Occultic;Nine

SPOILERS AHEAD! Well, well... Here we are at the end of the Fall season; hyped animes, some satisfying, some disappointing ones keep ending one by one. From the creator of Steins;Gate, director of Your Lie in April and well-known studio A-1 Pictures, Occultic;Nine can be placed in all these categories. I am really confused and have really messy opinions about this anime so I hope I can explain them properly. Genres: Mystery, Sci-Fi, Supernatural, Thriller Pros: -Unique style of pacing -Really interesting story-Mysterious ambience -Somehow loveable characters -Music and art -Good use of science materials Cons: -Extremely fast talkings and pacing -Not enough screentime and developments for characters -Plotholes Story: 8/10 Occultic Nine's story is like a puzzle. First, you have puzzle pieces and a few places to put them but the rest of it is dark and empty like space. You understand nothing don't know what to do, but when you put one piece to its place, then you achieve to unlock other places. So more you understand something, there comes more to understand. In the first episode, first of all the anime introduces (well, not really) us the characters and tons of pointless talkings. And at the end of the episode real story starts off with a crime mystery. First the pacing seems really fast but when you get into the story and get used to the style of anime it feels more acceptable. The actual problem of pacing and talkings are being too fast is not like ''Oh I can't understand anything'', the problem is watchers live too much emotional and situational changes in a very little amount of time. You don't have time to laugh, upset, stress, surprise or even think about anything. But this is why I said ''unique style of pacing''. After sometime you start loving it, how all those things happen in one episode. Until the last 2 episodes, it was okay but I wish it was 3 episodes, not 2. So that we can understand the story better, feel all the emotions and maybe they can cover the plotholes. Talking about plotholes, they're not killing the story. First ''mutual recognition''. I was just thinking about how can it possible that Yuta has the key, they answered it with ''mutual recognition''. It was an impressive and somehow logical answer to me, but when he get back the key and come back after Ryo-tas kissed him, it lost its magic and caused plenty of question marks. It really should have had a better explanation. The second one is Nishizono Ririka. What do we know about her? Almost nothing. How can she know and draw all the things? Why and how did she disappear at the end? These are probably the biggest questions of the story. If it was 3 episodes, maybe they could explain her too. Last thing I want to say about the story, is really impressive. It tries to handle occultic science, supernatural powers (like Myu-pom's vision) and time travelling. It has a mysterious ambience from beginning to the end and did a great job answering the questions (except the ones I told) by using scince. It has cliffhangers, and a really important plot twist that changed the story's course. But if you watch the first episode properly, there's a chance of predict that plottwist (except the one about Ryo-tas) Art: 9/10 I am really affected by the art, especially using of light and shadings. It makes you live all that dark, bloody and scary moments. Sound: 10/10 Soundtracks are amazing and thrilling. The opening and ending are awesome, too. (I won't write so much things about art and sound since they're mostly subjective and don't know what to write about them.) Characters: 8/10 The characters are so diffrent each other. They're all special, generally energic and intelligent. Anime told us most of their backstories but still characters did not have enough screentime and because of that their developments are not completed either. Since the pacing is too fast and anime focuses on the story this was a possible situation. Gamotan, Ryo-tas, Myu-pom and Sarai's developments were kinda ok but others (Again, especially Nishizono Ririka) are not. Enjoyment: 9/10 We can say that most of the people didn't like at least the first episodes of the anime by looking at the score (it fell to even 6.59), but I enjoyed it from beginning to the end. Ryo-tas' breasts are bigger than Everest, they're talking too fast so it's hard to catch, pacing is too fast, characters are a little bit childish, first episode is really messy (even that nothing happened)... These are acceptable reasons why people hated it but still I found it enjoyable. So here is my thoughts about O;N, had a lot of potentials and used most of them. As I said, it would be better if it was longer, even 1 more episode. I hope you liked the anime and my review :)

