Akame ga Kill!

One misconception in the anime industry is that when a show is dark and contains excessive amounts of gore. Many people automatically think the show is deep and thought provoking. The problem is that many anime studios get so hung up with making the show as badass and dark as possible that they forget about the more important problems that might plague the show, like character development and pacing.

Akame Ga Kill is a great example of this problem.

The story follows Tatsumi, a countryside boy that travels to the capital to join the military and earn money to send to his village suffering from poverty.To ... him the capital is a place filled with opportunities and a happy life. But after reaching the capital he soon realizes exactly how corrupt the capital is. After certain events he is recruited by Night Raid, A group of assassins that wish to overthrow the government and end this corruption.

On the surface Akame ga Kill does seem to be different from other shounens because of it's dark theme and excessive gore. But when you look a little bit deeper Akame ga Kill is actually pretty similar to other stereotypical shounens. You have characters always blurting out the obvious. You have the naive yet strong protagonist that powers up over time. You have almost all of the female characters fall for the protagonist. Akame ga Kill tries to be different show with it's dark theme, but looking at it closer there isn't much difference.

Probably one of the more prominent problems in Akame ga Kill is the comedy. The problem isn't in the comedy itself. (Though I admit most of the humor was stale) but rather the execution. Apparently someone thought it was a good idea to slide in a petty joke in many emotional or dramatic scenes. Probably the best example of this would be a scene where Tatsumi finds out about the corruption in the capital and mourns over his loved ones that died to this corruption. This was supposed to be a very emotional scene but then Night Raid kidnaps Tatsumi and makes petty jokes along the way. It is scenes like this that make me unable to take the show very seriously.

The characters in the show are filled with problems too. Tatsumi isn't really much different from other stereotypical male leads. He's strong, kind, and has a great sense of justice. Something we see in pretty much any other male lead for a stereotypical shounen. The other characters in Night Raid don't fare much better either. You have Mine the tsundere, Bulat the "Aniki" type. Shelle the klutz, Leone the "Onee-san" type, Lubbock the perverted guy, and Akame, the cold assassin. Now considering the show has Akame's name in the title. You would expect Akame to be one of the most important characters of the show. Sadly, the only background we do get to know about Akame is her backstory. She didn't seem to have much development and emotions except for a few scenes.Almost all of the characters feel pretty one-sided and unoriginal. There are two new additions to Night Raid later on in the show. Chelsea and Susanoo. And probably out of all of the characters in Akame ga Kill, I found Chelsea to be the most memorable.Why? Because she actually feels realistic. Although Chelsea seems to be very confident and powerful. She is just like any other girl at her age. She likes to use make up, she has her own beliefs, and she felt like an actual person.

On the other side you have the Jaegars. A special squad led by General Esdeath which goal is to anhiliate Night Raid and any other group that resists against The Empire. The Jaegars seem to be an awkward bunch. You have Bols, who looks like a psychotic murderer with a mask. Kurome, who apparently loves to eat. Dr.Stylish, a crazy mad scientist. That doesn't mean there aren't normal people there. There is Wave who doesn't really have any special qualities and Run, who seems to be the calm and collected person in the group.

And then there's Seryuu...

If there was a person who could embody the word "crazy". Seryuu probably fits the word perfectly. Probably the most hated character in the entire show. Seryuu is a person who has a completely twisted view on justice. She believes that everything the empire does is right and that everyone who goes against the empire is evil. Now although she is indeed twisted as hell and it is a normal response to hate her guts. I find that she brings a different point of view to the word "justice" in the show. To her the empire is her sense of justice. This outlines the different sense of justice between the two groups and what they are fighting for. Something that the show fails to do in many other places.

The characters of Jaegar mostly seemed to be interesting to me, but lack of character development led them to be pretty underwhelming characters. An exception to this would be Esdeath. Probably the most popular character of the show. Esdeath is loved by viewers for her icy demeanor, beauty, and her love of battle. She kills only because of her lust for war and her sadistic nature. She does have a softer nature too, as can be seen when she is searching for love.

One thing that I find annoying with Akame Ga Kill is apart from the Jaegars (which mostly were pretty average). Every other villain was bland,exaggerated, and unoriginal that I couldn't help but laugh when I saw them. Most of the supporting villains are either complete psychos or are so obsessed with power that they don't even seem human. This does get better after the introduction of the Jaegars but is it really too much to ask to get a decent villain that I can take seriously?

The part that makes Akame ga Kill "different" from other average shounens is that unlike other shounens, characters die and although this is apparently what makes Akame ga Kill "special". This is exactly what makes Akame ga Kill fall short. The problem is that characters don't get nearly enough development before there death.It is usually give the character some screen time in the previous episode. Give them a flashback on there backstories, and send them off. Killing off characters isn't a bad thing at all. In fact, this is exactly what I want from shounens with main characters that either get revived or are invincible. But at least give the characters enough development to actually make the viewers feel something, or else the death scenes feel meaningless.

The first opening of Akame ga Kill "Skyreach" is pretty average to be honest. Sure it isn't bad but the song just isn't much better than other opening songs. The second opening is a big step up from the first one with the early part sounding quiet and gentle, but slowly grows into a louder song with guitars and the chorus. Which I found to be pretty fitting to the show. Both the ending songs are pretty good,both bringing contrasts to the opening with softer, smoother tunes.The soundtrack ranged from average to pretty good. The songs in the battle scenes weren't anything special but did there jobs of increasing the tension, but the the best parts are the piano tracks for the moments of death.The piano tracks were pretty simple and weren't complex at all, but the tune the tracks carried brought out the tone perfectly.

The animation is mostly pretty good.I guess the best word would probably be "efficient". Akame ga Kill looks good where it counts and it cuts back in parts that weren't that important. And I respect that. Not every anime has a gigantic budget to work on. (Unless its from KyoAni). The fight scenes looked great and although there were a few scenes that were cut back. Those scenes were mostly negligible and not very noticable.

Now it may seem like I hate the show due to all of my criticism towards the show, but on the contrary. I did enjoy the show to a certain extent. The show isn't terrible by any means, but there were just so many places where Akame ga Kill could have improved on that I find it a shame that it wasn't adapted better. That said though, this show isn't for everyone. If you don't like excessive gore and killing then feel free to steer away from the show. But if you like dark themes and don't have a problem with watching some blood. Akame ga Kill isn't a terrible choice. (Can't say its a great one though.)

Produced by White Fox Studios as 24 episode series, Akame ga Kill! is the anime adaptation of an unfinished manga that follows the exploits of an assassination group looking to overthrow the corrupt empire. While it doesn't even have good writing or the proper foundations, there is no denying that this show takes its audience for a wild ride that is filled with bloodshed and explosions.

Set in a fantasy world, Akame ga Kill! begins with a talented but rather naive swordsman named Tatsumi, arriving in Empire's capital city and dreaming of making a name for himself. He quickly finds himself being stripped ... of his meager savings by a certain feline-looking women called Leona but comes across a wealthy family who decides to graciously shelter him. That very same night, a group called Night Raid hits the household with the intent of assassination. Through a series of twists that exposes the family's atrocities, Tatsumi accepts the offer to join Night Raid and starts on the path towards to assassinating those who they deem to be responsible for plaguing the Capitol with corruption. However as he and his teammates continues their campaign against those who stand in their way, the Empire responses by creating their own unit of elite soldiers called The Jaegers to hunt down Night Raid.

Within each of their own respective arsenals are incredibly powerful weapons called Imperial Arms that were forged in the early beginnings of the empire. From suits of armor to hand-held weapons and gears, the power within each of these Imperial Arms is unique and the main element to the fighting is countering each others power. Tied in with the usage of Imperial Arms, the primary feature that set Akame ga Kill! apart from other action shows is the alarming frequency in which notable characters are permanently killed. As a general rule, when two or more imperial arms users enter into a fight, at least one of them will die giving the show an huge amount of tension when battles do occur.

With a focus of ridding the Empire of its corruption, Akame ga Kill! is a very edgy show with that knows no bounds when it comes to displaying the appalling crimes and cruelty that exists within the series. However, the tone that is given doesn't lend itself to be a mature analysis of the mankind's darkness. More time than not, it comes off as being cheap and I found myself laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. The underlying reasons are mere context and background to the real draw of the show of how the bloody battles unfold.

Characters

For all the horrific violence that the characters commits, the regular cast is a rather likeable bunch. Named in the title of the anime, Akame is the beautiful wielder of the Murasame, a sword that is guaranteed to kill its enemy with a single cut, and is a rather cold individual from onset. Once the series get underway, she does have some genuinely assuming moments and actually cares deeply for her friends but usually adopts a stoic demeanor during operations and for much of her downtime. Tatsumi, being the gullible and starry eye swordsman from the countryside , is the audience's introduction into the rotten and oppressive Empire and the fight bring about revolution. He starts off as fairly generic but develops into a much more powerful fighter with strong relational ties to others. Opposing Night Raid is the head of the Jeagers, General Esdeath, who is a very voluptuous and sadistic women that enjoys the thrill of the hunt. Believing in a very Darwinian principle of the strong devouring the weak, she is a very formidable foe and yet, is a little ditzy when it comes to the matters of the heart.

There are too many other characters to list off and go into details but they all share the common trait of being immensely brutal in their fighting while having comical elements attached to them. They themselves are representative of the strange dichotomy where scenes of slaughter, sexual exposition, and torture are offset by their playful comradery. While they don't having the most compelling back stories or development, the cast of Akame ga Kill certainly doesn't shy away from making their presence known by any stretch of the imagination. I would like to give a particular mention to Akame's VA, Sora Amamiya, for continuing to have an astonishing start to her career. In addition to her main role in Akame ga Kill!, she has taken on no less than four main character roles in Nanatsu no Taizai, Aldnoah.Zero, One Week Friends and Tokyo Ghoul. While her time being Akame has come to an end, I look forward what other roles she can play as she moves through the anime industry.

Visuals

Visually speaking, Akame ga Kill! is an above average effort with a very modern style, vivid colors and a few special effects thrown in for good measure. It does rely on conventional animation when going through its action sequences so there's nothing that makes it stand out in that aspect. Otherwise, the quality remains consistent throughout the entire series which is more than I can say for other series airing at the same time. In fact, one area that Studio White Fox have done a tremendous job on improving is rendering the background. While the manga does a decent job at framing its own surroundings, the additional detail and polish put in really elevates an aspect where the source material was lackluster.

Music

Taku Iwasaki, known for creating the soundtrack to Gatchaman Crowds, Noragami and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, is responsible the music behind Akame ga Kill!. Judging by his other works, he has been consistently been able to produce music that a bit quirky to listen to but still be able to enhance whatever show he works on. For this series, he incorporates a variety of musical styles from jazz to rock to orchestral music and he does a commendable job of engaging the audience with his music, no matter what the scene called for. I especially like the OST being played during the action scenes as a combinations of drums, tribal chanting and rock goes with perfectly with the unhindered primal violence being shown on the screen.

