16bit Sensation: Another Layer

The unfortunate thing about this VN production anime is that it isn't about VN production. If you want a variation of Shirobako — look elsewhere. This is an uninspired "teen girl does time travel" anime that uses old tech as a cheap nostalgia bait. The deepest it gets into the actual creative process involved in VN creation is within the first few episodes where the main character Konoha first teleports into the past and finds out that in the 90s you had to use your mouse to draw on PC (the horror!). The problem is that creative team behind this production is as knowledgeable aboutVN/old tech/overall 90s topics as their main character. So they just throw a few old VN names (that they have rights to) in your face and maybe dangle a floppy or two over you... but some retro PC visuals and a running gag about a character who is just so in love with outdated NEC PC is all you're gonna get, because the anime doesn't actually care about all that stuff. In retrospect after watching it in full, I'm not sure what it cares about at all? It's not about Visual Novel creation. We are told the main character Konoha hates her job in the industry in 2020s (because she's a newbie and noone will listen to her 1000 page long script about "half-angel half-whatever Mary Sue saving the postapocalyptic fantasy sci-fi time travel girls und panzer meets makoto shinkai world" that she's certain would be a mega hit unlike those pesky boring whatever-it-is-they-do-nowadays). Okay, she's 19 and has an entry level job, she doesn't understand her beloved industry yet, maybe once she gets transported to the past we'll get to learn about VN creation together with her? (No, we will not). In the past, even when she gets actively involved in the process of making VN (and not running completely unrelated errands like she does most of the time), the process itself is basically skipped over. Anime just says "and then the creative process ensued, and the artists artisted, and the scenarists said "it's scenariing time" and scenariod all over the place, and 5 seconds later our new game of the century was ready, yay!" It's not about genuine love for old tech or any other 90s things. Time travel scenarios implemented within the real world are great for showcasing old-timey stuff the author genuinely cares about and speculating about humanity's possible future. In theory... Thinking about this makes me remember the episode in Shirobako where they scheduled a field day to learn more about what's gonna be in their new anime. 16bit Sensation's "field day" was opening a Wikipedia page about the 90s in Japan and promptly forgetting half of what they just read. Noone looks or talks like they belong in the 90s, the tech they use is anachronic (either already too old to be useful by the time events happen, or probably shouldn't exist for another decade), the business side of things is... Let's not even go there. Everything is either a blatant plot device, or only exists because it showed up on the first page of pictures when the production team googled "90s Japan". Same goes for the faceless future. Noone cared what it looks like because it only exists for the main character to undo it anyway. Funnily enough, I don't feel like it's passionate about time travel either. Sure, it's the premise of the whole thing, but the level of detail and thought put into the inner workings of it is negligible. It's a time travel show because Stein's Gate was a widely popular time travel show. And people nowadays love time travel, right? Fairly close to isekai too, and people are into isekai, right? The time travel is the whole plot, and it's honestly such a mess. It jumps all over the place constantly. Half of the time it forgets where it started and why it went there in the first place, then there's also /checks notes/ aliens, I guess? Honestly, it reads as if their main character wrote this whole thing. And, of course, it's not about the interpersonal relationships between main characters. Or, even if it is, it does a terrible job at that as well. Everyone loves our quirky main character because she's so cute and quirky, (and because people in the past are just so much kinder and better than in our pesky reality). Sure, they grow in a literal sense, since the anime takes place in the span of ~30 years, but none of them really grow and change as people. But I guess there's not much place to grow from when you only exist to support the main character, fix her mistakes, pat her head and tell her how cool and special she is and how much you missed her. As a fan of all things VN I desperately wanted to like this and find something good in it, but it was just a bland and uninspired waste of time. I've read self-insert Naruto fanfiction in the 00s that was more thought through and novel than this.

