K

Title:K
Overall:Watch
Keywords: , , , ,
Notables: FUKUYAMA Jun
MIYANO Mamoru
NAMIKAWA Daisuke
ONO Daisuke
R1 License - Viz Media (Shopro)
Ashinaka High School is known for its unique setting: the entire campus is built on an island. Yashiro Isana, aka Shiro, is having lunch with a cat on one of the school rooftops. After his lunch break, Shiro goes on an errand for his classmate Kukuri to prepare for their upcoming school festival, only to be chased by some intimidating-looking men.
(Summary Courtesy of Anime News Network)


13-episode anime series premiered on October 4, 2012.
Animated by GoHands
Licensed by Viz Media
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Watch 9 9 9 5 5 5 Ggultra2764 [series:2619#1552]
This baby's a wee bit on the overambitious side. Seemingly set in a post-apocalyptic future, K focuses on hostilities between two warring factions with superpowers and a high school boy becomes a target to both factions and a mysterious swordsman also wanting a piece of him. The series is mostly focused on trying to piece together what connection Shiro has with the warring factions and the swordsman. While seeming like somewhat of a solid, yet unoriginal, plot, K appeared to want to deliver something grand yet the show's TV run of 13 episodes is a big issue in having time to flesh out elements to its world. Many characters are quite shallow in personality and barely get any fleshing out. Understanding on the character abilities and terminology can be hard to follow at many points thanks to the series breezing by fairly quickly with its events or wasting time to focus on Shiro's topsy-turvy daily life with school and handling Neko and Kuroh when not trying to learn more about the connection he has to these events. It also seemed unsure at points of what kind of mood it wanted to convey as Shiro's character mostly didn't take things seriously in dealing with his situation, the insert music was mostly disconnected from serious or suspenseful moments as it consisted mostly of light-hearted and upbeat tracks and it tossed in bits of fan service involving parts of the female cast with Neko being prominently nude in her human form for a number of scenes and one of the female officers in Scepter 4 being known for her huge bust size. About the only general praise I can give the series is its visual presentation, being on par with OVA and movie anime in terms of quality with highly detailed and vivid scenic shots and a nice number of fluid and intense battle scenes involving the opposing factions battling one another and showing off their abilities. Beyond that, K's a mostly forgettable title that got rather ambitious with what it wanted to tell with its story.

Last updated Sunday, March 23 2014. Created Sunday, March 23 2014.
Unevaluated Stretch [series:2619#628]
(One episode watched):

'Artsy' is one word which immediately came to mind while watching episode one of K. The animation and visuals were excellent. English language credits were odd, and made me wonder momentarily if this show really had been made in Japan. K seems to be set in the not too distant future. Things began to go wrong when a group of cool looking delinquents appeared. I generally don't like shows which include too-cool-to-be-true characters, because that's usually a sign of style before substance. Another alarming sign was fancy terminology like 'Sword of Damocles'--shows which try to thrill me with magical jargon have a very poor record of delivering genuine entertainment. Let me guess; the delinquents are the good guys, since they don't wear uniforms and their opponents do? Or maybe both factions are villains, since a third one turns up later? If I have to guess what's going on, a show isn't telling much of a story. And then a guy somehow skateboards through an upper story window of a skyscraper? And there's a nude girl that apparently nobody can see (does she morph into a cat later on?)? I think what we have here is the usual problem with dramatic/action shows: if the makers don't bother to instil the characters with character, and instead expect 'coolness' and visuals to hook me, then I have no interest. If I have no idea what's going on, then I couldn't care less. I was tempted to drop K from the moment the punks showed up a minute or two in, but hung on until the end of the episode. But nothing which piqued my interest happened, and I was glad to be finished with it. K sort of reminds me of that show with the headless woman who rides a motorcycle, except that was a genuinely interesting premise which I wanted to learn more about. Not so here; the self-identified protagonist has nothing really intriguing about him. It's a shame that such nice visuals were expended on such a bankrupt show.

Last updated Tuesday, October 16 2012. Created Tuesday, October 16 2012.

Other Sites
NameURL
Official Japanese Series Web Site http://k-project.jpn.com/

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