As a child, Yuu Kusaka made a vow upon a shooting star that he would stand on the side of justice and defend the weak. However, the death of one of his friends robs him of the desire to live up to that vow, and he turns a blind eye to the misery of others, using the mysterious power he possesses as a means of making money instead of helping those in need. His days of living only for himself continue, until he's forced to fight for his life against another classmate with powers similar to his. He's saved by a mysterious girl named Eimu Yoake, who also has strange powers.
Eimu reveals that his powers stem from a creature known as an Ayakashi, a parasitic being that grants the user special abilities at the price of slowly draining the life of the host. She helps him fully awaken his own. Now aware of the ayakashi he possesses, Yuu must live up to his childhood vow, putting his ayakashi to use and fend off those who would use their own for evil, all while unraveling the mystery behind the death of his friend.
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Comentários
froseph
Ayakashi was a very entertaining show in the end. It took a bit to get started but I found it a brillaint watch, for a show thats about magic powers, like Night Wizard or Prism Ark, but makes it bloody, throws human ethics onto the production floor. The base story aids this in its presentation. Although the premise is simple, Yuu holds within him a powerful Ayakashi and finds himself the target of villains wanting that power (played superbly by Tomakazu Sugita) while his friends suffer (the first of which was his childhood friend and crush Izumi. As nw Girl Eimu showsup to protect, Yuu the story develops nicely along a stadily paced path, with implication's of romance, violence, the price of death, among other themes. Whats intersting about these powers, is that using them, the Ayakashi eats at your own life force, andthe more you use it, the more you get injured, and permanent effects like blindness tart to take place, which offers a more subdued battle show that makes it all the more entertaining. The link between Eimu and Izumi is also nicely developed, taking the series in a nice direction that one doesnt expect making watching the developments very rewarding.
However their are a few niggling problems in story terms that stop this show from being up there with the classic anime. Such developments over the episodes are not linked together effectively and something that doesnt appear to clearly happen, has actually happened (Pam's changing sides seemed to happen overnight) and characters seem to have a tendency to change their minds without much prompting (The Yoake sisters seemingly having the worst problem with this. However most character's are entertaining, if a bit clichéd. Yuu is your typical hero, but he is a bit flakey in his opinion's, Hime is the sweet best friend, Eimu is the stark serious one, all archetypes used before, but played to a mostly decent level that you feel somewhat emotional when character's die. And the show doesnt hold back on innocent sacrifices, which is what sets it apart from other super-power based shows and into the murky realms of Death Note and the like.
And if there is one thing that helps this dark atmospher its the nice Animation. Aesthetically, the art takes a bit of getting used to but really fits well with the piece. The colur palette for character's are varied from piks, purples, light blues to deep greens, but the vibrancy is degraded, and when placed on top of grey morbid backgrounds, really sets up a dark fantasy setting effectively well, without skimping on the attractiveness of its female cast (except maybe Hime, whose desgin seems dull and unattractive). The sound only serves to keep the dark morbid atmosphere and up the tension on a frequent basis and is well used to attempt to make the fight scenes more tense than they actually are. And thats one of the shows other weak points. Despite many conflicts, the battles seem dull and unispired, even if the art smoothly flows through each sequence, its just nothing really happens in 80% of the fights. Still it feels like a minor flaw compared to the show's interesting character developed plot. Wiht the beautiful animation and the appropriate soundtrack this anime is aesthetically pleasing, including one of my personal favourite Ending songs (that i'm listening to as I write this over and over) as it helps really enhance the despair and emotional impact the series can have on its audience and its main cast.
If you want something deep in dramatic tension, with a decent amount of blood and violence (that thankfully doesnt overdo it) with a dark foreboding atmosphere, you can go no wrong with Ayakashi. Its one of the darker tales of its genre, and as animation goes as a whole, its decently executed. Its never going to reach any lofty heights due to being weighed down from uninspired fight scenes and parts of the drama that are glossed over too quickly, but ignoring these little flaws, its a worthwhile 12 episode series that deserves more attention than it has garnered since its release.
