A blog disproving the supernatural, co-run by NEET teenager Yuuta Gamon and his enthusiastic best friend Ryouka Narusawa, becomes the catalyst that would bring together a group of people who supposedly have nothing to do with each other.
These individuals include high school fortune teller Miyuu Aikawa, who joins Yuuta to work on the blog; realist Sarai Hashigami, who is stunned when tragedy strikes his family; doujin artist Ririka Nishizono, who has an uncanny ability to predict the future with her art; black magic practitioner and local curse expert Aria Kurenaino and her ghostly friend; Shun Moritsuka, a seemingly childish otaku detective; and reporter Touko Sumikaze.
As this unlikely group, bound only by the strings of fate, find their way to each other, they are confronted with murder and other events that are shrouded by the presence of the supernatural. They must band together to solve the mysteries interlacing the city and their lives.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
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FireEmblemIke24
TLDR: Skip to final paragraph. Water’s bottom, many people, drowning, giant cow-tits…transmission died. Clearing out the elephant in the room. Nikola Tesla never had an illegitimate child as he was a virgin who devoted his love towards a peculiar pidgin. What if I told you he did father a child, and this child capable of being a poltergeist, has managed to possess someone all this time. Occultic;Nine is a show that explores the occult and probes into the spirit realm. The series scrutinises paranormal activities and tries to rationalise it in a scientific manner, hence tries to inform us that anything can be disproven my science.Occultic;Nine had one of the worst opening episodes that I’ve experienced in a long time. The pacing was frenetic in the sense that it was uncontrolled and hard to follow. How on earth do you adapt a whole light novel volume into a single episode? The standard is usually 4 episodes per volume but this series is purposely shooting itself in the leg by having the nerve to do this. This series is a combination of the Tatami Galaxy and Durarara at its finest. The lightspeed dialogue combined with a relatively large cast has conceived a child in the form of Occultic;Nine. The child inherited some of the undesirable genes and turned out inferior to its parents. I’ll explain why.
The plot is pretty much focused on the detection of ghosts, material or not. Material ghosts are detectible with the latter being unrecognisable. Gamon Yuuta, our high school NEET runs a blog dedicated on the occult, only to find himself caught up in a crime scene. The murder of professor Hashigami, a leading researcher in the occult field, causes panic for our distressed main character who flees from the scene to avoid getting prosecuted. Good move there as Japan’s judicial system is seriously flawed.
The murder wasn’t the main incident of the show. An intentional mass suicide of 256 people in Inokashira lake sets the precedent for what entails later. The discovery of the corpses in the morgue reveals a shocking truth. The concept of being alive while looking at your own corpse seems alien to most folk. This sounds contradictory but bear with me as the show does explain the circumstances later down the road. The situation is that some of our main cast are alive without feeling dead, the idea of being conscious after parting with the material body can only be explained through science.
Now talking about the main cast, the series does switch around from person to person giving different perspectives. Our main character Gamon Yuuta is being instructed by a voice from a radio. This reliance on a tool indicates that he can’t get things done properly. I compare it to stabilisers on a bike, which is what this character is going through. He doesn’t have any independence and his actions are limited.
Narusawa Ryouka known as Ryo-tas by Gamon is a person whose physical traits defies the laws of motion. Her breasts are so unsightly, that every time she makes an appearance which is usually accompanied by a silly dance. She is literally known as the big-boobed girl who serves no purpose until later on where her character becomes the focus and not her melons.
Hashigami Sarai is the son of the murdered researcher and just like his father exhibits an extreme amount of intelligence which is not normal for his age. The knowledgeable Sarai is able to deduce problems and other riddles in the blink of an eye, which to me is just incredible. Geniuses exist but even then, he struggles on some occasions making it somewhat realistic.
Aikawa Miyuu is a high schooler who is extremely skilled in fortune telling. She has built up a reputation due to the fact of making correct predictions. She is a character for the audience to relate to as she doesn’t comprehend scientific jargon just like myself. Her quirk is surprisingly useful when it comes to putting the pieces together. These four characters are the most important to the series with others such as Minase Ria getting their own screen time but aren’t worth talking about.
