or that those shows have unique characters design, but it's clear that Akame ga Kill! does not stand out in this department.

What's even worse than having such forgettable characters design is how they feel out of place in the setting, despite being promote as a dark series in a medieval fantasy-like setting with weird monsters in it, the characters looks very childish and colorful. Every character has the same color all over them, two at best, as if they were the Power Rangers. And their clothes are even worse, just look at Akame, Tatsumi, Mine, Chelsea or Esdeath, what kind of uniforms are that? It’s like the designer didn’t know if the characters belong in a fantasy setting or a contemporary high school.

On top of that, the characters would often make ridiculous poses in midair while yelling the names of their special attacks, as if this was JoJo or something, when it’s supposedly a dark fantasy series with political overtones. And hell, the designs are not even the worst aspect of the visuals, quality drops are abundant, motions are slow, battle choreographies are simple in a heavy action-packed series, backgrounds are well made but they are also generic and make the setting look like any other fantasy setting there is , and the special effects are plain ridiculous.

Ok, maybe there are some scenes where they look good (the final fight comes to mind) but in general they are weak. Add to it armors and a giant robot-like power that look like they came out of a tokusatsu series and you have surpassed the amount of ridiculousness you can tolerate in the visual department of a series. Heck, that’s not even the worst part of it, since the series also got laughable censorship despite the dark stuff and gory violence its manga was known for. And yes, you can claim all you want how later on uncensored Blu-ray releases came out but that does not change the fact that seeing a black hole where there’s supposed to be a cut hand when it was airing is plain stupid.

But that’s not all about its production values, the sound department is also weak. The sound effects have no impact, the voice acting is nothing special and even the soundtrack is pretty forgettable. There are a few good tunes in it such as the first opening or Le Chant de Roma, and one can definitely appreciate how Taku Iwasaki went for something atypical, but as a whole is a big disappointment coming from him.

But enough of that, let’s talk about what’s really important, plot and characters, and here’s where things get really bad; but I’d like to talk about its few positives first.
As I already said, the show has a few good tunes but also one can at least say that is trying. It tries to have a somewhat mature story with serious themes as well as questionable characters and ideologies from both sides and it also has some character development. It has a fast pacing thus it does not make events to last longer that they need yet there still are a few relaxation moments to show a few interactions between the characters to get you to like them. There’s actual death without resurrecting its characters thus it does not kills the tension like other anime and the series does not have a predictable and happy ending.

Sounds great doesn’t it? The problem is that absolutely all of the above is handled in terrible ways so let’s break down these elements to show what went wrong here:

So there’s this kingdom where the young King is manipulated by the Prime Minister who governs oppressively and keeps all the wealth of the country and that leaves the rest of the population in poverty, opposing him and the imperial army are the Night Raids, a group of assassins which is part of a revolutionary army that tries to take them down and save the people. These people used to be members of said army so in a way they are also trying to correct their past mistakes.

So far so good but those themes aren’t explored in a satisfactory way since neither the presentation, the exposition nor the tone back them up. First of all, there’s absolutely no subtlety at all in this show, the dialogue is way too obvious in trying to convince the viewer the main characters are assassins and no heroes and the imperial army has a morbid sense of justice; something it should show instead of right out tell.

Second, how is the spectator supposed to believe in the equality from both sides and their grey morality when the Night Raids are shown as heroic as possible (especially when they die) while the Jaegers are presented as bloodthirsty and sadistic as they can possibly be the very instant they engage in battle. Hell, this is not even limited to both armies since even the different social classes are shown in the same manner. Where are the equality, the ambiguous morality and the themes here? They were thrown down the toilet.

Third, the tone. This is easily the worst aspect of the show, it suffers from serious tonal whiplashes to the point nowadays whenever a series suffers from the same issues it is directly compared with this anime. Whenever a main character fights, he/she is presented as the right side of the conflict, not so ambiguous now, right? Whenever he/she performs an attack, he/she yells it as if this was a fighting series for teenagers and looks and sounds cool while posing, not so serious and mature now, right? What’s even worse than the battles is how right after a dramatic or plain tragic event happens, the characters do or say something stupid while the art style changes for a chibi one thus ruining the mood completely.