"16bit Sensation" Is a great anime, that is only held down by the ending. What I am trying to get at is that the last 3 episodes are noticeably worse writing and quality wise then the rest of the series, mainly because it feels like the writers didn't have enough episodes to put in all the content they wanted to put in this anime and were forced to cut content, or were rushed to complete the last few episodes because of time constraints. Either way it feels like the quality dropped throughout the twelve episode run, since the art gets to points where it is noticeably worsefor some scenes, and some scenes seem cut short a bit. But this is FAR from being bad at all, it's characters are well constructed and are not made to be stupid or dense. Konoha is probably the most annoying character by far, but it's their character so it's intended. The story is a bit crazy, but it is something that you can vibe with, even if it sometimes doesn't make sense all the time. Overall though it is a good anime. Watch it if you don't mind a decrease in quality over 12 episodes. 🗿 7/10 🗿

What even is the anime industry in 2023? I would say it's like a cocktail with a bunch of mystery flavors. You won't know how it tastes until you try it. On the one hand, we have a variety of anime about time travel with virtually no originality and, on the other hand, we have hen- *cough*, please excuse my language. Now imagine combining those two aforementioned "flavors," adding a bit of gaming passion fruit and diluting the mix with some crushed ice to avoid making it too strong. The extravagant, yet tasty, cocktail you would end up with is 16-bit Sensation: Another Layer; a unique takeon the time travel trope that manages to keep its audience engaged with its top-tier voice acting and simple but effective storyline. Let's savor the taste together, shall we? As mentioned above the story is pretty straightforward: The protagonist, Konoha, is obsessed with bishoujo games and time travels to 90s Japan to make MORE. The only thing on her mind is gaming and cute anime girls, which officially dubs her as the most cultured anime character this year. Keep in mind that this love of bishoujo games isn't just some joke for her, it's her life. This kind of character motivation guides the plot and avoids overcomplications, resulting in a lot of funny moments. The humor works because Konoha's 3 total braincells along with her obnoxious personality, clash with a group of confused underpaid "adults" that have no idea what a present day otaku is capable of. Good comedy is seriously scarce nowadays, so take advantage of it while you still can. 16-bit Sensation has definitely got it down in the funny department. On to the rest of our wonderful cast of "adults." Their de-facto leader is Mamoru: another obsessive, stubborn and maybe-adult, who, like Konoha only has one thing on his mind; the PC98. The guy probably sleeps, eats and drinks thinking of PC98 world domination. To the point though, believe it or not, the chemistry between him and Konoha is one of the most wholesome elements of the show. Without diving into spoiler territory, try to imagine two characters who have decided to dedicate their whole life in only one thing, trying to have a deep and meaningful conversation. There is absolutely no way that could work. However, these two proved us wrong. Their conversation has got to be the most irrelevant and yet most emotional experience ever. The amount of passion they both have for their hobby explodes into vivid, motivational monologues about eroge. You read correctly. This anime makes you feel emotional watching two brainlets talking about eroge. If that's not incredible, I don't know what is. To dig into this a bit deeper, the fact that 16 bit sensation succeeds so well in conveying this passion and emotion is not only because of the character's personality, but mainly because of the voice acting. Now before you start angrily commenting about how annoying the protagonist is, hear me out. The VA for Konoha is also the one for Kaguya Shinomiya from Love is War. If you've seen both shows or at least heard this voice actor before you would know what I'm talking about. In short, she's excellent. All the emotional high notes were delivered with perfection and I'm not even going to comment on how talented someone has to be to do Kaguya's quieter and imposing voice and turn it into Konoha's passionate squeaky monologues. The production team really most have put everything into hiring her and it paid off with interest. One more aspect of the plot that's worth exploring in more detail is the time travelling gimmick. Despite it being severely overdone, 16-bit Sensation manages to add some "spice" using it. In their world, you may only travel to specific dates in the past using the release dates of 90s games, which, in a sense, limits the protagonist's ability to have an impact in the world's timeline. This restriction in combination with Konoha's lack of a brain makes the time travelling tropes practically obsolete, since the future never changes significantly. By doing this the show, creates a balance to develop the characters and reinforces its comedic theme. Or at least that was the idea, until we start building towards the finale where the trope's impact makes its sudden appearance. This shift in tone in the later episodes in tandem with the shows overarching themes makes for a very surprising twist. TLDR; All in all 16-bit Sensation made me feel things I didn't expect, made me laugh more than it should have and overall blew my expectations out of the water. On the surface it might have a pretty shallow plot with not many complications, but that quickly changes as you watch more and get invested in the story. If you like a good comedy with a surprising twist, I highly recommend it. The protagonist's voice might be a turn off at first, but trust me, by episode 4 you'll have your mind changed. Thank you very much for reading!