The show is produced by A-1 animation, which in recent times has gotten quite some stick for churning out series like the Asterix War. The art style is a breath of fresh air with the character designs being relatively unique. The only downside is Ryo-tas whose has been fetishized with enormous breasts. No fricking way is it breast hypertrophy. The animation as expected from this studio is relatively good with most scenes being aesthetically pleasing and generally fluid. It would be a stain on the studio’s portfolio if it did have poor animation but I’m glad it met my expectations.
The sound is amazing and is composed by Yokoyama Masaru (Your Lie in April, Plastic Memories) with it just adding to my immersion to certain scenes. The mix of electronic and contemporary rock music through auto-tuned measures immediately catches my attention by sending a statement. The use of casual jazz music in the downbeat scenes is a good indicator for the tone shifts. Lastly, the music is great at setting up a creepy atmosphere with extensive use of fading in/out and selective piano compositions. The music used generally follows a certain tempo to match the timing of certain segments, this is useful for scene transitioning and makes for some good cinematography.
TLDR-
The first episodes annoyed me initially but this show manages to redeem itself as it goes on. The mystery regarding the incidents are cleared up in a way you wouldn’t expect. The plot twists cannot be understated with it being interlinked with events. They may not all have a direct relation but by following the lines you gradually see the bigger picture. I would definitely recommend this series for those willing to give it a few episodes. In food terms this is slow cooking, which is higher praised than the generic fast food shit.
dramathicc
SPOILERS AHEAD! Well, well... Here we are at the end of the Fall season; hyped animes, some satisfying, some disappointing ones keep ending one by one. From the creator of Steins;Gate, director of Your Lie in April and well-known studio A-1 Pictures, Occultic;Nine can be placed in all these categories. I am really confused and have really messy opinions about this anime so I hope I can explain them properly. Genres: Mystery, Sci-Fi, Supernatural, Thriller Pros: -Unique style of pacing -Really interesting story-Mysterious ambience
-Somehow loveable characters
-Music and art
-Good use of science materials
Cons:
-Extremely fast talkings and pacing
-Not enough screentime and developments for characters
-Plotholes
Story: 8/10
Occultic Nine's story is like a puzzle. First, you have puzzle pieces and a few places to put them but the rest of it is dark and empty like space. You understand nothing don't know what to do, but when you put one piece to its place, then you achieve to unlock other places. So more you understand something, there comes more to understand.
In the first episode, first of all the anime introduces (well, not really) us the characters and tons of pointless talkings. And at the end of the episode real story starts off with a crime mystery. First the pacing seems really fast but when you get into the story and get used to the style of anime it feels more acceptable. The actual problem of pacing and talkings are being too fast is not like ''Oh I can't understand anything'', the problem is watchers live too much emotional and situational changes in a very little amount of time. You don't have time to laugh, upset, stress, surprise or even think about anything. But this is why I said ''unique style of pacing''. After sometime you start loving it, how all those things happen in one episode. Until the last 2 episodes, it was okay but I wish it was 3 episodes, not 2. So that we can understand the story better, feel all the emotions and maybe they can cover the plotholes.
Talking about plotholes, they're not killing the story. First ''mutual recognition''. I was just thinking about how can it possible that Yuta has the key, they answered it with ''mutual recognition''. It was an impressive and somehow logical answer to me, but when he get back the key and come back after Ryo-tas kissed him, it lost its magic and caused plenty of question marks. It really should have had a better explanation. The second one is Nishizono Ririka. What do we know about her? Almost nothing. How can she know and draw all the things? Why and how did she disappear at the end? These are probably the biggest questions of the story. If it was 3 episodes, maybe they could explain her too.