Light novels have been a popular adaptation these days, there are dozens of anime that have been adapted from this. It has been one of the best solutions to decrease the over-dominance of manga in the past. It's a good strategy, though. But I should say that "adapting literature into an anime is not an easy work". Why? Because the director has to adjust a hundred pages of story into a fit 24 minutes per episode in a limited one-cour (or two-cour if they lucky to have that time), with the same feeling & content of the literature itself. Many anime failed to bringthis to the screen. And what I thought about Occultic; Nine is similar as I stated above. Occultic; Nine has failed to wrap both story and characters in its adaptation. The story somewhat brings us into certain cases of death with many supernatural elements haunt them. The story tries to persuade us to see from a different perspective in supernatural things, the 'there is nothing that can't be proved by science' theme is actually a neat theme, in my opinion, it has its own noteworthy in my mind. One thing that disturbs me is the pacing. After 8 years I watch Japanese anime, I've never seen a character talks like it has been fast forwarded 2x by a remote. It is really ruined the entire feels about the anime. I could see that sometimes I must rewind the minute bar in order to understand the story. Another cancer that this anime has is the ineffective information dumping. The story struggles to throw much information to make us more understand. But what we got is an enormous endless wave of information with fast forwarded dialogues and heavy feelings which make the story's full of plot holes. I could honestly say that the ending is not so good at all. It felt really rushed and poorly wrapped episodes of calamity and ends with an all-happy cliche nonsense ending. The animation is in the hand of one of the most prestigious studios in Japan, the A-1 Pictures. Is not that because I hate the story (or the studio), but the art itself failed to bring a meaningful contribution to the anime. It was poorly done, it just like the characters has been blended with the color of the background, like it has the same texture. It is really different from other works that the studio has done in the past, really less-colorable with dark colors has been the dominance. Characters, from what I saw is also has been poorly-handed, especially our main character, Gamon Yuuta. It still follows a 'hero wannabe' stereotype character that hasn't have a single meaningful character development. Other characters are cookie cutter, almost seems to be random & feels a lack of originality. Villains felt one-dimensional, without having a single purpose on their actions. The problem is the anime was too busy to bring us it world building while abandoned the in-depth character development, which makes it more vulnerable. The only fairly accepted elements is the sound settings. Both opening & ending are lovely to hear. While I can't say anything except 'disappointed' for the voice actors & their fast forwarded role. I never heard such character talks like that before. While in some minutes, I found out that this anime actually succeed in bringing mystery elements, I felt the mystery thingy in my mind, thirst to make me wanted to know what's comes up next. While in some minutes, I felt the 'rushed' things is also annoying. In the same time, it makes you want to continue it or dropped it in a weird mixture of feelings. In the end, watching Occultic; Nine is one of the worst ways to end a year. It is obviously not recommended if you seeks a deep sci-fi/mystery anime. It leads our mind to a desperate situation where you struggle to understand it but the story doesn't give you any chance to understands it, a total wasted potential because of a bad execution. It just another pitiful attempt to adapt a light novel.

As you can probably guess by the semicolon in the title, Occultic;Nine is another entry from the Science Adventure franchise, except this time it's based on a two-volume light novel series written by that other semicolon writer not named Naotaka Hayashi. Not that it really matters too much because the basic plot is pretty much the same as all the other semicolon entries: a bunch of professional adults go apeshit for no reason other than they're bastards and try to take over the world through some specific scientific area that's been weaponized, and end up involving a bunch of eccentric young teenagers or college studentswho just so happen to have an interest in said field, as well as wield the only (nerdy) means that are capable of defeating said organization. And since this is a semicolon anime, that means all the characters are either a NEET or a cosplayer or an idol or some irritating "man, we sure love anime" trope that is about as un-relatable and accurate in regards to portraying the human being as Steven Seagal in every single movie he's ever made or been in. Which makes even less sense here because the other entries have been all about technology, so they'd all somewhat fit in Japan's electric town. But Occultic;Nine is more about the supernatural, which isn't an otaku-bait subject at all, so having everyone be a nerd is as jarring as all those fanservice-y characters in those Zero Escape games. Speaking of Zero Escape, it seems that the writers of this series are friends with the guys who made the Nonary games, because this show borrows a lot of storytelling devices from stuff like 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and Virtue's Last