NoSurrender
Ayakashi, was...not bad. I was bored for a while and had already finished death note but a little advice for people who finish a GREAT MATERPIECE OF ANIME, do not wathc this atferwards, you will feel like crap and think "I could of done better". Ayakashi was okay but it just gets annoying after the first 5 episodes but atleast we get a nudity scene in ep. 4 or 5. :D
gaimcap
Check your brain at the door, it'll just get in the way. The show starts off with an interesting premise, but ultimately, that's all it is. The show feels like it was created by hobbyist highschoolers shooting for "cool" by being violent and "edgy" with pseudo-intellectual "dark" moments, but the execution was mishandled and it just comes off a convoluted mess. Too much stuff happens in too quick a succession (pacing problems), and things are conveniently forgotten and parts of the story skipped (lazy writing). You'll find yourself thinking, "Wait, why is that happening? Did I miss an episode or something?" much toooften, and it's not because you missed a detail, but because they couldn't be bothered to explain and just decided to jump ahead.
If could you treat this like a mindless horror-action series, all that would probably be forgiven (ala Elfen Lied and Deadman Wonderland), but unfortunately that's hard to do. The truth is, while there are some gory scenes, they all take place outside of the fighting so they feel like throwaway shock-value (they're not particularly graphically gory either, just violent in nature; and the violence is pretty much shrugged off by the characters, so there's no suspense or gravitas, making the scenes feel decidedly surreal). On top of this, the actual battle sequences are relatively boring and unsatisfying.
The animation and art are quite good, but these guys clearly did not know how to choreograph fights, so you just get a bunch of 30 second skirmishes with half a dozen action poses, and then someone "winning". It lacks the stylistic over-the-top moments that carry and elevate other shows of the type; and that may be its fatal flaw.
If you go into this not having been exposed to the action horror genre before, you might enjoy it more, but otherwise the anime is mediocre at best. It's certainly not absolutely horrible, and if you've got nothing else to do, its easy on the eyes and can pass time, but there's probably something better to watch. The concept and art style make me think this show had potential, but ultimately, all i feel is disappointment that the production company dropped the ball on this one; and that's the core reason I'm so negative on this show.
Story: 3 (The potential was there, but it was wasted :/)
Art: 7 (Visually above average for the time period. The palette and monster-character models are somewhat interesting, and the animations feel smooth... but the smoothness feels wasted, because their actions are so unimaginatively bland, and that drags it down. What's the use in making it look pretty, if you do nothing with it?)
Sound: 5 (Kind of forgettable. I do distinctly remember hearing a sound effect so hackneyed I couldn't help but laugh though)
Character: 4 (The characters are very RPG'ishly one dimensional. I read somewhere this started off as a visual novel or eroge... and it makes sense--... but then, I guess so did Fate/Stay Night. *shrug*)
Enjoyment: 5
Overall: 5 I've seen worse. It's watchable at least. It could have been great :/.
ThatAnimeSnobRE
Elfen Lied meets Tokkou. That pretty much describes this series, just a chain of shocking scenes, unreasonable behaviors and convenient events. It’s about monsters empowering humans, while destroying them in the process and it’s done in the usual way where a bunch of kids will be able to level buildings with energy beams, without a penalty by the police or their parents. It has a lot of splatter, along with some psedo-serious aspects, all presented in a lukewarm way with dumb facial expressions and simple special effects. The battles feel “turn based” and without choreography, the monsters are static, and the splatter scenes lack details toeven register as gruesome. The dialogues were also stupid and shallow, ranging from one-liners of seduction and threats, to endless monologues full of shallow motives.
The anime is based on an eroge, thus the feeling of “all the females in the story act like dumb, squeaky voiced bimbos who want to screw the hapless leading male” is strong. Males on the other hand just talk like barbarians and simply want to hurt or kill the protagonist. It’s all done in a very dumb way since the anime tries to come off as edgy rather than mature. There is a scene where a villain cuts to pieces dozens of people. The protagonist looks and says “Hey, another Ayakashi user is near.” Get it? He didn’t say “Oh my God, he killed my friends!” Then a psycho little girl appears out of thin air and he says “Nah, it can’t be her. She is just a girl.” Very reasonable answer, right? Then the scene changes and he is mysteriously bound with chords in a warehouse. The girl is dressed like a bride and wants to have sex with him. Then another girl (which of course also digs him) is mysteriously freed and summons her Ayakashi to defeat the evil girl. And then the protagonist gets all powerful (a thing he could do anytime he wanted, but didn’t) and saves the little girl because “She is just being used.” Yes, she is just being and the hundreds of people she has turned into mincemeat are no longer an issue. The girl simply fades into thin air again and the protagonist returns home while caring the other girl on his back, and feeling her legs all over his body… Did you like any of that shit? It all happened in just 15 minutes. Imagine how it goes from there. Villain women trying to seduce the protagonist instead of simply capturing him and stealing his powers. Characters standing still in plain sight when fighting with Ayakashi that move like the wind and cut people like butter. The edge!