Last thing I want to say about the story, is really impressive. It tries to handle occultic science, supernatural powers (like Myu-pom's vision) and time travelling. It has a mysterious ambience from beginning to the end and did a great job answering the questions (except the ones I told) by using scince. It has cliffhangers, and a really important plot twist that changed the story's course. But if you watch the first episode properly, there's a chance of predict that plottwist (except the one about Ryo-tas)
Art: 9/10
I am really affected by the art, especially using of light and shadings. It makes you live all that dark, bloody and scary moments.
Sound: 10/10
Soundtracks are amazing and thrilling. The opening and ending are awesome, too. (I won't write so much things about art and sound since they're mostly subjective and don't know what to write about them.)
Characters: 8/10
The characters are so diffrent each other. They're all special, generally energic and intelligent. Anime told us most of their backstories but still characters did not have enough screentime and because of that their developments are not completed either. Since the pacing is too fast and anime focuses on the story this was a possible situation. Gamotan, Ryo-tas, Myu-pom and Sarai's developments were kinda ok but others (Again, especially Nishizono Ririka) are not.
Enjoyment: 9/10
We can say that most of the people didn't like at least the first episodes of the anime by looking at the score (it fell to even 6.59), but I enjoyed it from beginning to the end. Ryo-tas' breasts are bigger than Everest, they're talking too fast so it's hard to catch, pacing is too fast, characters are a little bit childish, first episode is really messy (even that nothing happened)... These are acceptable reasons why people hated it but still I found it enjoyable.
So here is my thoughts about O;N, had a lot of potentials and used most of them. As I said, it would be better if it was longer, even 1 more episode. I hope you liked the anime and my review :)
Smugdear
Light novels have been a popular adaptation these days, there are dozens of anime that have been adapted from this. It has been one of the best solutions to decrease the over-dominance of manga in the past. It's a good strategy, though. But I should say that "adapting literature into an anime is not an easy work". Why? Because the director has to adjust a hundred pages of story into a fit 24 minutes per episode in a limited one-cour (or two-cour if they lucky to have that time), with the same feeling & content of the literature itself. Many anime failed to bringthis to the screen. And what I thought about Occultic; Nine is similar as I stated above. Occultic; Nine has failed to wrap both story and characters in its adaptation.
The story somewhat brings us into certain cases of death with many supernatural elements haunt them. The story tries to persuade us to see from a different perspective in supernatural things, the 'there is nothing that can't be proved by science' theme is actually a neat theme, in my opinion, it has its own noteworthy in my mind.
One thing that disturbs me is the pacing. After 8 years I watch Japanese anime, I've never seen a character talks like it has been fast forwarded 2x by a remote. It is really ruined the entire feels about the anime. I could see that sometimes I must rewind the minute bar in order to understand the story. Another cancer that this anime has is the ineffective information dumping. The story struggles to throw much information to make us more understand. But what we got is an enormous endless wave of information with fast forwarded dialogues and heavy feelings which make the story's full of plot holes.
I could honestly say that the ending is not so good at all. It felt really rushed and poorly wrapped episodes of calamity and ends with an all-happy cliche nonsense ending.
The animation is in the hand of one of the most prestigious studios in Japan, the A-1 Pictures. Is not that because I hate the story (or the studio), but the art itself failed to bring a meaningful contribution to the anime. It was poorly done, it just like the characters has been blended with the color of the background, like it has the same texture. It is really different from other works that the studio has done in the past, really less-colorable with dark colors has been the dominance.
Characters, from what I saw is also has been poorly-handed, especially our main character, Gamon Yuuta. It still follows a 'hero wannabe' stereotype character that hasn't have a single meaningful character development. Other characters are cookie cutter, almost seems to be random & feels a lack of originality. Villains felt one-dimensional, without having a single purpose on their actions. The problem is the anime was too busy to bring us it world building while abandoned the in-depth character development, which makes it more vulnerable.
The only fairly accepted elements is the sound settings. Both opening & ending are lovely to hear. While I can't say anything except 'disappointed' for the voice actors & their fast forwarded role. I never heard such character talks like that before.
