A.I.C.O. Incarnation

This show is a good example of how important good characters are. A.I.C.O.: Incarnation is visually fantastic with an intriguing story, but it falls flat when it comes to characters. Not only does it fail to properly introduce them, but each and every one of them are so badly written it's pathetic. For starters, we are given no reason to care about any of them. There are a few "emotional" scenes in this show that are clearly supposed to be tearjerkers, including a death and some drama. But, listen, nobody's going to cry over a character they don't care about! "Oh no, this character that I forgotthe name of and I can't describe to save my life is dead, so sad." On top of that, there were a considerable amount of scientist side characters that they never introduced and I just... I honestly never knew who they were. Specifically this pink-haired scientist lady that ended up being semi-important. You can't just.... throw in random characters and say "they're important now" without any introduction whatsoever. As I sat watching the credits of the final episode, I came to the realization that I never found out who she was or why she was there. Oh, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Our main characters, the ones that I previously said give no reason for the audience to care about them, are horrible. You see, they had to get to Primary Point, the end goal/location of their mission, quickly. They kept saying how they needed to hurry up, like there was some sense of urgency. "Like there was some sense of urgency" ... well, there didn't seem to be for the characters themselves. They kept saying how they needed to go faster, get to Primary Point sooner, and it was urgent...! And then they took breaks that lasted basically almost full episodes every episode. YOU CAN'T DO THAT. YOU CAN'T KEEP REPEATING THE FACT THAT YOU HAVE TO HURRY UP AND THEN STAND AROUND NOT PROGRESSING AT ALL FOR SEVERAL HOURS. They weren't even doing anything important! They were just bickering and joking around! What? Like, w h a t ? ! Because of this, the middle episodes ended up being incredibly repetitive. Some scenes of them fighting Matter, supposed character/plot/lore/I-don't-even-know development, then more scenes of them goofing around and not doing what they said they should be doing at all. Yes, because I'm sure everyone wants to see a bunch of flat, generic characters talking to eachother instead of the actual plot progression. And don't even get me started on the two MAIN main characters, Kanzaki and Aiko. If I elaborate on Kanzaki, I'll reach spoiler territory, so I'll just say this about Aiko... I don't think anyone working on this anime knew what her personality is supposed to be like. She changed sides and opinions every 2 seconds, got super emotional and caused trouble for the sake of plot progression and only for the sake of plot progression, and just in general had no character whatsoever. Long story short, I really hate Aiko. Moving on, I wish more things were explained in this show. Some things were painful like, "HERE LET ME TELL YOU MY ENTIRE BACKSTORY AND FEELINGS FOR THE SAKE OF THE AUDIENCE TO INTRODUCE MY CHARACTER, POINTLESS BEST FRIEND WHO IS COMPLETELY UNIMPORTANT" while others were left so unexplained I was very, very confused. A.I.C.O.: Incarnation has such an interesting world. One wrapped in mystery and sci-fi that I wanted to know more about. But, no, no. Obviously focusing on the idiot characters and their adventure was more important, right? It's not only the world. There were so many characters that I just. I don't know who they are. At all, actually. There's a bunch of different sides and organizations and groups and goals and I...! It was so very confusing. And now for a brief list of the good things about this anime: - Some neat plot twists. - Quality BONES animation. - Beautiful character art. I love the eyes. - Amazing Opening theme. - A legitimately interesting world. - Very bingeable. Thanks, Netflix. - I genuinely enjoyed it. Yes, I enjoyed this show. I just ranted about it for 10 minutes, yet I enjoy it. I guess trash can still be entertaining.

A.I.C.O. Tells the story of Japan being overrun with "matter", a sort of abstract material that destroys everything in it's path. The story is a bit generic but the pacing make's up for that. The biggest issue I had with this anime was the main character; Tachibana, Aiko. it's not that she lacks depth, it's the way she reacts to every situation. It's like she was made to be shocked at every turn. And it gets tiresome fast. The best aspect of the anime is the artwork. The elegant animations and fast pace of the series is what kept the two dimensional characters in checkand made the series watchable. I did like the small details that made the world of A.I.C.O feel more authentic, e.g. the artificial suits that needed to be fed in order to function properly. I wish a little more thought was put into the world building of the series, it felt like I was watching a CW series with good visuals. There's nothing groundbreaking here, but it does make for a good popcorn anime.