Just like Elfen Lied and Tokkou, this series tries to pass off as serious by implementing as much splatter and insanity possible. It even tries to play it mysterious by having secret organizations, the amnesia routine and lost old friends in the background. Which of course is like having a naked woman talking about the injustice in the world. Are you going to listen to her or look at her hooters? An insult to one’s intelligence! Just play the damn eroge and skip this entirely.
poutinerie
Ayakashi had an interesting idea. It then descended into a boring, stupid mess of an anime. Story - 2 The story had good potential and could've been a great dark anime but the execution felt extremely rushed and ruined the whole series. The story shows the protagonist Yuu who has some mysterious powers at a cost... Draining the life of the user. Yuu now uses his powers to beat up anybody who decides to use their power for evil. Now the story seems to be pretty interesting except stuff happens so fast that there isn't enough time to develop anything. It tried to be dark, suspenseful and coolbut ultimately failed. There was never any suspense during this whole show because they didn't give enough time for the show to have suspenseful moments.
The fights weren't cool either. Barely anything happened in the fights and there weren't any cool moments in any of these fights.
They just seemed plain and boring.
Everything in this show was just predictable and the show had a bunch of plot holes along with the ending just feeling like another boring episode of this series with nothing special.
Art - 4
The art was not that good for it's time. I'll say there were sometimes were I thought "Hey this scene actually looks pretty nice". The other 80% of the time it just looked bland, flat and blurry. The characters looked especially flat and just did not look right in any scene they were put into. There have been way better looking anime way before this anime released.
Sound - 5
The sound was alright in this show. The openings and endings were good especially the opening and the voice acting was too. The opening made this anime look so cool with some great guitar. The ending got you more attached to the characters then what the actual show did with some sad music. Voice actors in this show were pretty good and sounded just how the characters would probably sound like. The background music though felt the same throughout the whole entire show which gave the show some boring atmosphere. Background music in this show just felt bland hearing what felt like the same thing over and over again no matter what was happening.
Characters - 2
The characters were pretty bad. One of the reasons this anime was not good was because the characters were just not interesting at all. Yuu was just a bland uninteresting character. All of his friends just felt generic and had all of the archetypes. The villains just lacked any development at all with no reason for being a villain other than just "being bad". All the characters just felt either bland or generic which is why none of them felt compelling throughout the whole series.
Enjoyment - 2
This started off average but as the show dragged on and it felt like the same things were happening over and over again the show became a pain to finish. The only things that kept you watching the show after the halfway point was the cool opening and ending music.
Overall - 2
Overall this show is a terrible mess of an anime. It might be entertaining for the first 3 episodes but it goes downhill by every episode you watch. If you want a good dark anime there are much better options to choose.
The good
- Opening and ending songs
- The concept
The bad
- Everything else
Tatertot
The all around idea of the show was interesting but was very poorly implemented... If I'm being honest, the story seemed like one big cliche and was a little cringey; a random kid finds out that he has some almighty power and a bunch of absolutely random villains appear just to fight him, but wait, there's some mysterious evil mastermind behind it all!... UwU ... And when I say absolutely random villains, I mean absolutely random; every episode up until the last few is literally some new random ayakashi handler that has lost their sanity, they have absolutely no story and the fights between them andYuu are dry. I really do like the overall idea of the ayakashi handlers and how they can lose their sanity if they overuse their powers, but it was so poorly thrown into the plot, there was no progression of the idea.