While in some minutes, I found out that this anime actually succeed in bringing mystery elements, I felt the mystery thingy in my mind, thirst to make me wanted to know what's comes up next. While in some minutes, I felt the 'rushed' things is also annoying. In the same time, it makes you want to continue it or dropped it in a weird mixture of feelings.
In the end, watching Occultic; Nine is one of the worst ways to end a year. It is obviously not recommended if you seeks a deep sci-fi/mystery anime. It leads our mind to a desperate situation where you struggle to understand it but the story doesn't give you any chance to understands it, a total wasted potential because of a bad execution. It just another pitiful attempt to adapt a light novel.
Flawfinder
As you can probably guess by the semicolon in the title, Occultic;Nine is another entry from the Science Adventure franchise, except this time it's based on a two-volume light novel series written by that other semicolon writer not named Naotaka Hayashi. Not that it really matters too much because the basic plot is pretty much the same as all the other semicolon entries: a bunch of professional adults go apeshit for no reason other than they're bastards and try to take over the world through some specific scientific area that's been weaponized, and end up involving a bunch of eccentric young teenagers or college studentswho just so happen to have an interest in said field, as well as wield the only (nerdy) means that are capable of defeating said organization. And since this is a semicolon anime, that means all the characters are either a NEET or a cosplayer or an idol or some irritating "man, we sure love anime" trope that is about as un-relatable and accurate in regards to portraying the human being as Steven Seagal in every single movie he's ever made or been in. Which makes even less sense here because the other entries have been all about technology, so they'd all somewhat fit in Japan's electric town. But Occultic;Nine is more about the supernatural, which isn't an otaku-bait subject at all, so having everyone be a nerd is as jarring as all those fanservice-y characters in those Zero Escape games.
Speaking of Zero Escape, it seems that the writers of this series are friends with the guys who made the Nonary games, because this show borrows a lot of storytelling devices from stuff like 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and Virtue's Last Reward. You've at least heard of those games, right? Those handheld sci-fi mystery visual novels that raise so many questions to the point of frustration, only to info-dump the answers to you at the very end to the point of tedium whilst being obsessed with the number "nine"? They're tolerable to get through when you're actually playing them, but outside of the interactive medium, they're a fucking grind - something the writers of this show seemed to miss entirely when they somehow mistook that Punchline anime as VN-to-anime genius.
Occultic;Nine also differs from the other SciAdv entries in that it tries to mask the slow-ass pacing that generally happens with light/visual novel adaptations in that it borrows heavily from Ryogho Narita's style of writing, particularly Baccano with the multiple character jumping through different seemingly unconnected phases of the mysterious incident. This may seem like a compliment at first, but I think most of us who didn't have the nails lodged in their brains required to acknowledge Durarara!!x2 as "not absolutely cancerous" can see at this point that Baccano's style of storytelling hasn't aged well at all. Because over-the-top characters with no personal flaws, interesting philosophies, or reason to be in the story other than to be cool whilst backed by an energetic presentation trying desperately to cover up for the lack of plot progression is about as entertaining as watching bird competitions where the competitors ate Chinese food during the pre-competition feeding time. And it doesn't help when that presentation is applied to a plot that is about as over-complicated and impenetrable as a steel wall with candy canes of fifty different colors painted all over it.
Getting past the presentation is a tall task in of itself due to how much of a tonally inconsistent joke it is. For one thing, this show has constant hyper-stylization all through its run time that never calms the fuck down - playing ill-fitting music every time a murder happens to the point that it resembles a Green Day soundtrack in an Anne Frank movie. The animation itself is of decent quality when the show bothers to take a break from cutting to a new scene every two seconds, but it's also horribly mismatched. Having the characters make exaggerated faces with the show's sketchy style every time an important dramatic scene occurs to the point that you'd swear everyone in this show was horribly miscast. And they never blend in well with the realistic-looking backgrounds, looking more out of place than an animated character from Coonskin dancing on the set of How I Met Your Mother.