Manga Adaptation

As with almost all adaptation from manga to the anime, some things are bound to get lost in transition and Akame ga Kill! is no exception. Character interactions that gave depth to their relationship are left out but those scenes didn't really contribute in significantly in altering the core plotline. It is only towards the latter half of Akame ga Kill! that readers of the manga will notice that that the rather straightforward adaption will suddenly veer off into the original anime ending territory that leaves behind an entire arc unanimated and takes several liberties with the story. If you are only familiar with the anime TV production, it is unlikely that you would notice much of difference other than the accelerated pacing and build up. At this point, the manga remains unfinished and if the show decided to stay its original course, it would have ended in an awkward state and would have had to wait years before additional material would be available. For a show to tell a complete story in an age where anime shows are mere primers for the source material is a rarity indeed.

Conclusion

In the end, Akame ga Kill! sets out what do what it promises and that is to smother the audience with super powerups, violence and death up until the very end.

To kill or not to kill, that is the question. In the world of Akame ga Kill, it’s more than just about killing as survival fits to those who wish to live for something to fight for. Sounds complicated? Not really. Akame ga Kill preys on a simple concept despite playing complexity on the tactical front. To put it into simple perspective, we have a prestigious and well developed Capital taking place as the major setting. While it looks industrialized and well functioned on the outside, there are dark secrets and corruption on the inside. The ones who fight this corruption consists of the main ... characters as an elite unit known as the Night Raid, as part of the Revolutionary Army. They don’t just kill for the sake of it but for a purpose. In this show, that purpose is to rid of corruption as a young man named Tatsumi finds out the hard way.

Based off the manga of the same name, Akame ga Kill isn’t an easy show to get used to at first. From a standard perspective, it is the author’s only work to date (besides a prequel based off the story). He experiments with a fantasy world cast in shadows by corruption and brings in characters as the actors in a seemingly dark age. While the show takes itself seriously with the dark fantasy premise and mature setting, one should also question about the overall delivery of the series. Controversially speaking, there are doubts at first. For the first half and parts of the second half, the show remains faithful to the material. Then, it decides to go with a route that I find it to be laughable for the wrong reasons. Still, let’s get started and see what Akame ga Kill has to offer…

The few episodes wastes little time to get the point across in the AkG world. Tatsumi almost becomes a scapegoat during his journey as he himself believes that Night Raid is evil. In reality, corruption takes hold where he almost ends up being a victim. The truth is realized soon enough as the young boy faces the grim reality. However, he makes his own decision to join Night Raid and rid of the corruption that holds the Capitol and perhaps the rest of the world. Essentially, that’s how it starts anyways but Tatsumi also learns more about the group of people he is allied with now that he is part of Night Raid. As such, the few episodes introduces the other members. Titular character Akame is perhaps one of the most prominent member of Night Raid as her first encounter with Tatsumi almost ends up getting the latter killed. Coming off seemingly as a cold girl with social awkwardness, she is also a skilled fighter with good intentions. The problem with Akame is that perhaps she is a bit way too focused on her motivations. Throughout the series, there’s little depth we realize about herself despite some minor flashbacks between her and a sister she used to hang around with. Her actions throughout the show also seemingly include vengeance not only against the Capitol but her own dear sister. While the reason is explained vaguely, there’s just not a lot we can appreciate about her role. Her relationship with Tatsumi is perhaps the strongest compared to the other members of Night Raid though. So in some ways, we can say that she is a character with a lot of potential but the show just doesn’t make her a well-developed character.

Other members of Night Raid falls under a lot of generic tropes. These include head boss Najenda, Leone (the older sister type), Mine (tsundere), Bulat (the older brother type), Lubbock (ongoing carefree dude), Shelee (quiet type), among others. Tatsumi himself is also saturated with generic tropes such as his heroic personality and to do the “right thing”. His motivations does have influence among other members of Night Raid as they see him as a trusting member and one who is determined to achieve his goals. Perhaps one other character in the show sees him as a bit more beyond just a warrior though. Coming from the outskirts of the Capitol is General Esdeath, a feared sadist and leader with a deadly reputation. Esdeath’s debut marks the exact expectation that viewers might have her as a leader. However, her encounter with Tatsumi might rub off in the wrong way. You could call it as an infatuation or obsession, but her personality takes a 180 degrees after realizing the power of “love”. Rather than love though, it’s more like a one-sided relationship as the world of Akame ga Kill is not pretty. If you don’t believe me, then the body count might serve as a more credible evidence. Regardless if you’re a member of Night Raid, Jeagers, Revolutionary Army, or the Capitol’s military, the show isn’t afraid to kill off characters.

Esdeath isn’t alone as an adversary of Night Raid however. Leading a group known as the “Jeagers”, she plays a role as an anti-villain. Some of the members of Jeagers have their own morals and ideologies. Still, there’s also this presence of black and white morality that is dominated throughout the series. Some characters such as Seryu (from Jeagers) kill for what they perceive as justice while others simply sees it as an order like Boris. Then, there are also misguided examples such as Wave who doesn’t realize the truth revolving around the corruption of the Capitol. Nonetheless, the series makes a point clear that it controversially creates an atmosphere of ideology clash. And often or not, these result in various consequences such as extortion, torture, and death. Make no mistake though. This show isn’t shy to craft violence from what it has set up.

Even in a dark fantasy world such as AkG, there are also time to squeeze in comedy. Perhaps I imply this as underhanded but the show actually pushes that more than you might expect. Comedy is represented sometimes as generic while other times just misplaced or rather awkwardly timed. The quick precision shift between comedy and graphic violence sometimes also seems unreal to believe. In other words, one needs to be aware of the way the show is adapted when venturing into its execution. Fortunately, the series manages to rebound against this with serious elements of mature content to stay true with its premise. While the story seems quick paced at the times, Akame ga Kill also creatively build up certain points throughout the story and effectively manage it on most parts. As a reader of the manga, it pleases me to realize that they didn’t forget the most important parts. It’s obviously evident that there is enough material to simultaneously turn its source material into animated form and as such, I give praise to White Fox for doing just that. And when it comes to violence, this show is like a middle finger to recent series that are obstructed by censorship. (ex. Terra Formars, Tokyo Ghoul)

While world building isn’t a strong content of the series, the mechanics and origins is insightful. It is explained in a way that viewers should not be confused. The instance falls quickly with powerful weapons known as Teigu (in English, referred to as Imperial Arms). They are the most widely feared tools that are featured throughout the series with a variety of uses. These include but not limited to invisibility, one-shot kills, animal instinct, sharpshooting, ice manipulation, shape-shifting, pyrokinesis, and among others. The origins behind some of these Teigu are also explored. And with that, you can expect spectacular action when characters puts them to use. Well-coordinated movements, strategies, and jaw-breaking cinematic are a key to this success. Thankfully, Akame ga Kill does that in a profound way. As each Teigu is also different, the show also makes good usage of their strengths and weaknesses so you can expect some exciting duels in full throttle.

As I said before, the show had a decent start with what it has done with the adaptation. But this isn’t the main concern of the series in regards to fitting with characters’ roles. It’s the way the story is adapted later on when for some reason, the series derides from the manga. Instead, it crafts filler and makes up its story as it goes. Some of them not only have episode transitions that doesn’t make sense but also ones that are seemingly too rushed. And like I said before, the show isn’t shy to kill off its character cast. However, all is abrupt and devoid of development. There’s little feeling that you’ll feel with some of the characters killed off later on (especially beyond episode 20). It’s almost like an insult for the fans hoping to see a faithful adaptation when it decides to make up its own little story.

When it comes to visual quality, White Fox is able to actually get some parts done right. They are able to take this show’s animation quality to a level of what it should be – graphic and straightforward. It remains brutally honest with what it tries to accomplish such as severed limps, beheading, and torture. In short, the show isn’t a fairy tale fantasy but rather make its point as a dark world of malevolence. Action is directed with strength in its movements while the world setting is credible with the backgrounds. Dangerous creatures known as the “Danger Beasts” are present throughout the show as well that are carefully crafted to show their animalistic brutality. On the other hand, character designs can be an oddball. Certain characters such as Akame wear outfits that doesn’t make them look like who they should be. Tatsumi’s design is also blend as the main protagonist while other characters are exaggerated by their manga counterparts such as Esdeath. And the show isn’t shy with fan service either so be prepared for some eye candy goggles.

While not a powerhouse, soundtrack does play an efficient role. In particular, action scenes are supplemented by the OST with the intense pacing of the fighting. Emotional scenarios also exist so expect some solemn tunes to play out its purpose. However, character voice mannerisms can be a bite to the heart. Again, I have to emphasize that Tatsumi is one of the most generic characters known to mankind. His voice shifts between mature and childish in what can seem like a split second time-frame. This inadequate balance is a pain to deal with as such with some with other characters albeit with less focus. In essence, the show has moderate voice mannerisms when it comes to its cast. However, I do give praise to the VA for Akame, Sora Amamiya. She is able to play roles as soft spoken characters such as Kaori (One Week Friends) and Elizabeth (Nanatsu no Taizai) but is also able to portray Akame in this series; a cold spoken assassin. Did I also mention that she sings the OP song for the first half? Speaking of which, the theme songs conveys this show accurately with contrasting moods between the opening and ending.

To cap this off, it’s easy to say that Akame ga Kill is a show that might not be suitable for everyone. I don’t say this on a graphic content perspective but rather with the whole premise and what it tries to do. In fact, the premise is solid and stays true to itself throughout the show. It’s just that the direction has some crude markings when it comes to timing and balance. The way it derails from the manga adaptation makes it look like a joke. Generic characters are also something to aware of especially in the case of our dull main protagonist Tatsumi. His relationship with other characters only shines when it revolves around the main story. On the other hand, mechanics and concepts of the show deserves praise. While nothing stands out as original, the show is clever with the world setting, themes, and artificial weapons/tools. The show also does justice with the buildup and cliffhangers it creates to anticipate what’s to happen next for the majority of the first half. However at the end of the day, this show is one of those sick series where it kills itself.

A lot can be said about a show's 1st episode. It's our first encounter with the world presented, and could often be used to gauge whether or not the content on display could be something that would interest you moving forward. Of course, this isn't to say that that's always the case, but for the most part, it serves as a helpful jumping off point and is often the reason why studios place so much stock on its television pilot. And nowhere is that more evident than with Akame ga Kill! With just one episode, it manages to establish a myriad of things, all of ... which interesting in their own right, but perhaps more entertaining when viewed as a whole. There's comedy, fanservice, ultraviolence, corrupt politics, eccentric characters, melodrama, and a sleuth of other tidbits littered throughout. All of these aspects by themselves are fine, but it's the assembly in which these ideas are presented that gives way to content that's comedically problematic.