I'm honestly a little mystified as to why this has a rating as low as it does. There is a clue to why I feel this way in the name: "another layer". This is a layered anime. If you look at it from a surface perspective, you might not like this anime very much. And from a surface perspective, there's not much to like. There's quite a bit of nostalgia - most of which is done rather hamhandedly (though even at my age I didn't know about the PC-98, seems interesting to look into). It could also be seen asa love letter to bishoujo. It kind of is, but if we were to leave it at that level, it wouldn't be much to speak of either. On those levels, the story is a bit trite and shallow, the FMC is rather annoying, and the MMC is quite one-dimensional (see what I did there?) But there's so much more to it - if you look for it. I doubt everyone has. This story is actually a rather odd coincidence in my life, because it directly (and flagrantly) addressed a question that I've been mulling over in my head for a little while: what role does imagination have in creation? I won't go too deep into that because I'll bore the pantsu off you, and it gets absurdly theological, but it's a fascinating question, I think. All of the other things - bishoujo, nostalgia, time-travel, are all subjugated to this question. What makes us human? What is imagination? What is that intangible thing that makes the difference between a stupid garden variety game (or, by extension, anime) and one that is popular/amazing/whatever? And the way it handles that question is amazing, and frankly, rather unique. So for that reason, I would have rated this anime a ten. I wanted to rate this anime a ten. I almost did rate this anime a ten. But there were a few flaws, and I couldn't do that in good conscience. As some reviews have said, the FMC was rather insufferable. She was supposed to be voice acted as a super high energy, young-ish character who, well... it's her world and everyone else lives in it. But what they ended up making the character was a shrill, overly hyper, loudmouthed character that was difficult to warm to. Yes, she was a good character, and the VA was *capable* of toning it down when necessary, so at the end, that was clearly a directorial decision, and an awful one. They could have lowered the pitch a bit, made the voice a little less harsh and grating, and not only would nothing have been lost, but it would have been even better. The second major flaw, to me, has to do with the last three episodes. I'll try not to spoil. But this reminded me very much of Back to the Future 2, when Marty came back to 1985 or whenever after changing the timeline in 1955, and ended up in a dystopian society. The thing is, it was *needlessly* dystopian. It's 2023, not 2050, and the technology would not have been *that* drastically altered by a game company having a successful game. The corporate environment might, but the technology was significantly more "advanced" than it was in the original timeline. It just made no sense other than to enhance the sense of dystopianness. Plus, when that story arc "resolved", it, well, kinda didn't. Did the villain get his just desserts? We assume so. But of course it doesn't matter, because, well... it just doesn't matter. You'll see. But the thing is, it wasn't entirely dystopian. Yes, there were dystopian elements, and *clearly* so, but I found it fascinating how the redevelopment and "improvement" of Akihabara was portrayed as, by definition, dystopian. I guess I can see that to a degree, it would certainly have been dystopian in the FMC's perspective (they addressed the "coming home to a place you don't know" emotions very well), but still, I got the distinct feeling that it was *such* a love letter to Akihabara that it couldn't have been any other way. I guess that goes back to the "love letter to gaming" layer, because Akihabara is the mecca, but... still. It was a hamhanded message. Also, there were some plot points around the time travel that were, well... insufficiently addressed, to put it lightly. I can't really say everything about what I mean because it would be a spoiler, but let's say there were some situations and characters throughout the anime that were, well... inscrutable, and clearly deliberately so. That's fine right up until the inscrutability becomes indistinguishable from a "deus ex machina" and, well, that line was crossed. Would have been nice to have a few things explained a little better, rather than just have some rather odd and poorly explained people hopping in to save the day for no apparent reason. All that said, the flaws were enough to take it from a 10 to a 9, but that's still high praise. It's one of those anime that makes you think, and one that after the anime is over, that you just kind of sit there and have to process it for a little bit. I had that same experience with some of the greats, like "Akebi's Sailor Uniform". If you can look past the shallow surface layers to the message beneath, you might find something meaty to chew on, and given the ascendency of anime about as shallow as most of the bishoujo games this anime was, on the surface, a love letter to, that's a rare thing indeed. Recommend from me.

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