Not helping at all is that Occultic;Nine has what is possibly the worst directing/cinematography in an anime I've ever seen. A majority of the screen time consists of long long LONG scenes of characters sitting/standing around in one place delivering boring exposition that is almost completely unnecessary to understanding what's going on, and often brings up more questions than it does answers. And because the director of this show lost all his talent after making Your Lie in April, he somehow approved the idea of a drunk cameraman doing the shooting for this show, because 90% of the show is shot in an angle. Most of the times, it'll be dutch. Sometimes, it'll be upside down or sideways. There's one time when the camera just spun around for no reason and gave me a headache in the process. This is not how you make dialogue more engaging. You know what you do to make dialogue more engaging? Write some actual good dialogue.
Speaking of the dialogue, in addition to having some of the worst directing in an anime ever, I think Occultic;Nine's writing was the product of some bet with the Kingdom Hearts guys to see who can make their audience slice their ears off or turn off the subtitles the fastest. Not only do these characters not shut the fuck up, but when they're not delivering exposition against dull still backgrounds regarding Nikola Tesla and how the story intends to rape his corpse, they're prolonging scenes with quips consisting of nothing but explaining the logistics of some minor thing or engaging in otaku dialogue in a show that has nothing to do with otaku. There was one exchange in Episode 5 when the character kept saying the word "pukey" for like five minutes because they wanted their conversation to be "cute" for no reason whatsoever. And even earlier in the episode, one of the main characters info-dumps a lot of signs regarding how Gamon is lying to him from the amount of time his eyes wandered to his facial expressions, even though I don't care how he knows since everything about Gamon's personality should make that obvious. Yes, the dialogue is that bad.
Doesn't help that even by the standards set by the specific visual novel company's previous track record, the nine characters that make up this show are all just completely unlikeable, Rewrite-style. It's like they were written by someone who forgot that the pre-requisite for wanting to see how everything connects together in a mystery show as it goes on is to have individual character stories that can stand on their own do most of the leg work in regards to telling the story. For example, there's this one girl who was so delusional about her brother's death that she ended up living with his corpse for a year until the neighbors realized that onii-chan was starting to smell a bit. You'd think this would give an insight into some serious psychological issues or play a vital role in what exactly the fuck is going on, and you'd be more wrong than a typical 4chan commenter. It's never brought up again, all it did was make the girl creepy without giving me a reason why I'm supposed to care that she's creepy. And just to put the cherry on top, she has no literally no purpose in the main plot at all. I've seen teen stereotypes in 80s slasher films that were more three-dimensional.
Of course, when compared to the villains of this mess, Jason Vorhees might as well be any of the characters that Gary Oldman played in his career. I know the evil organizations in these series tend to be a load of crap, but I think Occultic;Nine was trying to out shit the Sinister Six with the motivations it gave its antagonists. Without spoiling anything major, the evil SERN replacement that looms over this show's shadow wants to control the rich in order to rule the world for no other reason than because they're nameless bastards. You're probably thinking at this point that this sounds like a shitty comic book plot, and it is; but somehow things get even dumber when it's revealed how they're going to accomplish their master plan. Someone want to explain to me who's providing the funding for these guys and their convoluted plans? Because I think Akihiko Kayaba from Sword Art Online presented a more engaging business plan in regards to his quest to kill off Japan's youth.
Oh and for the love of god, ENOUGH WITH THE GODDAMN TIME-TRAVEL/ALTERNATE WORLD SHIT, ALREADY! From Higurashi to Clannad to Madoka Magica to anything written by Kotaro Uchikoshi, I am fucking sick of visual novel companies/writers using it. It was old when those products did it, and as of this point, it's pretty much just a dead corpse kept in cold storage with people fighting over who gets to unfreeze it next. Occultic;Nine doesn't even make good use of it. It's only hinted at through a few characters whose sole purpose are to be McGuffins, and then used as a last-minute deus ex machina for its finale, which is pretty exposition-heavy for an episode that's supposed to conclude things with a bang. But even if the creators had fixed the infamous pacing problems that turned many people away to start with, that still wouldn't have fixed Occultic;Nine's biggest problem: it fucking sucks.