Like ingredients for food, it's not a matter of what you have to work with but what you choose to make out of it. In the hands of capable creators, I'm sure all the elements of Akame ga Kill could have been turned into something of high-end value, but to no one's fault but its own, what this title decides to do instead of measuring out its ingredients was to dump it all in at once with no rhyme or reason. A tasty stew in the hands of credible creators was effectively turned into a cauldron of foul witches brew. A slimy substance bubbling up, one that sees gruesome deaths followed by comedic fanservice, politics served on a platter layered in melodrama, reanimated corpses of shows prior refusing to die off, their festering lack of "character" like primordial ooze, desperately seeking out originality to munch down on. A Schlocky, sleazy freak of a thing, over-the-top, and violently lashing out, its drool dripping with hackneyed writing and a complete disregard for decency as it spazzes about on the floor.

What we have here was a Frankenstein of lowbrow content, and boy was it entertaining!

The story is very straightforward, if only by design. A corrupt kingdom takes advantage of their citizens through tyrannical rule, and to fight against this oppression, rebel forces send aid by hiring a band of assassins tasked with killing off high-ranking members of the capital. It's like Assassin's Creed, but with a lot more boobs and nakama power involved. Our protagonist, PussyBetaMale-kun, or Tatsumi, if you prefer, joins this hit squad.

The goal of these rebel forces are pretty basic; overthrow the governing body and establish a new order of equality. Seems like a simple enough story to execute right? Well, that's where you'll be sorely mistaken, with AGK, plunging your IQ down a few pegs is the only way to keep up with its scatterbrained thought process when it comes to figuring its own shit out. In substitution of a fairly paint-by-numbers plot, AGK decides to globetrot across its world, not out of a need to explore anything, no, that would be too "smart," but solely for the sake of encountering as many comedically vile people as possible. And in that regard, its meandering was a success. In place of a rebel uprising, what we got in its stead was a bunch of superpowered edgelords engaging in giant cockfights to see who was the strongest. Assassin Super Bowl was in full swing, and while they were duking it out like reject members of a Mad Max film, the highborn nobles were strolling along in the background, torturing its citizens with so much glee that you can't help but root for their cartoonish villainy.

The setting was never explored, feeling equally perfunctory as the characters inhabiting it. Attributes of its world bullying the audience into accepting it for what it is. Wild monsters with no domestic quality to their world and flying Manta-rays; just accept it. Giant mecha in a medieval setting with no prior inclusion of advanced technology; just accept it. Macroeconomics that's impossible to exist when the aristocratic class torture and kill their citizens, effectively crippling its economy's breadwinners; just accept it. Supernatural occurrences that happen at one minute to simply be forgotten by the next; you get the drill, just accept that shit.

They didn't even bother to properly flesh out the city or corresponding areas that our characters navigated across. Deciding to only let it serve as a backdrop for the Assassin Super Bowl to play out seemed to be the unified thought process that the creative team all collectively arrived at. And when that isn't enough to keep the viewer's interest, the show places a character's neck on its Guillatine chopping block, where it turns these Mad Max rejects into blood-splattered firework displays to keep things entertaining. All you end up remembering them for was their deaths and not who they were as people. But who got time to worry about proper characterization or decent writing? Fuck it! On with the show! More shocking deaths, more blood, more ultraviolence, more more more!

Crimson blood-spray animated with such vigor that it makes it readily apparent that the people behind this project are having as much fun slaughtering their cast as we as viewers get from watching them die. In a way, it's like this show's animators were a part of the noble class themselves, as they hyper-fixate on bringing these death sequences to life. Sadly, when no one is being turned into blood confetti, the actual quality of the animation drops off significantly. Stiff body motion. Lazily panning across flat landscapes. Shading devoid of effort or care. Scene compositions setup with zero creative foresight; all of it expressed with complete apathy. As if it was an impatient child twiddling its thumbs waiting for the director to give it the green-light for the next fight sequence or public execution to occur.

The same also applied to the soundtrack which was painfully uninspired. Tunes humming along without an inkling of interest shining through. A type of "pretending to care" in the way the orchestrations felt oddly familiar-sounding to many things heard in the past. But unlike the animation department, the disinterest expressed here was actually surprising once you discuss the person responsible for the bringing it together. Taku Iwasaki is not an amateur. This is a man with years under his belt. Why this wasn't audibly expressed was a bit perplexing, but then again, this is coming from a show named "Akame" ga Kill, where the titular character only gets 5 episodes worth of screentime. They must have been fans of The Legend of "Zelda" games to come up with such an absurd name choice.

The moment you start trying to "figure out" AGK's issues is the moment you're "doing it wrong," so let's proceed to dispell that idea right now by asking the impossible question: what the "purpose" behind this wonderful work of artistic vandalism was.

So what was it about? An active effort to discuss subserviency in society? The oppressive consequence that occurs when "absolute power corrupts absolutely?" A tale of personal ideals clashing, resulting in bloody politics? A sobering story of discrimination?... Well, honestly speaking, no. It was about none of that. Overthinking anything that AGK does would be no different than waxing philosophical for the reason behind Patrick Star's Hawaiian shorts. There's no pretense behind AGK's actions, and as long as the viewer doesn't graft any grandiose ideas onto it, it could be enjoyed for what it truly is: schlocky, over-the-top deaths with shounen characters that had the stylistic sensibilities of a seinen but the emotional authority of a 15-year-old's wet dream.

And you know what? That's just fine. I sure had fun watching it. A silly thing, flailing about with no sense of purpose or integrity. A good ole dumb time to be had, IQ-reducing, but worth every popped brain cell.

**SPOILER FREE REVIEW**

Question: What do you get when you try to make an action-comedy based around the brutal torture, rape, and mutilation of innocent people? Apparently, you get Akame Ga Kill. It’s a blood bath, but it’s also light-hearted. It has deathly serious themes such as the loss of close friends, but it also has frequent fanservice. It has characters with tortured pasts seeking retribution, but they also have slice-of-life comedy personalities. …Have you noticed the problem with the show yet? Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting one of the most hyped anime of the year: Akame Ga Kill (By the way: no. I haven’t read the ... manga and I don’t care if “everything is better!” in it; this review is of the adaptation and the adaptation alone).

Synopsis: A boy named Tatsumi sets out on a journey for “The Capitol” in order to earn money for his starving village. However, when he arrives, he only finds a world full of unimaginable corruption. People are murdered, tortured, and manipulated on a daily basis for no discernable reason other than the fact that the government is super evil. After seeing this corruption, Tatsumi joins the “Night Raid”: a group of assassins dedicated to eliminating the corruption throughout The Capitol by mercilessly killing those responsible.

There are several problems with AGK’s plot, and all of them are related to the very core foundation of how the show was written, making them absolutely crippling. The first issue is that its style is completely unrelated to its substance. This anime can’t decide if it wants to be an edgy, dark, violent action show or a light, upbeat, comedy-action shounen with lots of fanservice. Since it can’t decide, it tries to be both at the same time. This, of course, results in it being neither. AGK has absolutely NO concept of tone what so ever. In fact, the first episode contains arguably the worst writing decision in a TV show I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

We see Tatsumi, our protagonist, witness one of the most traumatic and devastating things imaginable. It’s very graphic and the viewers are prepared for Tatsumi to absolutely break down. You know what happens instead? He mourns for about 10 seconds and then gets comedically dragged away for more fanservice and jokes with the other characters as he becomes visibly unfazed by the incident. There isn’t so much as a second allowed for a transition between comedy and tragedy. Oh, but that’s not where the joke stops; for the remainder of the series, our intelligence is insulted to the point that the show tries to constantly remind us how “devastating” this event was for Tatsumi; you know, the devastation that never happened. He supposedly has nightmares about this event frequently and TONS of his characterization is based upon the effect that this event has on him. Well, great job AGK: you managed to entirely kill the most integral character motivation in your entire show before the very first episode was even over. It’s not like this is the only instance of AGK’s incompetent tone either; there are many, MANY more examples. This show treats serious themes such as rape and torture like they are one big joke; they are used only to over-exaggerate the “evilness” of the antagonists to the point that questions of “good vs. evil” couldn’t be any more black and white in a traditional, cliché shounen fashion. Speaking of clichés, let’s touch on the characters:

AGK’s characters fail to stand out in any way what so ever. Not even slightly. The entire cast is full of tired archetypes from a harem comedy that somehow found their way into the wrong genre of anime (much like Higurashi, but in a bad way). Seriously: you’ve got the naïve, personality-less male protagonist (Tatsumi), the airhead (Sheele), the tsundere (Mine), the outgoing/sexual one with giant boobs (Leone), the blunt/emotionless one (Akame), etc. I mean come the fuck on! I AM watching a harem, aren’t I? You can probably imagine how badly this cast clashes with the antagonists, who are the most obviously evil, stereotyped, motivation-less, cardboard cut-out “characters” you could ever imagine. They rape, they torture, they manipulate, they do the most morally awful things that the writer’s mind could physically dream up. Why? …Just because they’re evil. Even everybody's FAVORITE character (Esdeath) is completely worthless; she has no damn motivations what so ever people! Every time they "try" to give the villains development, it is painfully rushed and short-lived, making it essentially useless. This is one of the cheapest writing tactics in the book and it’s just the icing on the cake to a cast of characters that lacks a single ounce of originality or any depth at all. As a result of the poor cast, nobody cares whenever something happens to any of the characters. This, predictably, takes a massive element of the show away entirely.

In conclusion, Akame Ga Kill is a trainwreck. It has some good ideas and can be decently suspenseful at times, but complete lack of direction makes it borderline unwatchable unless you can completely shut off your brain. From its horribly confused plot to its inane characters, this show never presents us with a single, solitary reason to tune in to the stereotype parade they have created. I do not recommend Akame Ga Kill to anyone.

I've been looking at some of the other reviews who rated it 3 or 4; however I found it absolutely outstanding.

The plot isn't anything out of the box, but it had a very steady pace and wasn't bad in any way. They explain things in the beginning without bogging the show down, and later on they speed things up with new characters and more complicated twists.

It's also a very realistic anime. People die. It's not a surprise in real life, especially if the main group are assassins, but for some reason most anime's just make people not die by creating these impossible situations. ... But with Akame ga Kill, it's different. Once you're dead, you're dead. I know some shounen animes where, when someone dies, I don't feel sad - not because I'm not attached to the character, but because I'm just so confused. I just kind of assume that they come back somehow because everyone always manages to come back to life one way or another. By the time I realize that no, they're actually dead, it's kind of more of a shock than sadness.

