Kiznaiver-fin
Great use of red as a way of depicting Sonozaki as villainous.
I'm sorta mixed on the final episode as writing-wise, I find Sonozaki to be the worst of the main cast and even in the finale she continues that role to a large extent. Both her and Katsuhira are very flat characters so they don't play off each other that well. Now I think this concept might have worked better in a longer series where we see Katsuhira become normal and drag Sonozaki out of her shell but even in the finale he's still somewhat monotone and flat in a number of scenes. I suppose that's being true to the character, in that there's a sense of continuity and consequence as you can't just wipe out who you are as a person in a span of a few months. That said, even certain scenes such as the hospital one at the end come off as slightly unintentionally comedic due to how flat the two characters are and how little chemistry they have together.
However the direction, storyboarding, music, visuals, and other characters make up for the writing issues. The music in particular really elevated this episode from being mediocre into being great. The piece when Katsuhira is climbing the bridge isn't new but it's still a fantastic track and worked really well. The full ED was really nice and I especially like the orchestral intro and thought the placement in the episode was impeccable.
There was a lot of subtle work put into the animation of the episode such as the above in that Tenga's face is animated a bit softer, around the eyes, which reflects his inner turmoil. While the show didn't have a lot of sakuga, there was a ton of work put into the character art and as a result even though the show doesn't 'move' a lot, it still looks gorgeous as a result. That's in large parts due to the strong effort put into the lighting resulting in some outstanding visual scenes. I wouldn't say it's the best looking show this season as it had some hard competition from
JoJo Part 4 but in no ways was this a visually ugly, hell even a mediocre, show.
I expected Trigger to screw up on the production side but instead the show seemingly got better looking as it went along. A practice pretty much unheard of in this industry. Otsuka and staff at Trigger had mentioned how hellish the production of Kill La Kill was and how they were determined to plan better to prevent that sort of crunch and while I can't confidently determine that from the show itself, by all accounts it looks to have a smooth production. They seem to have done some internal adjustments in the past year or so, and the results are visually better and more consistent shows. The true test will be
Little Witch Academia with Yoshinari the Perfectionist as I imagine animators will be dying at Trigger rather soon. Hopefully though they can maintain this sort of consistency to their future productions.
I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of the last arc as it feels like the dialogue lost all tangible connection relation to reality. Now I was able to follow it but it felt a bit wonkier than earlier episodes and more conceptual in nature. I preferred the internal drama of the group rather than the somewhat external issues in the Kiznaiver system. That said, I do think the writing did a rather decent job tying the two elements together and so things flowed somewhat well into each other. I don't think this is a case where the ending elevates a show but it certainly didn't sink the prior character work either. This final arc, and the preceding one to an extent, could have worked better at the end of a two cour with more character work but it is what it is.
Kiznaiver is a rather unique work that only Okada and Trigger could have created. It utilizes both of their strengths and comes up with a combination that is whacky, melodramatic, insane but also heartfelt, sincere, and funny. The show doesn't appeal to any particular demographic or audience, which is probably why it's bombing in Japan and not likely to be popular in the USA, but that nonsensical concoction is exactly why it stands out. It balances all these disparate elements so well and avoid a number of pitfalls as a result. It doesn't have the thematic depth I would have liked but it's just so well directed that I really enjoyed the show anyway. This was a great starting point for Hiroshi Kobayashi's directing career and I hope he helms more shows in the future.