That’s not even the worst example, since sometimes the show recur to fan service right after someone was killed, I’m not joking, there are moments when the protagonist kills or see someone dying and all of a sudden he gets his whole face covered by the giant boobs of his female companions.

On top of that, the series is just not believable at all, the power level is totally inconsistent since the capabilities of the characters change every instant depending how convenient is at that moment in the plot, is laughable to see how veteran soldiers from both sides owns their enemies with ease but then they get killed off in an instant by rookies. The Capital is under total surveillance and even so the assassins can infiltrate constantly without being noticed despite their colorful clothes and hairs. They are covered alright, but this is still hard to buy.

Why does the King not suspect anything, he can’t be that clueless, didn’t he have any type of formation despite his position? Why are the nobles going so calmly around the Capital when they know that there are loose assassins who constantly attack the city? How come they do not complain at all? Also, how come people believe in the Night Raids so easily? They are former members of the same army that oppress them after all. You know what? Forget it, there are machine guns, power suits and an armor that looks like a giant robot here, things that does not fit the setting at all.

The answer to most of that is that you barely get to see actual people in the show, every character is either part of the revolutionary army, an imperial soldier, or a corrupt politician, and when you see citizens, they are victimized poor people treated as scum by the nobles who see them as nothing but sacrifices for their enjoyment.

I’m not even joking, in the very first episode, there’s a teenage noble girl who acts all cutesy and funny at first and then reveals that she fools poor people into coming in her castle only to drug them, torture them, kill them, tear them apart, and then collect their bodies in the storehouse. What kind of nonsensical characterization is that and how is that grey? The portrayal of the themes is clearly one-sided.

Even the art style and the voice of the girl change completely during that scene as if was trying to scare the viewer or something, when It would otherwise make them laugh because of how sudden and over the top that switch was, which shows how poorly directed the series is. By the way that effect was overused later on and would be used even during comical or tragic moments and so confusing the viewer even more about how they are supposed to react in such scenes.

If being horrible written wasn’t enough, the show also suffers when it comes to characterization, the characters are shallow archetypes that you can’t really tell apart from other characters from other series, at least as far as personalities go. Not only that but they barely have their background stories revealed and even for those whose backgrounds are revealed, they tend to be shallow and poorly handled, most of them are former imperial soldiers that turned against their government once the young King took over, that’s it, that’s their only motivation.

There’s no personal investment in there, it’s just an ideological one, and even if you say that it’s a noble cause or something, then why do they try to convince both the protagonist and the viewer that they are not heroes because of the horrible things they do when they fight for such a cause? Even worse, the only reason one of them has for having enlisted in the army in the first place was because he fell in love with the female general at first sight. That’s not only stupid but also unbelievable since he’s the pervert who constantly peeks and tries to take advantage of every other girl in the Night Raids.

The only characters who have somewhat decent background stories are Akame and Esdeath, the main antagonist, since they are both tragic and explain their basic behavior and serves as their motivations and ideological positions, yet even them are not exactly excused since their personalities are as inconsistent as they can be whenever they are not in battle. The latter is easily the worst case since she becomes a big sister type of character towards her squad and a shy teenage girl whenever she’s around the protagonist. As for Akame when outside the battlefield…well, she just goofs around.

The protagonist, Tatsumi, is the typical one you can find in most fighting shonen series: he’s dumb, naïve, idealistic, and for some reason his capabilities in battle change all the time, he feels completely out of place in such a story. The excuse of the fans of the show was that although he begins like that he later on develop because he’s affected by most of his companions dying, which is not true since he remains mostly the same until the end of the series and those deaths have no real impact in him, and even if that was the case, it wouldn’t be believable since he does not spend much time with them before they kick the bucket. Hell, not even the other members of the group seem to be affected by those deaths despite being long-time comrades.

Even worse, during relaxation moments, they devolve from their shallow archetypes to even more shallow archetypes since they become harem archetypes who are attracted to Tatsumi, for no good reason, even the male ones. And even if they’re not literally attracted to him, they still seem to spiral towards him as you never see them interacting with other people, meaning they are nothing but plot devices whose only purpose in the story is kill some bad guys, talk a few minutes with Tatsumi, and then dying in order to make him develop, which, as I said, does not even happens.