I also really liked the art. The fight scenes were amazing and I love how they show the intensity of their emotions. It felt very raw and very real. Each character had some unique physical quality. Lots of times in animes, I get confused with the names or even faces because they can look so similar. But Akame ga Kill had some really epic designs.

The sound was pretty good - I feel the Japanese voice actors fit the characters (not to mention Lubbock was voiced by Kirito's actor ^^) and not to mention the opening and ending songs were some of the best I have ever heard.

The first opening was just straight out awesomeness. It's catchy and rock. The second was even better. It had a more bitter sounding quality to it, and showed the sorrow of the anime while still maintaining the really cool action part. The ending songs were the polar opposite compared to the intros because they were more slow-paced and sad, but that was what made them amazing.

Characters. I have quite a bit to say about this. Lots of people were mentioning that Akame should have been the main character because her name was in the title, but I disagree. Tatsumi has obviously been the main character. Akame may have been a secondary, but she had no more screen time than any of the other Night Raid members. The entire plot was focused around Tatsumi, and it was mostly in his perspective. Just because a character has their name in the title does not mean they are the main character. The protagonist is the person the story follows after. That's Tatsumi. Akame is the climax. She's the most important person, but that doesn't mean she's the main character. She defines the anime. But Tatsumi is the main character. They are two different things. This is why I understand why Akame is in the title but the point of view is from Tatsumi.

As a generalization, I really liked all of the characters. They all had their own individual quality about them and what I really love about the anime is that they also show the antagonistic side. Later on, when you are introduced to the Jaegers (who are the enemies of Night Raid), you aren't like, oh, they're a villain, I hate them all. The story writers show their side, so you know why they are in the Jaegers and not the Night Raid. You understand them and you sympathize with them and you cry as much as you would cry when a Night Raid character when they die. There was this one time where one person person from Jaegers was fighting one person from Night Raid, and I didn't know who to root for because I loved both of them. The one thing I dislike is how they don't develop the characters enough. When the first person died, I didn't really feel anything except some sorrow because I didn't know him/her (no spoilers :D) that well. Especially Lubbock; that frustrated me. I didn't care especially for him because the anime didn't show his personality too much. But later on, they give him maybe ten minutes to show his badassery, and that was when I realized how amazing he actually was. But they should have done that from the beginning. What they do is they give them their background story and kill them off, but they don't actually show them with their own personality much. That was the only thing I disliked about the development of the characters.

Some people say that the corrupted greedy villains in which Night Raid assassinated were too unrealistic, and that they were all sadistic and inhumane. But those people weren't the point. All of those evil people - they didn't matter. They were just there to show to the audience why Night Raid is right and the capitol is wrong. What matters is the emperor, a little boy being manipulated by the prime minister (who is also important), the Jaegers, and Seryu. Those are the real antagonists. And I feel they portrayed those key people very well. I already explained how the Jaegers were relate-able. And Seryu is part of the Jaegers, but she's honestly a whole other category, because she's worse than the prime minister and the side-villains combined because of her wrong sense of justice and the lust to kill. The emperor is naive. We can understand why the capitol is why it is. And the prime minister is really the only true villain, who is clever but at the same time absolutely powerless. They elaborated on those points very well, and I think that's all that matters.

Now for the characters themselves. Tatsumi irked me sometimes because he was just so happy-go-lucky in the grimiest situations, but he was a pretty okay protagonist. Akame is the blunt, awkwardly social person that is able to erase her emotions when the time comes to kill. Bulat is the awesome gay dude who is basically the older brother who you idolize because they're so strong but happy at the same time. Chelsea is the older sister that annoys everyone on purpose and loves to prank people. Leone is the bold and fierce and the carefree. Lubbock is the perverted but also somehow knows compassion and can get serious when it comes to fighting. Mine is the sensitive girl that insults people to hide her embarrassment, the kind of person that names her destructive Imperial Arms 'Pumpkin'. Najenda is the chill and the cool. Sheele is the quiet, shy, mostly talent-less, and clumsy. Susanoo is a dedicated and loyal friend who corrects your moral mistakes, not to mention he is a weird housewife with OCD. Bols is the creepy-looking but really sweet nice guy. Esdeath is a psychopath who loves owning people, things, and lust. Kurome is Akame, but more ruthless. Run is logical and calm. Seryu is the devil. Dr. Stylish is the creepy mad scientist with weird fetishes. And Wave is basically a really annoyingly naive Tatsumi.

I spent a lot of time on the characters. But they deserve it because I needed to clear up some misconceptions.

One last thing - some people disliked the humor. But I loved it. Akame ga Kill is not a dead serious anime. Yes, people die, and yes, it's sad, and yes, it's gory. But the humor is also dark and there are some dry humor as well. These people are literally assassins who have seen the deaths of their loved ones, living in a corrupted world, yet they can still laugh and joke around. If you're going to watch this show, you need to start watching with the fact that the humor isn't forced and unnecessary after a sad part - it's to lighten up a death because that's just what they do. They make you cry then make you laugh then make you feel bad about laughing. You may find it inhuman to be able to joke after witnessing so many deaths, but if they can't find happiness in the little things, how can they live with themselves? Because that's how they live.

Despite the negative reviews I really loved this anime. It's one of my favorites because of the characters, the action, and the humor. I would definitely recommend. I know, that if I haven't seen this before and I saw all the negative reviews, I would probably not watch it. But this is me countering all of those and saying you should watch it, because you should experience it for yourself, and decide yourself whether or not it's good.

Akame Ga Kill should have been called Akame Ga Controversy.

With it deviating from the plot of the manga, loads of the original fans were outraged and called for White Fox's head. But as someone who hasn't read the manga, and probably won't for a while, I'd like to call Akame Ga Kill a small success. It succeeds in it's small niche of being the Game of Thrones of anime, and if you watched this while it was airing and didn't get any spoilers --- tell me your secrets, as this review will be completely spoiler free.

Story(6/10): The story begins as a young swordsmen ... named Tatsumi leaves the village he grew up in in order to send some money or support back to it. He plans to join the Imperial army when he is intercepted by a busty blonde that tricks him out of his money(that he was flaunting). Eventually, he has to sleep on the streets when a young, wealthy lady offers him a place to stay, which he accepts. Later on, you realize that people with even the kindest of demeanors and looks can be the wickedest, and this is when Tatsumi meets the infamous Night Raid, a group of assassins that specializes in the elimination of evil and corrupt denizens. He joins them on their mission to better the world as he is violently thrust into the world of fighting, bloodshed, and loss.

In Akame Ga Kill, there are weapons known as "Imperial Arms" that are age old tools that were created to help balance the world. They're extremely powerful weapons of destruction that are present throughout the anime, and all Night Raid members have one in their possession, as well as the Jaegers, introduced later as the main force that will oppose Night Raid in the story until the brutal end. But as lavish as this all sounds, it falls short of anything really spectacular or even above average. The story/plot is just good enough to propel the whole anime forward, but it has problems throughout, such as it going for too much shock value, and trying to force watchers to feel emotions that just aren't there. But in all, the plot was pretty decent.

Art(10/10): If there's one thing Akame Ga Controversy does right, it's the art. Not even manga readers should be able to talk smack about it. It's vibrant, colorful, and remarkably fluid, including the animation. It's an eye orgy the whole time, and its probably the best thing about Akame Ga Kill.

Sound(6/10): I'm going to be honest. I didn't always notice the music playing in the background, if there even was any. There were moments when it definitely amplified the moment, but most of the time the whole soundtrack was pretty forgettable. Though at the same time, it's nothing to talk down on either.

Character(7/10): The characters, a lot like the art style, were unique and likable. This connection of liking, or even loving for some, is essential to how the anime toys with your feelings and emotions, as it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that characters will die, and a lot will suffer before hand. However, for more than a few of the characters, I thought they didn't get nearly as much development as they should have, and it made their deaths much less impactful than they should have been. Other times, the death flags were so obvious that you just start crying even before they die. An extra 2 episodes to make 26 for character devlopement would have gone a long way

Enjoyment(10/10): I'm a pretty nit picky person, but surprisingly, there wasn't much to nit pick at in this anime. Everything just clicks and works fine from start to finish. Although I will say this is probably the simplest anime of the year and offered no depth whatsoever, but at the same time, that's not what Akame Ga Kill aimed to be. This isn't Serial Experiments Lain. This is your standard over-the-top Action anime, up there with Seven Deadly Sins and Bleach. And Akame Ga Kill excels perfectly in this area, and I didn't struggle at all with watching any of it.

OVERALL (8/10):
Akame Ga Kill is a contender for anime of the year in my book, but still has serious competition to compete with. If you read the manga, you probably won't like this adaptation at all, and will give it a poor score. Should I read the manga to see how much better it is? Maybe. But as it is right now, Akame Ga Kill was a fun, spoiler-ridden ride that'll be hard to forget. Although the Story and Sound is subpar, it makes up for it with excellent attention to Art, and a nice and colorful cast of characters. If you're debating whether to watch or read this, I'd say to definitely watch it first so you don't end up hating it while you watch it. And I probably would have liked this anime a bit more if I wasn't spoiled every day, but you my lucky reader, who hasn't seen the anime, probably won't have it as bad as when it was airing.

In all, Akame Ga Kill is a fun ride if you're willing to excuse some bumps along the track. It's not a master piece by any means, but if you look at it at just the right angel, you might find something I did not.

When I first heard of Akame Ga Kill I was rather hyped It sounded like it'd be the new fullmetal alchemist a shonen with a great mix of comedy drama and action the similarities are there in in both shows a Boy Is coming from a village to a city to become a military dog of sorts both for different reasons The start admittedly had potential Then right when the first death of a main character happened the show began to fall apart

Story(3/10) The story is quite generic a typical boy coming to a big city to join Military the so He can earn ... money to send to his village Little does he know how corrupt the capital is after some events occur he ends up being recruited by the assassin group night raid that wish to overthrow the government a rebellion of sorts Sounds pretty cool right?