Reward. You've at least heard of those games, right? Those handheld sci-fi mystery visual novels that raise so many questions to the point of frustration, only to info-dump the answers to you at the very end to the point of tedium whilst being obsessed with the number "nine"? They're tolerable to get through when you're actually playing them, but outside of the interactive medium, they're a fucking grind - something the writers of this show seemed to miss entirely when they somehow mistook that Punchline anime as VN-to-anime genius. Occultic;Nine also differs from the other SciAdv entries in that it tries to mask the slow-ass pacing that generally happens with light/visual novel adaptations in that it borrows heavily from Ryogho Narita's style of writing, particularly Baccano with the multiple character jumping through different seemingly unconnected phases of the mysterious incident. This may seem like a compliment at first, but I think most of us who didn't have the nails lodged in their brains required to acknowledge Durarara!!x2 as "not absolutely cancerous" can see at this point that Baccano's style of storytelling hasn't aged well at all. Because over-the-top characters with no personal flaws, interesting philosophies, or reason to be in the story other than to be cool whilst backed by an energetic presentation trying desperately to cover up for the lack of plot progression is about as entertaining as watching bird competitions where the competitors ate Chinese food during the pre-competition feeding time. And it doesn't help when that presentation is applied to a plot that is about as over-complicated and impenetrable as a steel wall with candy canes of fifty different colors painted all over it. Getting past the presentation is a tall task in of itself due to how much of a tonally inconsistent joke it is. For one thing, this show has constant hyper-stylization all through its run time that never calms the fuck down - playing ill-fitting music every time a murder happens to the point that it resembles a Green Day soundtrack in an Anne Frank movie. The animation itself is of decent quality when the show bothers to take a break from cutting to a new scene every two seconds, but it's also horribly mismatched. Having the characters make exaggerated faces with the show's sketchy style every time an important dramatic scene occurs to the point that you'd swear everyone in this show was horribly miscast. And they never blend in well with the realistic-looking backgrounds, looking more out of place than an animated character from Coonskin dancing on the set of How I Met Your Mother. Not helping at all is that Occultic;Nine has what is possibly the worst directing/cinematography in an anime I've ever seen. A majority of the screen time consists of long long LONG scenes of characters sitting/standing around in one place delivering boring exposition that is almost completely unnecessary to understanding what's going on, and often brings up more questions than it does answers. And because the director of this show lost all his talent after making Your Lie in April, he somehow approved the idea of a drunk cameraman doing the shooting for this show, because 90% of the show is shot in an angle. Most of the times, it'll be dutch. Sometimes, it'll be upside down or sideways. There's one time when the camera just spun around for no reason and gave me a headache in the process. This is not how you make dialogue more engaging. You know what you do to make dialogue more engaging? Write some actual good dialogue. Speaking of the dialogue, in addition to having some of the worst directing in an anime ever, I think Occultic;Nine's writing was the product of some bet with the Kingdom Hearts guys to see who can make their audience slice their ears off or turn off the subtitles the fastest. Not only do these characters not shut the fuck up, but when they're not delivering exposition against dull still backgrounds regarding Nikola Tesla and how the story intends to rape his corpse, they're prolonging scenes with quips consisting of nothing but explaining the logistics of some minor thing or engaging in otaku dialogue in a show that has nothing to do with otaku. There was one exchange in Episode 5 when the character kept saying the word "pukey" for like five minutes because they wanted their conversation to be "cute" for no reason whatsoever. And even earlier in the episode, one of the main characters info-dumps a lot of signs regarding how Gamon is lying to him from the amount of time his eyes wandered to his facial expressions, even though I don't care how he knows since everything about Gamon's personality should make that obvious. Yes, the dialogue is that bad. Doesn't help that even by the standards set by the specific visual novel company's previous track record, the nine characters that make up this show are all just completely unlikeable, Rewrite-style. It's like they were written by someone who forgot that the pre-requisite for wanting to see how everything connects together in a mystery show as it goes on is to have individual character stories that can stand on their own do most of the leg work