The entire show just seemed rushed, the character development was all over the place, and so many little things in the plot were just random and didn't make any sense. If you're looking for a random short show to pass the time, I guess you could watch this? But other than that I wouldn't actually recommend this as a good show...
arichan20
Ayakashi is one of this animes that it has original ideas like the ayakashi power, how the power wakes up and ayakashi idea was good, but the way the story develop was horrible, very bad. There are some things I like about Ayakashi. One of them is the powers idea, it is kind of unique and the anime explains how they get the akayashi powers. The OP and ED are very gloomy but I like them and the sountracks are fine. However, there a lots of things I don't like this anime. First thing is the graphics, they are too blurry and the animations are very poorand mediocre, for an anime from 2007-2008. Fate Stay night or Gantz have better animations than Ayakashi, even though they are animes from 2006 and 2004, respectively. Besides, the next chapter animation is worst than the previous one.The colors are very rough and poor, too. Another thing is the story. Although I like the concepts of the power, the story is very rush. It didn't explain many parts of the story, for example, you dodn't know when one of the characters, who was one of the ally's enemy, changes to the good guys side. Also, the dialogues are simple... too SIMPLE. I think there are more thing to say, more words to use in a dialogue, but almost all the time, the charactes use the same words or the same phrases. To add more, the characters couldn't develop more and they explain their reasons of doing something in a rush, poorly way.
To conclude, I think Ayakashi could have been a better anime if the story had been more elaborated. It's a shame that the story were soo poor because I really like the topic of Ayakashi (But I would have liked to see interaction and explanation of the characters)
diabolicalx
I'll get to the point. This is an entertaining show that I personally find to be okay because of its philisophical aspects and sort of a parody of the typical 'i want to save the weak!' kinda guys who go on to do heroic things with strong background music, lighting, and facial expressions of onlookers that all point torwards the 'right thing to do'. But in my opinion, it points out something comedians have poked fun at since superheros started becoming mainstream. When a villian attacks a town...SO many people die. When a hero tries to save people, sometimes 5+ people get cut in half.Innocent too. So when a hero 'doesn't want to get involved' for whatever reasons...is it okay for a nunch of people to die until he decideds to get over his own moral conflict? And when he does decide to 'protect'...is it right that he only does it for his own friend? This is a common theme in superhero movies, shows, and this can be found in many countries writings and legends. (it can be found not necessarily prevelant lol).
I see a lot of reviews seeming to look for a particular show or genre they like in particular...and that is fine but it is best to just focus on the story and what it intends to tell.
I really think if you watch this...and you look at it as what I wrote above you would find that it isn't really god awful. I've watched some god awful shows that have a good intention/great story to tell but just mess up by trying to throw too many concepts along with random fanservice.
Personally, i've never liked the 'cold-hearted-barely-seems-human' characters because they come off annoying and unnecessary. Along with the character who has a special power but won't use it because it either takes over his mind, his body, turns him into an alien+, or because he simply doesn't like the killer instinct it brings out in him (I smell...a superman?).
I say this because at first, I thought this was going to be like 'that' kind of show. Episode 2 can be considered the first episode in a way...and slightly less confusing. Assuming whoever is reading this plans to at least watch the second episode...a good spoiler free 'intro' to this show is....
People have a power. Our main chatacter recieved his after wishing upon a star. Like most powers that are obtained in this way, it is a curse and a blessing. He was given the power to save the weak, and in return it takes an intense mental/physical toll which will eventually kill him. (basically)
It turns out that these powers are from parasites (this is also info from episode 1-2 so don't worry no spoilers).
Also making this series so close to a parody it is more of an answer to "what if these situations happened in real life, to young teens" without getting TOO realistic like say, GANTZ...our main character (Yu) is depressed because a female friend is dead. Whether or not it is because of him, isn't too clear but we can assume it was an accident involving his powers because this is how these shows go. NOT because i'm spoiling anything. A weird emotionless lolita-ish without the lolita clothes...but a certain badass disposition of one (you'll get it. I think) takes him out of this depression...and like usual sort of replaces said female friend who we see sometimes laying against a tree in emotional flashbacks (you can't even hate this happens in so many 'masterpiece shows' i just don't think some people realize the genres and service they are obsessed with lol)
So i hoped to do a review in a way that went along with the show. It is fairly professional, sort of realistic...feels like your hearing the story from a friend maybe who isn't the smartest but has a good idea of the genres surrounding superpowers, philosophy, and magic rules within creative writing (yes, tolken Ergon...you will like this)
I spelled the one book wrong way too lazy to look it up. forgive me. But yeah, this follows fantasy rules and real life rules. But reflects human error. I will agree with the one poster. If you are looking for something like...psychopass where it is intense, wayyyyyyyyyyyy deep like George Orwell deep...or if you are someone who saw psychopass and thought it was only point shoot and run. Go watch Toradora this isn't anything you will like and i don't mean this in a rude way at all.