Unfortunately Immediately after the first Dramatic scene of the show one that should be effecting Tatsumi on an emotional level to develop his character the Writers thought it would be a good idea to have a comedic moment less then 30 seconds after And that is one of Akame Ga Kill's major faults is there is no tone to it whatsoever, Not to mention The humor is bland as hell almost all of it could just be cut out and you wouldn't even notice It makes it hard to take the show seriously story

Characters: (3/10) Where to even start with this... Akame tries desperately to make us care for these characters they are killing off but the show kills Characters off so frequently The Characters don't get nearly As enough development as they should of The deaths of each characters is treated as a 3 step process. 1 Give the Character some screen time In the previous episode 2 Give them some sort of backstory and flashbacks Then finally 3 Send them off to some fight and watch them die It sounds like I'm being harsh on it but that is what it is the only death that was unpredictable was in the final episodes and that Didn't even happen in the Manga. I don't have an issue with Character Deaths but Atleast develop The Characters due to a lack of Characterization It just made their deaths feel meaningless As for The Characters themselves they are pretty generic But I still for some Reason Liked most of them Especially Bulat Because of how Entertaining and funny He was and Sheele Who I Only like Because I have a fetish for Glasses And Purple Hair Some of The Characters felt Completely useless Mainly The Night Raid Leader Najenda You would expect Her to be badass and important But sadly She Really didn't do anything for the entire show Even though She has potential to be a badass and capable Female Character The Show just didn't Use any of the Potential The Characters Had

Art (4/10) The Animation for the Show While it looked Nice it Just looked kind of Standard Nothing To Special in it However The Action Was nice as Expected But There is a lot of Still Images and Movements The only real issue I have is there is so much blood coming out From The Characters it feels so unrealistic because I doubt there is even that much blood in a Human Body.

Sounds (510)The Music was pretty Average The Openings were decent and fit the Show Nicely but there was nothing Distinct about it For Instance If you Listen to Any song from the Sound Track of a show like Death Note It should be instantly Identifiable You could tell what Anime its from because it has its Own Style Akame doesn't have this it sounds like it was from any other anime. Its not a bad OST Just not Worth a Download.

Enjoyment (510) It was Entertaining at times But The Lack of a Consistent Tone For the Show just Took Me out of the Mood Its Nothing Thought Provoking at All But the action is entertaining for what it is.

Overall (3/10) This Show is a Shonen trying to be a Seinen it thinks if they kill Characters off for no Logical Reason its dark and edgy If They would of Developed some of the Characters it would of been a Much Better show It does nothing New for the Shonen Or Action Genre But It does have a Decent Premise and it Stays True to itself The Entire show If you like Watching entertaining Action Scenes and Characters being Treated like Sheep Being sent to the Slaughter House There's a Chance You'd Enjoy this But if You Enjoy Thought Provoking Well Written Shows look Somewhere Else Final Score

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(This has been adapted from my reddit thread)

There's an implication drawn from war that, no matter how much we desire it to be false, people will get hurt. Now, this isn't strictly between countries. "War" in this context encompasses all battles. Mental turmoil, physical skirmishes, and verbal bashing are simple examples of such altercations. In some way, shape, or form, the people involved will not leave entirely unscathed. And depending on the severity of the situation, death is a possibility. Akame ga Kill! is all about such death, but is not much more than violence without substance.

STORY

The journey starts with Tatsumi, a young village boy ... who moves to the Capitol in search of his fellow companions. What he finds within the city leads him to join Night Raid, an assassin-filled group whose goal is grand in scope but simple in nature: overthrow the kingdom.

Akame ga Kill! relies on the notion of emotional appeal. Death is rampant within the show, meaning no characters are safe. Akame, Tatsumi, Sheele, literally everyone attributed to the anime are at risk of being eliminated. In order for this to work, Akame ga Kill! requires that the audience become invested in the characters themselves. This is the first problem the anime encounters. Most of the characters are, at times, given their moment of spotlight. Usually involving a single episode or so, much of the cast is given some slight background in order to provide insight about who he or she is and where he or she came from. But there's a rift in this story-telling. For a vast majority of the characters, the appeal mentioned earlier either isn't enough or is hastily thrown in. This creates a disconnect that causes a loss in the show's intended effect. More specifically, the anime has too many characters with too little time to make the deaths meaningful or impactful enough.

Akame ga Kill! also suffers an identity crisis. It constantly reverberates between being a serious, "dramatic" battle shounen and a comical, light-hearted romp. The show demonstrates time and again how brutal many of the situations can get. But when it is interspersed with funny jabs or quips to lighten the mood, it doesn't add anything. Rather, it portrays a lack of focus. Then, when the show slides back towards its more serious self, the same issue arises again. Thinking about both aspects, the show shines brighter when it is following the more serious tones. This is mainly due in part to the more "adult" subject matter of murder, espionage, and torture. Sadly, the show doesn't stick to this thinking until the final few episodes. Meaning, one must wade through the entirety of the show's lack of direction.

A glaring issue that Akame ga Kill! also harbors is in what actually occurs. Much of what happens has little or zero consequence on future scenarios. The goal behind Night Raid is to topple the current government. They say that what they do along the way is striving towards that goal, but it never comes off that way. Instead, each fight is standalone. Destroying the lab monsters, getting rid of a high officer, or killing a member of the Jaegers doesn't directly affect the group's ultimate dream. In this way, every episode isn't a step towards a resolution, but is instead just another time slot dedicated to potentially killing off another cast member.

ANIMATION

Akame ga Kill! tends to do well in this department, regardless of the awful story.

Beginning with the art style, the show is, more or less, generic. Forests, safe havens, and inner city towns provide some variety, but are usually not detailed too extremely. The character designs, on the other hand, are actually quite pleasant. While most stick to a "this is my color" formula, the designs are done in such a way as to express that character's personality. Akame appears mysterious and foreboding with her jet-black, straight hair and red eyes, while Lubbock seems energetic his disheveled attire. This applies to both the good and the bad guys. It's easy to see that much attention was paid to make them stand out.

Animation-wise, the show does above average. The fight scenes are both large and small in scale, with many opportunities to show off its prowess. Examples include a flurry of swords between duelists or a massive explosion as the byproduct of an Imperial Arm. Since most of the show is steeped in fighting, and the quality of the fights never seems to falter too much, the show should at least be credited for this.

One last note. The show incorporates some rather impressive shots that are more paintings than drawings. These occur usually once per episode. They don't do much other than show case a heavily detailed scene, but they're a nice addition to provide the animators involved a chance to showcase their talent.

CHARACTERS

This is perhaps the most difficult category. Again, Akame ga Kill! requires a big investment towards the characters involved. Some may argue that this is true for all shows. And to an extent, they are correct. However, this one makes it paramount that such a bond is established. Since death is the name of the game, if the death doesn't matter, than neither does the character. To avoid spoilers, I'll focus on my personal favorites.

Having an anime titled after you is no easy feat. Akame, the sort of "poster child" for Night Raid, is an assassin known for her unmatched swordplay. Resolute, quiet, and unusually hungry, she takes it upon herself to remember the foes of her past in order to provide strength for her future. Despite being in the title, she is relegated to the sideline for a good portion of the show. Character background is given for her, but it comes too little too late. It's strange, to say the least. In the beginning, when she is first introduced, it seems as if her role will be quite huge in the context of the story. But that is not the case. Instead, Tatsumi takes this position, leaving Akame on the wayside. Seeing as Tatsumi is a rather lame protagonist, I think this decision was a poor one.

Most girls like to dress up and put on make-up, and Chelsea is no different. Her flowing orange hair and signature candy sucker make her not only attractive but also "human." That is, among everyone, she seems the most out of place within the fantastical world. Her personality is upbeat, and often clashes with Mine. However, her cheerfulness should not be mistaken for passiveness. Chelsea's main problem is that her inclusion serves no larger purpose. She's pretty much just there. While she may be a confident and fun young lady, she brings almost nothing to the table.

Esdeath, and Akame ga Kill!'s "best girl," is technically not the main antagonist. However, her presence on the battlefield certainly makes it so. Icy and cold, like the Imperial Arm she wields, Esdeath is the epitome of war. Her beauty is striking and so are her skills. Throughout the show, it becomes apparent just how unstoppable a force she really is. Yet, behind her cool demeanor lies a gentler side that she can't quite seem to understand. Her motivations are simple (she just loves to kill and fight), making her a rather plain villain. However, her decision making is not without reason and her personality, despite her torturous ways, makes her adored by all.

Objectively speaking, I find Seryuu Ubiquitous (what a last name! :P) to be the strongest character. Absolutely staunch in her convictions, she aims to bring justice upon the evil-doers of the land. She is quite two-faced, acting bubbly and happy by day but ferocious and insane by night. Her ideals rival that of Night Raid. That is to say, while what she is doing seems wrong, to her she believes that her actions are just. That what she is doing is for the good of the Capitol. Out of the entire cast, she seems to provide the most insight: sometimes, it's important to take a step back and truly think about what you are doing.

The rest of the cast is either largely forgettable or doesn't do much to make a lasting impression. They may have their moments here or there, but there just isn't enough character development or attachment to any of them to make them worthwhile.

SOUND

The first OP follows a rock-n-roll approach, with hard guitar and drum beats. The vocals involved are quite tame in comparison. The song itself is okay, with the best portion coming through in the end with the final guitar riff.
The second OP is a step up from the first. It's very gradual, starting almost as a lullaby, but picking up tempo with the guitar and choir singing. Once again, the final guitar pieces take the cake, but accompanied with even more of the choir singing, it makes it all feel quite strong.

The first of the EDs is very gentle, contrasting well with the show's overall atmosphere. The violin playing adds to this, as does the slow drum beat. Vocally, the singer does a nice job, too.

The last ED follows its counterpart, being rather gentle in nature. The multiple voices singing in harmony give a rather pleasant feeling. In fact, the visuals provide a lot of the sensation; it feels as if the song flows like rippling water.

The soundtrack doesn't have anything particularly amazing. If there was anything, I usually enjoyed the sound effect of Akame clashing or slicing through someone. It's a distinct "whoosh!" sound effect that always sounded pretty cool.

Voice acting wise, there are no stand out performances to be had.

ENJOYMENT

Much of the fun for this one derives from the fights themselves. It was usually awesome to see the varying Imperial Arms at work and how they would clash with one another. In particular, the final duel is quite impressive, both in its length, the variety of moves, and the ultimate, final technique.

A lot of the bad guys that pop up throughout the anime are really quite lame. They are just there to be evil and killed off. Meaning, I was never really fazed by anyone that Night Raid had to encounter, because they never added their own spice or originality. This is obviously not true for the Jaegers, but before their introduction (and even during their time), the rest of the villains are nothing more than boring fodder.

At the end of the day, Akame ga Kill! is an anime that really doesn't do much. The characters are very hit or miss and the story is nonsensical. However, if someone is looking to have a semi-enjoyable time, wondering who will prevail after all is said and done, this wouldn't be a bad place to start.