The Jaegers, the main villains of the story, are not exactly better despite being shown as basically the same group as the Night Raids, with every character being the counterpart of an assassin. First of all, by doing that, your antagonists will feel like evil rehash of your protagonists. Second, despite being presented as a not completely evil family who gets to love one another during relaxation moments, it’s not believable since whenever they engage in battle they laugh like sociopaths, their faces deform completely, they kill people in horrible ways, they enjoy what they’re doing and that is reflected in their dialogues, and some of them even betray their companions in battle in order to kill the protagonists. So much for a family that shares the same sense of justice.

Even worse is how, just like it happens with the Night Raids, none of them are affected by other members dying. The only member who is not a completely unbelievable total asshole is Wave, and the only reason of that is because he’s basically Tatsumi, he has a very similar personality and the exact same motivation, thus proving once again how this faction is just a copy of the other one.

But I understand why the series failed so hard in both story and characterization, it’s because of its pacing. Despite the fans praising how fast it is, what they never realized is how such a fast pacing wasn’t allowing proper character development or build up for the events, or how those events didn’t have enough impact before moving to something completely different, especially in terms of emotions.

Whenever an important event or a big revelation happens, it is almost instantly overshadowed by another one thus it does not feel important, whenever the characters train, the series skips the training thus they appear to be way more powerful out of nowhere. Whenever a character dies, the others get over it almost instantly. Thus, although the pacing is indeed fast, it is actually too fast for its own good and makes the story comes off as rushed.

Not even the relaxation moments help since, as I said before, whenever you see the characters out of battle, they act and feel completely different, with even more shallow personalities and interactions, with basic background stories and motivations behind them and they devolve to walking fan service, since the whole series mutates from whatever mess of a tone it goes for during moments when there’s tension to a harem comedy.

There’s even more, not even the not happy and not predictable ending is safe since it’s also affected by the rushed pacing, in the last episodes characters change their minds; reveal more powers; a giant robot-like thing appears to destroy the whole city; the assassins and the soldiers, along with the Prime Minister, fight each other in full daylight, unlike the rest of the series; a lot of characters die at the same time thus their deaths somehow manage to feel even less important than the previous ones and also; while you get to see the outcome of the conflict, you don’t get to see its effects afterwards.

What I mean by that is how did the kingdom recovered so easily from such a disaster, why does people trust Najenda with such ease and why is Akame blamed for everything that happened, when everyone knows exactly what actually happened? None of these things make sense or get an answer.

And finally I’d like to talk about the aspect that made the show so famous in the first place, the lack of plot armor, which was also portrayed poorly, for several reasons.

First, having a lot of characters dying so close to one another is equally bad as having no death since that way it makes them feel like nothing more than cannon fodder.

Second, if you kill them off before fleshing them out, they will seem unimportant to the plot, to the remaining characters, and more important, to your audience, who won’t get emotionally attached to them and thus won’t care about them when they die.

Third, it makes the show predictable in its own way since from a certain point the viewers were expecting every character to die thanks to the already big body count.

Fourth, and last and more important, this lack of plot armor is actually a lie since Tatsumi has the biggest possible plot armor in the show which is Esdeath falling in love with him. That way he’s assured of not being killed by her during the whole series and her squad going easy on him to the most part, plus it’s a big plot convenience, since she does not really loves him but she’s using him to learn what love actually is and Tatsumi just happened to fit in absolutely every very specific characteristic she wanted in a boyfriend.

As you see, despite the few good moments in its visuals and its neat ideas, the show as a whole is one big mess and has nothing in it besides its interesting premise.

The story is terribly written; the exposition is terrible; the themes aren’t explored properly; the characters are shallow and often rewritten; the tone is uneven; the pacing is too fast for its own good; the finale is weak; the production values are average at best; and the main hook of the series is actually a lie. For all those reasons, Akame ga Kill! is a terrible show, it didn’t deserve all the attention it got, it deserves all the bad fame it gets and I consider it to be amongst the worsts anime I’ve watched in general.

2/10