Name(s): Mekakucity Actors / Kagerou Project / メカクシティアクターズ
Format: TV series (12 episodes)
Release Date(s): April 12, 2014 – June 28, 2014
Studio(s): Shaft

Good lord, Mekakucity Actors was a frustrating watch. A one-cour series with a huge cast will already have trouble developing its characters without incomprehensible dialogue, a convoluted non-chronological story, and Shaft’s frantic style that dares you to keep up for no payoff. The stakes of the story are never felt because the story is a low-key character drama set in a flashy, big, crowded frame. Nothing is set up properly. You learn outcomes before the reasoning for why they happen, which makes it impossible to give a shit.

You can’t retroactively be invested in something. That doesn’t fucking work. Nothing works. Almost incomprehensible how something this incomprehensible can be so incredibly boring. Great animation and a surrealistic multi-colored style is not worth the price of admission. I can’t imagine how convoluted the story in the music this was adapted from must be.