If you wondering what episode 12 try to tell you must be like trying to put in all the plot and stories that been happening so far to fully understand what it tries to imply. Episode 12 is like a puzzle that the creator lets you try to find out what it means by yourself. I won't tell you the answer, the true meaning of the ending cause it will count as a spoiler which I don't want to do that at all. The stories are kinda interesting. Some people will say it like Akira the movie but at the same time, it isn't. This isn'tthat kinda movie where they have a superpower like that. The stories will be like about the girl with a fake body try to stop the burst just as the synopsis said but when you watch the entire series it just adds even more than just that. They even use real biological logic in this series too. I will give it 9/10 due to how well made it is and just as the above to what trick it try to do. It explains you and at the same time, it gave you the solvable puzzle for you to solve for later on or it will be solvable in the future. At some point, they also somehow use some strong drama scene without any warning at the right moment too. Not just any BS one but some logical thing that should have to happen. I didn't even expect they would do a drama that hard without any warning too, to be honest. For the art style, its kinda gave you the creep and find it hard to watch but its the whole point. Since this isn't some happy anime but its the near apocalypse anime. It will be a horrible apocalypse anime if it looks beautiful. Even so, I think they can do better than that by making it, even more, creepier but considering that many horror anime still can't reach to the point of true horror yet so it's understandable. I will give it the 8/10. For sound effect, I think its only at the good lv. At least it isn't horrible but only just good so I will give it just 7/10 stand for good and just that. For the character design, I will say that it's kinda fun enjoyable to see how they act and only just that until some episode of course that it somehow made us care about the character. I think this is one of the anime that can do like some instant drama without any warning which is also super effective to how they timing that. This anime I find myself very enjoying it. I think it will be 10/10. In conclusion, it will be 9+8+7+8+10 = 42 then 42/5 it will be 8.04/10. I will just give it 8/10 due to the math. It isn't something that you call nonsense. Its what you call "math" Extra: To be honest I never expect that Netflix will somehow make a very good original series. This kinda goes beyond what I have to expect in this series. Hope they will make something with this lv of quality a lot more soon. Since most of the series Netflix has a bad hobby of doing the "Must watch more series to know how it will end" I don't wang that JoJo reference like "To be continued" memes. Wait... Not another Fing JoJo reference... But yeah that's how they mostly do so this is considering one of the best they have ever made. There's a lot more then this but its just so rare but it won't be if they said this anime is with Netflix without saying that its "Netflix original series" when that happens it always end up really good. With good starting and the good ending that made you want to watch more without being forced to.