Seyfert
When anime is made that targets a certain audience it seems to have a mixed reaction; this, of course, if it does reach its intended audience. Ultimately, though, what is the difference between one within the 'shounen' genre and another? People seem to appreciate longer-running series, it seems, which makes sense considering one develops impressions over so many episodes, but they may also simply like remakes/completely adapted series, of which the latter is also sensible, but this seems 'whole' too, despite its short length. It is, though, typical of this genre... so, what's the difference, yet again, about, say, FMA and this? There are even superficialsimilarities, e.g. when it comes to a similar artificial arm, although not when it comes to the background narrative. It is similar in its conflicts... even the overall narrative, if one takes into account proportionally the fewer episodes... but, clearly, people prefer one much more than they do the other, which I don't quite get...
Perhaps, then, it hasn't reached its intended audience? If one watches this straight from its identically named series about samurai and their horror... one might indeed get a different, possibly inferior impression... and they are different, but then I doubt they were ever intended to parallel each other (although, as the samurai one was made just a year before, I assume many thought it was about to copy it, but no, even the colours, besides the narrative, are entirely distinct).
So... what one can only compare it to, if indeed comparisons are needed, is others of this genre... the ayakashi in the samurai version are slightly more subtle, perhaps congruent with their mythology, and while both have an element of romance, it is approached differently... also, while the ayakashi are handled distinctly in this one too (kind of like chess pieces), in both (as Mononoke explicitly distinguished) they impose a malign influence.
But, effectively, this series is more similar to other shounen than a seinen-type that the samurai tales exhibit... it involves this kind of mindset, where, like in a video game, someone at the end needs to be defeated; although, to be sure, what distinguishes this from FMA, HxH, or even KHR, is that in these the villain isn't entirely so, or at least isn't throughout, but that may be due to the length of the series, where time is spent developing all kinds of characters. Perhaps the latter could be the more simplistic, comedically similar to Ayakashi (although in its twelve episodes it had more drama than comedy, with KHR spending the first fifty or so episodes mired mostly in comedy, then changing to drama, although Lambo was comedy throughout). Of these four, I think HxH turned out to have the most subtle villains, with the Chimera Ant arc turning any shounen narrative inside-out.
Was, though, Ayakashi affective? If compared to, say, Mononoke... well, that would be too steep a hill. Graphically astounding, with a mind-bending narrative... but Ayakashi was never intended to be like that, even with its identical number of episodes. Even Mononoke's prequel, the samurais' ayakashi, had a mostly casual story centred around ghosts, and not until the last arc did it 'evolve' into its sequel. So, I suppose, if this Ayakashi had a proper sequel, it might have had potential like all the other shounen consisting of hundreds of episodes.
As it is, though, it fulfils a certain kind of genre, but doesn't go beyond it as HxH does. Is the drama 'powerful', perhaps? It is kind of comparable to Inuyasha, which is also about yokai, practically equivalent to ayakashi mythologically (although in Inuyasha only one side mostly controls them), but again, that had close to two hundred episodes, and throughout it developed the drama well... but sometimes repeated itself, which is what can happen in such a long-winding narrative. Ayakashi doesn't do that, but still, the drama doesn't contain quite as much pathos... Inuyasha had this existential element to it, this idea that death could be around the corner, and even different kinds of such states, but Ayakashi only played with it momentarily, and not quite as effectively. Also, in Inuyasha hair colour meant something, and while in Ayakashi there are all sorts of colours (Inuyasha being more realistic in this aspect), I didn't get how they related to anything. Perhaps different hues of blue indicate forms of relationships, but there were some that didn't fit any sort of pattern, so I wonder whether they were mostly random.
What I did notice, that seemed to differ from most other anime, is the characters' expressions, where at some points they appear exaggerated (more so than is expected in this medium), and while they still made sense I thought they might have perhaps landed the series a source of unexpected comedy... since normally two serious characters in the middle of talking down a classic villain do not look at each other and smile (or was that a giggle?) - sort of breaks the mood, but then again difference is what is interesting.
So, in the end, it doesn't break many moulds... but, if one is in this kind of mood, and one doesn't compare it with others due to their similarity in names and not genre, it can be entertaining. Not as deep as any of the aforementioned, but could still be considered amusing (this is, by the way, solely about this series specifically and nothing else made in relation).