SUMMARY

Story: Terrible, disconnected, doesn't know what it wants to be, no purpose

Animation: Good, nice character designs, above average actual animation, picture-esque still frames

Characters: Bad, fun cast, but the majority are non-memorable

Sound: Fine, mix of okay and good OPs and EDs, forgettable soundtrack, average VA work

Enjoyment: Fine, action and death galore

Final Score: 4/10

To say the shonen action genre needs to move on from DBZ is like saying that Taylor Swift should never rap ever again. Everyone knows this, and yet nothing is done to fix the problem and we continue to expose ourselves to it, basically telling the producers that we want more of this shit. We want more lazy ridiculous action with worse choreography than Lethal Weapon 4. We want unironic humor with less wit than Lethal Weapon 4. We want our shows to go on for more than one-cour because the longer the better, and whilst the details are a little different, guess what production ... decisions were made that caused one of the worst fourth entries in action series history to exist?

And it says alot about the genre when all it takes is one new thing to stand out and suddenly we jump on it like a Marvel fanboy who discovered that Thanos would be in the newest Avenger movie. Now don't get me wrong, I've always rolled my eyes at the fact that people could partake in duels that send you flying and cut off limbs and yet nobody dies in the end. But I never felt the stairway scene in The Protector would have been much better if we saw those goons getting their heads kicked off, because at the end of the day, I'm watching action stuff for the action, and anything else that comes with the territory either supports the stuff or comes off as a natural consequence. Akame ga Kill doesn't do either of those things though. Instead, it does everything Lethal Weapon 4 did wrong, and it proceeded to drag that pain out for more than six times the length.

But before we get into that, let's talk about what Akame ga Kill is about. Well, it's about how many shonen stereotypes you can fit into your standard fantasy setting and still expect to be taken seriously, is what it is. Despite not having his name in the title - and said titular girl having less importance than Zelda did in her own franchise - our main protagonist is Tatsumi, your typical village idiot who ends up digging himself into deep shit when he ends up befriending a cheerful girl who is actually EVIL. And believe me when I say she isn't the only one. There's a lot of characters in this show who act like rejected Pokemon characters until you give them a reason to kill you, in which case they turn into Dennis Hopper impersonators.

However, his life is saved from this EVIL girl by a bunch of assassins called Night Raid, who wear their title about as well as Epic Movie does due to being about as sneaky and dangerous as Black Star, and he ends up joining their ranks in order to take revenge for some throwaway friends the story forgets about within six episodes. Once in, he must deal with the harsh life of being an assassin such as uncovering the true nature of these EVIL characters, gaining the resolve to kill them for justice, coping with the loss of teammates, and fighting off an Ilsa reject who has the hots for him because he's the main character.

It should be noted that Akame ga Kill is made by White Fox, whose record in terms of fight scenes is worse than Jon Favreau if he had the shakes. They also have a bad record in terms of animation quality, with the decently animated stuff being reserved for KyoAni-level light hearted entries and the horrendously awful-looking stuff reserved for everything else. And boy does that apply with this show, because it looks it was made in the late 90s by people who don't grasp the notion of shading and color schemes. Even more unfortunately, it's not just the visuals that are washed-out. I've seen JC Staff shows that have had more imaginative character designs and action scenes than this crap and whoever thought them up deserves to be sent back to whatever art school they graduated from. Just compare the Milky Holmes finales (the good ones I mean) to this show's "target one spot and use stills for the finishing blow" and prepare to not go blind from visual whiplash. Or alternatively, watch Terra Formars at the same time and see which can bore you more in terms of ruining visceral impact.

But it's not just the bad action that the studio brought with them in terms of adapting the manga. They also brought their usual pacing problems along with them. The one thing that stands out about the show - the fact that characters die - ends up working against it because the author uses it less as a way to lend gravitas to the plot and more in the way of padding things out in order to get a two-cour length out of this thing. Only the non plot-important characters ever get the axe and because the show always gives you (shallow) background information on them right before they die, it's hard to really summon any enthusiasm for when said axe is swung, especially when they keep introducing new unimportant characters to get killed off shortly after to the point that the formula becomes more repetitive than each installment of a first-party Nintendo franchise. The actual plot-related characters barely push things forward, and when they do, it comes in the form of tired shenanigans like being trapped on a deserted island or running away entirely, just preventing anything from getting done.

It also doesn't help that none of the characters - main or extra - have any flavor to them whatsoever. All of them are defined by one trait and it never evolves into anything even remotely resembling complexity. I've heard a lot of people talk up Esdeath prior to watching this, but her utter devotion to her masters along with her one-sided love for Tatsumi and handling powers that no human being should be able to handle makes her more the perfect wife for Tatsuya from Mahouka rather than someone I'd want on my side if she wasn't trying to kill me. Jet Li didn't even talk much in Lethal Weapon 4 and yet he had more charisma in one shitty movie than the entire cast throughout this two-cour trainwreck.

And just to turn up the heat on this burnt-out mess, there's the issue of the show's ending. Now Akame ga Kill's manga wasn't finished by the time the show was put into production and thus the studio had to take some liberties with the actual source. Now whilst I'm all for removing the clowns and changing source material altogether, this only works if the changes have some creativity put into them. Not only is a giant immobile mecha shooting up the city incredibly boring to watch, the finale is more rushed than a university student trying to prepare for his exam two hours prior whilst constipated. Combine that with the flat characters and you've got one of the most underwhelming auto-piloted endings to a revolution I've ever seen in fiction. Say what you want about Episode III. At least the destruction of the Jedi was done in an epic way.

Which leads me to the big question I have regarding this show before I end this sea of paragraphs: why was it ever popular to begin with? It adds nothing new to the shonen action genre and whatever potential new thing it could have added is lost in a sea of tired cliches and production problems. I tried looking at a few anonymous forums to see what all the hype was about, but I got turned off by people stating "they kept this rape scene in. Awesome!" or "I was so scared that Leone was going to die because of this show's 'no one is safe' atmosphere". Yeah, because I was so scared for a character who never had her origins explained and whose apparent "deaths" were severely lacking in drama compared to everyone else's.

And as for the people wishing for an army of John Wayne Gacys to show up and do their thing, what the fuck is wrong with you? There's liking violence and then there's just being plain psychotic. And you enter the latter territory the moment you purchase the newest Grand Theft Auto over the newest Saints Row willingly.

Ah, Akame ga Kill, a show hyped up immensely for the Fall of 2014. To be honest, I was really looking forward to watching the show when it was first announced. I have read the manga, and I thought it was at least decent, if nothing else, and it should’ve been decent as anime material as well, but no, it wasn’t.

Instead what we got was a messily-written, poorly adapted mess of a show that killed itself by the end of it all.

Now, before I start this review, let me just note, that even though I’ve read the manga, I will be judging this show based ... on its own merits. There’s also a TL;DR at the end for anyone who doesn’t want to read so much.


Story:- 3/10

The story of Akame ga Kill revolves around a young boy, Tatsumi, from a village who sets out to join the military in the capital in order to gain money for his village. Unfortunately, once he does reach the capital, he realizes that the capital is in fact, a corrupt place which was all caused by the person who manipulates a young emperor to his whim, the Prime Minister. Later, through a strange course of events, he is semi-forced to join a group, named Night Raid, which is in fact a band of assassins who are attempting the break the empire.

Seems good doesn’t it? Well, yes. The premise is a pretty good setup. But don’t let that fool you. The show starts off pretty good, especially the first 2 episodes, but after that it’s all downhill.

The main praise that the story of Akame ga Kill gets is the praise that it had the guts to kill off its own characters. While that may be, you barely get to know anything about the character before they die, meaning that, the character deaths never got to me at an “emotional scale”.

The story has very weird pacing, one episode a main character could’ve died, while in the next, the rest of the characters are on a beach laughing and playing. The story keeps jumping around, and at times it became incomprehensible. The show also has a harem aspect, which at times, got really annoying since it was completely unnecessary and it just wasted time.

Along with this, there’s also the fact that the story feels very rushed. There were a lot of things that were left unanswered, and while I won’t specify anything, the last 5 episodes were completely asinine.


Art and Animation:- 6/10

The animation of Akame ga Kill was done by White Fox, a studio known for such works like Steins; Gate and Jormungand. Unfortunately, this is definitely not their best work. The most I can say about the animation is that it’s very bland. The lack of attention to detail is, quite frankly, disgusting. The only real thing that stands out in the show’s animation is its average quality, and that is not what I look for in an animation studio.

Though, there are two positives to the animation, those are, the well done fight sequences, and the excess of blood shown, something that a lot of recent anime seem to avoid.

Overall, while the animation of the show isn’t bad, it’s nothing great.


Sound:- 5/10

Moving away from the art, we have the music, which is just as average as the art, if not worse. The soundtrack of the show is so bland, that I had to go re-watch a few episodes just to see how good or bad the soundtrack was, and now, I still can’t remember how it was.

Both openings of the show were pretty decent, and the second ending was also good, the first ending though, didn’t do that much for me.

But now we arrive at the voice actors. Oh god, these voice actors. This show provided me with some of the absolute most clichéd voices I’ve heard in anime for some time. If someone’s and antagonist, then their voice just shouts “I’M THE BAD GUY!”, and if someone was a protagonist, their voice shouted “I’M THE GOOD GUY!”.


Character:- 1/10

This is the section where this anime, like many others before it, falls flat on its face. But this one doesn’t just fall; it falls into a bottomless pit, never to be seen again.

Let me just say it flat out. The characters in Akame ga Kill, are the most clichéd, stereotypical and straight up least developed characters I’ve ever seen. Even some terrible shows, like Pupa, had more interesting characters that had some kind of depth to them, and I’m not kidding.

Let me just spell out the stereotypes for you.
Tatsumi is the young hero who wants to become strong. Akame is the classic case of a cold uncaring assassin, who also happens to be a food junkie. Leone is the Onee-San, who loves to make sexual references to the youngest in the group, in this case, Tatsumi. Lubbock is the perverted guy who’s actually nice-hearted, but still tries to sneak in a peek at some ladies. Sheele is the airhead. Bulat is the strong dependable older brother of the show, to whom Tatsumi looks up to. *cough*Kamina*cough*.

Chelsea and Najenda were the only two characters who I actually cared for, not because they were developed, but because they were the only characters who were even remotely realistic.

The we have the most classic case of Mine. Mine is a tsundere.

What? You expected more? Well tough shit, there is nothing more. That’s it, she’s a pure Tsundere with no effort put into her character.

We also have the ever so popular Esdeath for you Yandere-lovers out there. She’s a Yandere, and a sadistic one at that. Again, there’s nothing more to her character.

In the end though, I did care for a certain group of characters, the rivals of Night Raid, who are the assassins for the empire, the Jaegers. This group was a bit more interesting and entertaining in comparison to the shit-fest that was Night Raid.

So in the end Akame ga Kill, has one or two decent characters, but the negatives completely outweigh the positives in this section.