Warning possible Spoilers With the success of Devilman Crybaby, there were two new Netflix anime's to check out B: The Beginning and A.I.C.O.: Incarnation, I decided to watch AICO first and after finishing it I had definitely made the wrong choice. Story (5/10) The story is set in Japan 2035, where an artificial life form known as Matter has engulfed the Kurobe Gorge. A girl called Aiko lost her family to this and an unknown student says she is the key to stopping the Matter once and for all. Now AICO's story was a mixed bag from the get go, in fact after episode 2 I was actually thinkingof dropping it because it was so goddamn boring to watch and the characters weren't helping either which I'll get to in a minute. I wanted to be interested in the whole science and story behind the Matter, but the conversations and exposition about this whole thing just kept boring me and I almost lost complete interest in the show completely. Yet somehow it managed to save itself a little when our group of characters decided to set out on a journey to fight through the Matter to reach the Primary Point, which is where it all started and from episodes 3-8 the show was pretty enjoyable to watch. It had some good action sequences, fairly decent character development and the journey getting through the Matter was pretty thrilling. Then we reach the final episodes and then everything fell apart, not because it got boring, but because it shoved so much more exposition that it got confusing and kind of annoying to watch as all this new information just suddenly came out of nowhere. The ending also felt rushed, we get to see like a 1-2 second clip our characters doing things I wasn't expecting them to do and I feel like they skipped out on having a sadder ending, but nope we gotta have a happy ending for everyone well except for that one guy who ended up dying. So yeah the story is pretty mixed for me with a poor beginning and end, but a somewhat enjoyable middle section. Characters (4/10) The characters were easily the weakest part of the whole show, with such a huge cast you'd think that there would be something here amongst them. Surprisingly there was it just wasn't the main characters. Aiko and Yuuya are the two main characters of the show and honestly they are so fu*king boring, I gave zero damns about these two as they showed zero personality especially Yuuya, who as a character would've been utterly pointless if it wasn't for the incredibly obvious twist that he was actually someone else. Aiko could've been a decent character, but she just didn't grasp me at all. Yeah she wasn't exactly human either, but that still didn't change my perspective of her and in the end I feel like she got off way too easily. Now the diver crew consisting of Kazuki, Kaede, Yoshihiko and Haruka were definitely the saving grace when it came to the characters. Each if them actually had a kind of personality, it wasn't amazing, but it was still something and the chemistry between them kept me watching until the final episodes came along and kinda put them in the background and the development choices for them during the last episodes weren't really great, but they still managed to keep me somewhat entertained. Of course there is a bunch of other characters, but they were so forgettable that they just aren't worth mentioning. Art (6/10) Surprisingly enough for a show as mediocre as this, the artstyle was pretty good. The design of the characters gave me a early-mid 2000's nostalgic feel and the suits plus the weapons the divers used were actually pretty cool. There was a nice variety of weapons and each of the diver characters had a specific weapon they liked to use which kinda helped to separate them as individuals instead of making them random cannon fodder, also for weapons that exist in the 2030's they look pretty damn advanced for that time period. The suits did give me a sort of Halo, Mass Effect feel like this what you would get if you combined them and gave them kickass roller skates. Now despite being CGI the vehicles still looked good especially the giant tank thing they had which kinda sucked to see get destroyed, yet I am kinda surprised the Matter wasn't CGI, well for the most part it wasn't, but I have to respect the animators for not making them completely CGI. One more thing there was one scene where one of the characters was standing on a beach with sticks everywhere and I noticed how detailed that one scene was and it just impressed me to the point where I had to mention it. Sound (6/10) Also surprisingly the op and ed were fairly decent as well. The op had a alright beat, but it could've been better. It's mainly the ed that caught my eye or ears in this case, because I liked how it showed Aiko walking up the gorge before the incident happened and gave me the feeling this the journey she is going to experience just with a lot of monsters in the way and that it'll eventually lead her to her goal. The soundtrack was fairly forgettable, but the instrumental notes in some scenes that had some emotion to them were nice to listen to. The last thing I have to mention and this is what completely killed my ears and brain throughout the whole thing which is the goddamn dub, now usually I'm pretty cut lose with dubs, but there have been a few in the past that I cannot defend them in any way or form because the dub here is absolutely terrible so for once I would actually prefer the sub instead of the dub. Extras: The action was pretty good and kept me entertained longer than I expected, the fast moving divers going up against an enemy that couldn't be completely defeated by their guns was kind of intense. But I am a little disappointed that only one character of the group died and it probably would've sucked seeing some of the other characters die too, but I felt like having a few extra deaths would've helped make the journey a little more emotional and would've helped develop the characters a little more. Enjoyment (5/10) Yeah the enjoyment factor was very mixed, one moment I'm hating it, being confused or just bored by it. Another minute there's a scene that was actually fun to watch and kept me going a little longer. Overall (5/10) Overall this was like I said a mixed bag of an anime, some people might like it more than I did, but word of advice watch this in sub and not dub (although considering the division between these two fan factions I doubt many will watch it in dub).

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