in regards to telling the story. For example, there's this one girl who was so delusional about her brother's death that she ended up living with his corpse for a year until the neighbors realized that onii-chan was starting to smell a bit. You'd think this would give an insight into some serious psychological issues or play a vital role in what exactly the fuck is going on, and you'd be more wrong than a typical 4chan commenter. It's never brought up again, all it did was make the girl creepy without giving me a reason why I'm supposed to care that she's creepy. And just to put the cherry on top, she has no literally no purpose in the main plot at all. I've seen teen stereotypes in 80s slasher films that were more three-dimensional. Of course, when compared to the villains of this mess, Jason Vorhees might as well be any of the characters that Gary Oldman played in his career. I know the evil organizations in these series tend to be a load of crap, but I think Occultic;Nine was trying to out shit the Sinister Six with the motivations it gave its antagonists. Without spoiling anything major, the evil SERN replacement that looms over this show's shadow wants to control the rich in order to rule the world for no other reason than because they're nameless bastards. You're probably thinking at this point that this sounds like a shitty comic book plot, and it is; but somehow things get even dumber when it's revealed how they're going to accomplish their master plan. Someone want to explain to me who's providing the funding for these guys and their convoluted plans? Because I think Akihiko Kayaba from Sword Art Online presented a more engaging business plan in regards to his quest to kill off Japan's youth. Oh and for the love of god, ENOUGH WITH THE GODDAMN TIME-TRAVEL/ALTERNATE WORLD SHIT, ALREADY! From Higurashi to Clannad to Madoka Magica to anything written by Kotaro Uchikoshi, I am fucking sick of visual novel companies/writers using it. It was old when those products did it, and as of this point, it's pretty much just a dead corpse kept in cold storage with people fighting over who gets to unfreeze it next. Occultic;Nine doesn't even make good use of it. It's only hinted at through a few characters whose sole purpose are to be McGuffins, and then used as a last-minute deus ex machina for its finale, which is pretty exposition-heavy for an episode that's supposed to conclude things with a bang. But even if the creators had fixed the infamous pacing problems that turned many people away to start with, that still wouldn't have fixed Occultic;Nine's biggest problem: it fucking sucks. I mean between the numerous plot points borrowed from every visual novel ever, horrible motivations driving the characters forward, and awful humor that couldn't make Barney fans laugh, the shit-ass production of this show just twists the already-deep knife wound so hard the blood fucking explodes. What on earth does this show have to offer anyone? What exactly is it about? When the mystery is over and the answers are revealed, what then? How does this show have anything to do with the occult? You'd think a show called Occultic;Nine would pay more than lip-service to its many practices, but it never does. Instead it does what every awful mystery show does: bait the viewers with questions throughout the entire journey whilst having that bait be the substance rather than everything surrounding it, answer only a few of the questions tediously at the last minute, and have said answers be unsatisfying dogshit. Well fuck you, Science Adventure guys. And fuck you too, A-1 Pictures. This anime was like a magazine collage that was fed through a shredder and had to be put back together ten minutes before the actual deadline!

I am so happy that I did not listen to the thoughts of others, and just went into this show blindly! All I see is others saying that this is rushed, and the pacing was off yada yada yada. THEY'RE WRONG. It is so important to go into this with an open mind, and to just accept what you see. Just because the story is told in an unorthodox way that doesn't stive to be like other animes, does not mean it is told incorrectly. The story is told in a unique way, wherein they answer one question while simultaneously creating 5 other questions. Ipersonally love this since it kept me guessing the whole way through. The storytelling was fast but that was the uniqueness of its own style. Nothing was rushed, everything was explained with no plot holes (maybe save for one, honestly). The story was incredibly unique and I fully understood and quite enjoyed the picture they were painting. Also, I really have to appreciate how everything, even the smallest detail, will be integral to the story. I greatly enjoyed the characters. The mystery was so engaging where I was so hooked, and could not stop watching. The art was satisfying and pleasing to view. The ending song is EVERYTHING and I NEVER skipped it. This anime really showed me to take others reviews and thoughts with a grain of salt, because this was a lovely little gem that I would definitely recommend.

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