Enjoyment:- 7/10
This is the best part of this anime. Regardless of its numerous flaws, I enjoyed watching the anime, even if it wasn’t exactly enjoyable for the right reasons. In the first half of the show I enjoyed watching the anime without noticing its flaws. Towards the middle, that enjoyment turned to distaste as I watched while noticing most of its flaws. By the end I was laughing my ass off as to how hilariously bad the show had become.


Pros:
-A good premise
-Average animation
-Decent action
-Good openings and endings
-Slightly enjoyable
-There wasn’t any censorship

Cons:
-Terrible execution of story
-Horribly written characters
-Forgettable soundtrack
-Poorly adapted(For manga readers)
-The ending was awful


TL;DR :- Overall, Akame ga Kill, was a poorly adapted show. It had a decent premise which went wrong. In its technical department it could not have been more average, and the characters are stereotypical, bland and underdeveloped to no extent. The show starts off as a dark and gritty shounen that could've become a seinen, but eventually it just devolved into a generic shounen that was as average as average can be.

OVERALL: 4.4/10

Akame ga Kill is not the worst anime ever made, but it sure is one of the least genuine. The writing pieces together mismatched elements of shonen adventure and gives them a screwball seriousness about death until the word ‘death’ has lost all meaning. The script is oversaturated with character introductions and sensationalized death scenes that feel simply slimy. The grubbiness that Akame ga Kill exhibits come right from the very bottom of the medium complete with unexplained power ups, an impossibly simplistic corrupt fantasy setting, and hundreds upon hundreds of flat characters.

The amount of fried chicken consumed in this anime is painful. The Prime ... Minister’s beloved son dies? It’s time for fried chicken. Akame is on stakeout? It’s time for fried chicken. Wallowing in sadness about the death of a main character? It’s time for fried chicken. The fried chicken gag is indicative of the narrative depth here. It doesn’t go deeper than visual indulgence. There are no subtleties in Akame ga Kill. The good guys simply move on without meditation on death, and the bad guys are simply bad without any logical reason. The protagonists are protagonists because the show needed them scripted like that, and the antagonists are the same way. Even with the introduction of the Jaegers (why a German name?) and Tatsumi’s foil (more like clone) the show simply ramps up the stakes. The bad guys get bigger as the good guys get stronger and they keep introducing new characters that are “stronger” and occasionally an old face is replaced with a new face (Bulat becomes Susanoo).

Akame ga Kill manages to create a cast of both heroes and villains with no positive traits. Seryuu Ubiquitious as an example, is a character that exists solely to be an antagonist. She has catchphrases, she has special moves, and she has “moral values” that contradict our protagonists. Except none of the characters ever make any sense. Why does she want to Kill Tatsumi? It’s her job to eradicate all evil no matter what it is? It doesn’t make any sense on a literal level and it doesn’t make any sense on a realistic level. I’m not saying anime characters moral codes should be realistic, but then shouldn’t they serve a greater thematic purpose? Having to hear about why Akame needs to be the one to kill her sister makes for some of the stupidest monologues not because it’s a flawed idea at its base but because there is no basis for her needing to kill her sister to begin with. And when the show moves towards characters like Esdeath and her talk about love it feels as if the largest and most blunt plot device starts pressing harder and harder on the script. Akame ga Kill is serious about a whole lot of nothing other than reaching its embarrassing (near direct Madoka rip-off) anime original ending.

How did someone come up with the character designs and fantasy setting for Akame ga Kill? Just like Shingeki no Kyojin, it is some sort of walled city with a corrupt government. Except our protagonists are a pink haired goth-loli, a schoolgirl with a sword that instantly causes death, a generic guy, a green haired steam punk dude, a gay guy, a Japanese god-turned-golem and a buxom cyborg-like leader. The bad guys are a dog that turns into a full arsenal, another generic guy, another schoolgirl, another gay guy, another buxom leader, and a man in a gas mask with a flamethrower. None of these things even follow a design scheme! It’s like a party with the most interesting people in the world who all leave before you can ask them how they managed to get to there. Where Shingeki no Kyojin can get by with flat and often ridiculous characters sadly Akame ga Kill does not have the production value. Visually it’s bland and static, with very few dynamic camera angles and often whole fight scenes skipped or scratched for reasons beyond explanation. My favorite was a scene where a series of “danger beasts” – almost forgot about these - approach Tatsumi out of nowhere and he announces that it’s going to be a tough fight. Immediately the scene cuts and he is sheathing his sword, and announces that it was indeed a tough fight. For an action and adventure show, how could you have the brass to write that? There are show’s that are plucky enough to get away with it, like the entirety of episode 4 of Katanagatari, but Akame ga Kill is not that smart. You wouldn’t realize how stupid Akame ga Kill is if it wasn’t this loud.

The show is a mistake from beginning to end, but it’s not without entertainment. And that’s the whole hook of it. You’ve seen this show hundreds of times before but maybe never this simple. It really is the mindless violence action anime of 2014, whatever that title means to you. I do not recommend it over anything but if you want mindlessness you have it's essence distilled right here. I look at Akame ga Kill as a failed version of Shingeki no Kyojin because it is even more indulgent in terms of gore and has less of a mystery element. This anime is mighty popular, but you are not missing anything by not watching it. The ancient relics have no boundaries in terms of power scope, and the bad guy is named Prime Minister Honest. I can’t believe someone wrote this.

*Spoiler-free review*
I'm not sure why it was panned by a lot of reviewers, but I actually enjoyed Akame Ga Kill. It's certainly not perfect but it did some things that were executed fairly well in my opinion.

I can see why people had a problem with how a lot of humor was written in the episodes as it can mess with the pace. I saw the random bits of comedy as just that, comic relief. I did find some of it distracting or just simply drawing out the episodes, and at some point, the series started to really feel like it was just ... dragging.

Other issues that I had was it has the makings of a harem anime (which I generally despise). I'll leave it at that.

So the low down on each category:
Story: It seemed simple at first. Then it becomes convoluted as most stories go, and at some points it becomes predictable. My biggest peeve is that the story wants to go one direction and builds up to it, just to get COMPLETELY quashed leaving the viewer wondering what just happened and why.

Another big problem I had is that it's called "AKAME ga kill," not Tatsumi. The story focuses primarily on Tatsumi, while granted is far more interesting than Akame's very plain yet sometimes quirky demeanor. But the show tries to keep reminding you that it's about Akame, but you never really know why.

The story flatlines about 10 episodes in, picks up, then flatlines again. So if you watch this show for the story, don't expect anything mind-blowing or innovative.

While I had no problem with the pacing (apparently a lot of people said it went all over the place, I on the other hand thought Kill La Kill was much more all over the place), the mood does change a lot and sometimes you're not sure if they're about to insert a gag or not.

Art - I really enjoyed the character designs and the costumes. Yes, there's fan service, women are generally very well-endowed and the animators have little shame in showing off their assets as well as practically a few mandatory skimpy scenes, but again, at least they don't have entire episodes devoted to bikinis and swimming.

The fight scenes I thought were animated well. They're not absurdly lengthy and not many instances that I noticed of recycled shots.

Sound - Nothing to really write home about but I enjoyed most of the voice acting (especially Leone's), the first intro song Skyreach was great, the music is generic background music to match the mood of the show. Nothing much else.

Character - They built this story around a bunch of tragic characters for the most part and let their stories unfold as needed. It gave the viewer a reason to care about almost every character in the show, even the antagonists. They even take the time to flesh out the antagonists and really humanizing every character and why they became who they were. By the end, if you invest in the show a little bit, you might find yourself caring about the antagonists as well. This is where I thought the show actually did shine and kept me watching.

Enjoyment - I actually liked the comic relief bits. It does ease up towards the end of the show and becomes less distracting but all-in-all, I thought it was good enough.

In conclusion. don't expect knock-your-socks-off action or deep storylines, but if you watch the show as-is with no expectations and keeping an open mind to random acts of silliness, you might enjoy the show as much as I did.

I could still do with less Tatsumi.

(Potentially Spoilerific)I began watching Akame ga kill recently, after a long hiatus from anime in general caused mostly by the trials and tribulations of adult life. My time is more precious than it's ever been and I have a limited amount of time for BS. Akame ga kill is BS. This is simply one of the worst shows I've ever seen, the only reason I stuck it out to the end was because I wanted to see how horribly bad it could get.

From the get-go, the show is confused, it doesn't know whether it's telling a serious and meaningful story or whether it's just ... making fun of itself. A number of moments in the show that are supposed to be heart-wrenching or intended to leave a lasting impression are cheapened by silly one liners, tropes, and awful humour.

The shows humour isn't even original, don't come here if you're after comedy. The same old recycled cliches are thrown at you.

Akame ga Kill isn't afraid to kill of its main characters - this is usually a good thing, but in akame ga kill it's almost a testament to how awful the show really is. The show fails to form a connection between the viewer and the characters. Summarily, they'll die and you won't care because they're such one dimensional recycled clones.

The show's "unique" blend of humour and violence is almost disturbing. As is their glorification of what are essentially terrorists. Issues like this aren't black and white though, there is rarely an "entirely evil empire" and an "entirely good group of assassins" the first few episodes really cement this paradigm as the various members of Night Raid confront one dimensional power rangers baddy X Y and Z before being given a bunch of Night Raid clones to fight against.

In terms of action, the battles are unbelievable and badly choreographed. Although the show kills its characters it does not maintain a shred of credibility when it comes to how strong people are, or how they fare against one another, it's all quite random. It's the sort of thing you'd spoon feed to a 3 year old making airplane noises and expect them to swallow.

I'm going to end this review now and throw up. I really feel like throwing up now, that's how bad this is.

When I was watching Akame ga kill I will admit I couldn't wait until the next episode every week (I have mini alarms on my phone that tell me when the episode is about) All in all the story was amazing and there where more than a few tears shed during it. You get so attached to the characters and all you want is for them to succeed, I loved there goals and there outlook on the era and life everyone was living, doing everything they can to help thou's suffering around them and bringing forth the true justice.

Akame ga Kill! is probably one of the biggest train wrecks of 2014. That's really the only way to describe it. It is a train wreck. In the beginning, the train began running. In the middle, it began to waver a little. By the end, it's crashed into the lake. That, of course, is Akame ga Kill! right there.

Do note that this review will refer to the anime and only the anime, so there will be little to no mention of the manga.

STORY:

As the summary says, the story of Akame ga Kill! is basically about the main character, Tatsumi, being roped into an organization called ... Night Raid dedicated to taking down the corruption within the Capitol, said corruption stemming from the evil Prime Minister who controls the young king like a puppet. It's nothing ground-breaking, but it works. At least, the premise does, anyway. See, some problems with Akame ga Kill! stem from sounding good on paper and then turning out to be lacking in execution, like the aforementioned premise. To name an example, there's the decision to introduce a rival organization called the Jaegers that works under the Capitol to fight Night Raid, and though it's a little cheesy to have a "good team vs. bad team" in a vein similar to the Super Friends vs. The Legion of Doom, but it would have been nice, considering the story spends some time focusing on the characters within the Jaegers and establishing character relationships in it like in Night Raid. Another concept that sounded cool on paper was the fact that the majority of the cast is not protected by plot armor, so truly, anyone could die at any moment. This is one concept that probably drew in many people who were tired of anime or manga where characters kept being resurrected, like say Naruto and Dragon Ball. However, the fatal flaw for both of these examples, if not a half-assed execution, would be lack of characterization that makes you care for what happens to anyone, but we'll get to characters later.

For the world, there's very little to say about it. The only thing you can say about it is "it's a medieval-esque fantasy world." It looks like it's straight out of a Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, or Legend of Zelda game, what with the towns and exotic monsters, except it doesn't have nearly as much thought put into the world-building, so the setting essentially doesn't contribute much to anything either.

All I can say for the rest of the story is, well, it's a train wreck. It completely jumps the gun sometime in the later half, stops caring about anything, and starts going all Urobuchi on the characters who are still alive at this point.

ART:

There's nothing much to say in the Art department. The art style is generic and somewhat uninspired, but it works, if nothing else. The designs are simple but varied enough, whether it be for the monsters, weapons, etc. The animation is standard fare; the characters look shaded well enough and the fights can be fun at times, but nothing really sticks out but it's not necessarily bad either, except for whenever they'd keep showing still-shots like this was a PowerPoint presentation.

SOUND:

Like the art, there's really not much to say here in my opinion. The voice acting is okay, and the screams are even delicious to listen to (if that makes any sense), but I wouldn't be giving out any awards. As for the soundtrack, there also aren't any songs that really stick out, though if there's one highlight, it would be the first opening, "Skyreach," by Sora Amamiya. While the second opening, "LIAR MASK," by Rika Mayama, was also good in its own right, as were the endings, I probably won't remember them tomorrow, so that's that.

CHARACTER:

The characters aren't noteworthy at all. Like, any of them. At all. It's difficult to go into more detail because there's frankly not much more to go into more detail about. There's the main character Tatsumi, but he's ultimately bland and unmemorable in terms of personality. He's brave, somewhat heroic, and determined, like millions of other fictional protagonists out there. That's really all there is to describe him. There's also Akame, who despite having her name in the title, has little to do with the plot. In the beginning, she's introduced as arguably the best killer in Night Raid, and as for personality, she's depicted as somewhat gluttonous and insensitive, but ultimately very caring, but eventually, most of these traits fail to develop or completely disappear. There's also side characters like Leone, the hot older sister type, Lubbock, the perverted laid-back guy, Bulat, the cool older brother type, Sheele, the cute ditz (for the most part), Mine, the tsundere loli-esque girl, and many others. Most of these characters also lack notable depth and come with their own sad backstories that are mentioned once and then never again. Speaking of things that are mentioned once and never brought up again, let me tell you one thing, they handle the deaths of their friends and loved ones really, really well. Well enough to smile carelessly the very next episode.

Like the protagonists, the antagonists lack memorability and depth. The majority of them and their motivations can just be described as "they're evil!" and it's left at that. It doesn't really help that their evil nature are brought to the extreme; anyone who doesn't agree with the protagonists, the "good guys," are all depicted as sadistic and love nothing more than torturing and slaughtering people. Really, the only notable villain is General Esdeath, and that's because she's the best girl, of course, but I digress.

Lack of ample characterization really did hurt this show. If the characters were better developed or had at least thirty minutes of screen time, maybe their deaths would have mattered and have had more impact to the audience, but we're not dealing with "would have" thinking, hence the characters are probably the weakest aspect of the show.

ENJOYMENT:

Now, I've called Akame ga Kill! a train wreck, but I'll be damned if it wasn't a really entertaining train wreck. At least near the end anyway where, as I mentioned earlier, it just stopped caring. But for the majority of the show, I had serious mixed feelings. I had fun during the fights and whatnot, but there were a few things that threw me off, like the inconsistent tone ("My friends died? Well, okay. I'll just be sad about it for like five minutes and then get into a comedic / romantic misunderstanding with one of the girls."), the overall edginess, for a lack of better word, and subplots that really didn't lead anywhere (an episode dedicated to introducing a small group of villains kills most of them off by the end of the same episode). Overall, it was a mess, but it was a fun mess.

CONCLUSION:

Was Akame ga Kill! doomed from the start? Well, probably not. It could have been a good show if the writing was better, but, well, this isn't a good show, plain and simple. With bad execution, lackluster art & sound, cardboard cutout characters, and a later third that completely jumps the shark, the only way to enjoy this show is to turn off your brain and have some popcorn to go with it, but if you're looking for a piece of work that's actually good, look somewhere else.

Of all the anime to air in 2014, I think Akame ga Kill was the most dissapointing. Not because it was the worst, but because unlike the other overhyped shows of 2014, Akame ga Kill was actually "good" up until the last couple episodes. It's yet another reminder, along with Claymore and Guilty Crown, of how a bad enough ending can ruin an entire anime. However I tend to be more forgiving than many here on MAL and look at the whole content. I don't feel the slew of reviews giving this anime a 3 are fair.

Let's begin with the bad

The worst thing about ... AgK is the anticlimactic conclusion. I could expand on the absurdity of the anime-original ending and compare it to the manga in terms of character development and story, but it would alienate the anime-only viewers and become a comparison rather than a review.

So aside from a botched ending, the entire anime suffers from under-developed main characters and a lack of purpose from the evil prime minister who is despicable for the sake of being despicable. The show is called Akame ga Kill so you'd expect Akame to be a real standout character right? Wrong! Akame has very little to no depth and gets ridiculously little screentime for a "main character". Although there are hints about her past (maybe the author's way of saying "go read AgK Zero"?). Anyways, the "bad" here is that she wasn't the real main character. That position went to Tatsumi! He's far less interesting than the under-developed supporting characters and I feel the whole series would have been better off without him. That's not to say I hate him, I just feel very indifferent towards him (even his design is bland).

The other major problem are the (frequent) death scenes in the anime. If there is something anime taught me, it's that you don't need a highly developed character to make a death scene emotional. I don't think the issue in AgK was that the supporting character weren't developed enough, but rather the execution of their death's was poorly done. With the exception of a few (I will not spoil who).

So what's good about Akame ga Kill? After all I'm giving it a 7/10 so there are good things I want to point out.

For the most part (original ending excluded), the anime has real good pacing. Things happen chronologically and smoothly enough that you want to watch what happens next. The supporting characters, despite being too numerous to develop, are enjoyable to watch whether it be for their personalities or for their respective imperial arms (some being pretty awesome). This one may be subjective, but Esdeath is a major asset to the anime whether or not you like her. Her introduction propelled the show to higher ground and of all the characters she was by far the most developed. Plus I can't really think of any anime character that is comparable to Esdeath in terms of personality and presence. Lastly, the anime did a great job making the opposing faction "The Jaegers" likeable.

The animation is ok, but could be a lot better. The intense and eye-candy colors almost make up for the animation
The OST is surprisingly good with a handful of them being remarkable: "Yume Monogatari", "I’ve got to go home", "Meeting with Everyone", "Le chant de Roma", "Friend's Feelings"

Akame ga Kill had a lot of potential which fell short. It successfully built up to a climax and then lost the audience. Nonetheless it was a very fun ride with unpredictablility at every corner.

This anime had a really good start. Great fight sequences. It had a unique premise. The main character had a pretty generic feel to it. But it felt so rushed towards the ending.

I haven't read the manga but my friends tell me that it's a lot better. They don't skip a lot of things. There are a lot more characters and it hasn't ended yet.

The show was good. They didn't make you feel like the story was one-sided like most animes. It wasn't the heroes it wasn't the villains. They were just fighting for what they knew was right. The series did get annoying every ... now and then when they had to describe everything and I mean everything during a Fight scene. But other that that i think it was a good watch.

Nothing too special. But it was a nice watch.
I recommend to watch it if you didn't. It won't live an impact after but it won't make you feel like you wasted your time either.

7-8/10

I'm gonna be pretty biased about this since I absolutely hated this show.
That doesn't mean that it can't be entertaining for others.
Also this is my first review, and I won't be writing several drafts so this review might not be the most informational.

Story - 2/10
Akame Ga Kill! is pretty generic. A stupid and naive main character is recruited into a group and gradually learns lessons and becomes stronger. Meh. I felt like the writer tried too hard to make the world seem dark and unforgiving. Countless people die for absolutely no reason, including characters that you may or may not get attached to. Which ... leads me to the next category.

Character - 1/10
How can something so unoriginal be so popular? Tatsumi - the stupid and useless main character that gradually becomes more powerful. Akame - the seemingly coldhearted overpowered assassin that turns out to have an innocent side. Mine - the TSUNDERE. Lucca? or was it Lubba? - the pervert. I don't even remember the rest of the characters because they were so one dimensional and shallow. All of the characters were there to serve only one purpose, with the exception of Mine.

Art - 7
Standard. Nothing else to say. Some battle scenes were lazily animated though.

Sound - 9
The soundtrack was probably the most noticeable part of this show. I don't have a musical major or anything but I can tell you that the music set the mood exceptionally well.

Overall -
I hated this show.
But if you're into mindless slaughter, blood, boobs, and horribly timed comedy, this is for you.

Akame ga kill; it is a hit or miss completely. Either people like it or people want to write as many complaints to the author asap. I personally loved the plot and how they animation company was following the story so very well until the last five episodes. That's where everything went wrong; they anime veered a different direction than the manga. Akame ga kill is supposed to be dark and have it's light comedy to ease the viewer so they can enjoy the bitter sweetness of it. They problem with this anime and manga is that the target audience wasn't clear. It had laughs ... and enjoyable fight scenes that would make it seem like a shounen anime. But the darkness of it (which is seen in the first few episodes) was taken out completely by the anime company due to the fact that the anime was meant for younger audience which made it rather bland and took out the uniqueness of this anime. Since it had so much gore, it didn't do well in Japan and they had to come up with some other alternate ending which I found terrible. Those who have watched the anime without the manga, you are lucky yet unlucky. People who've watched the anime without reading would not understand how bad the ending actually is and will only see the anime as "the anime with a few good plot twists and amazing character development" those who read would only see how tragic this anime with such a well crafted plot which had potential to be a masterpiece, had turned to shit. Overall, in the perspective of the non readers, it's something worth killing your time on, and if you're curious to how the story should have went or want to see the potential it had to be a masterpiece, read the manga.