I mean between the numerous plot points borrowed from every visual novel ever, horrible motivations driving the characters forward, and awful humor that couldn't make Barney fans laugh, the shit-ass production of this show just twists the already-deep knife wound so hard the blood fucking explodes. What on earth does this show have to offer anyone? What exactly is it about? When the mystery is over and the answers are revealed, what then? How does this show have anything to do with the occult? You'd think a show called Occultic;Nine would pay more than lip-service to its many practices, but it never does. Instead it does what every awful mystery show does: bait the viewers with questions throughout the entire journey whilst having that bait be the substance rather than everything surrounding it, answer only a few of the questions tediously at the last minute, and have said answers be unsatisfying dogshit.
Well fuck you, Science Adventure guys. And fuck you too, A-1 Pictures. This anime was like a magazine collage that was fed through a shredder and had to be put back together ten minutes before the actual deadline!
nameofuser_
I am so happy that I did not listen to the thoughts of others, and just went into this show blindly! All I see is others saying that this is rushed, and the pacing was off yada yada yada. THEY'RE WRONG. It is so important to go into this with an open mind, and to just accept what you see. Just because the story is told in an unorthodox way that doesn't stive to be like other animes, does not mean it is told incorrectly. The story is told in a unique way, wherein they answer one question while simultaneously creating 5 other questions. Ipersonally love this since it kept me guessing the whole way through. The storytelling was fast but that was the uniqueness of its own style. Nothing was rushed, everything was explained with no plot holes (maybe save for one, honestly). The story was incredibly unique and I fully understood and quite enjoyed the picture they were painting. Also, I really have to appreciate how everything, even the smallest detail, will be integral to the story.
I greatly enjoyed the characters. The mystery was so engaging where I was so hooked, and could not stop watching. The art was satisfying and pleasing to view. The ending song is EVERYTHING and I NEVER skipped it.
This anime really showed me to take others reviews and thoughts with a grain of salt, because this was a lovely little gem that I would definitely recommend.
K_Cad
'Occultic;Nine proves that Steins;Gate wasn't just luck, but that there's a genius writer behind this...' The story of Occultic;Nine is just excellent. The writer has seriously been thinking about pretty acceptable theories (and using ones that already exist). This makes the paranormal activities in this serie more realistic, just like he did with the time travel theories in Steins;Gate. It is really funny how some small jokes refer to certain moments in Steins;Gate. But don't get me wrong, because this serie on it's self isreally good. I love the way things are being made mysterious and every strange thing you see has a meaning. Itkeeps your attention and lets you puzzle with the characters.
Story: 10
Yes, the characters. I must say that the characters are a really important thing but that they are not special. The story behind the characters is good and sow are theiractions, but they are not that special furthermore. I think theyused just some stereotype characters and merged them with the amazing plot, which made it pretty succesfull. The serie contains a lot of characters, but you should bear with it because otherwise it will ruin the story.
Character: 7
The art was done really well and detailed, which is important in these types of series where you need eye for detail. The intro music is pretty good and the other sounds/music in the serie is pretty good too.
Art/Sound: 10
I enjoyed this seriea lot and I hope you too!!! Every week I have been waiting for he episode to come online. If you still have to watch this I recommend you to watch 2 episodes per day, max. 3... to enjoy it the best!!!
KitsunehimeMilhi
I just read something saying that the world from Occultic; Nine is the same world that Steins Gate used as well as Chaos Head. I haven't watched any of those two, but it's nice to know that a series I love is based in the same world as two other anime on my to watch list. Now for specifics on Occultic; Nine. I'd have to say that the story was interesting, although it was a bit rushed. The dialog was very fast and you ca tell that the scenes went by quickly. Even with the fast pacing, I still really likethe idea the show had; having nine people become ghosts and be all specifically linked to a certain blog was quite interesting due to all the weird supernatural phenomenon that occurred.
I'll admit that characters are really all that developed. Each of them did fit their role though and everyone of them actually did something to help advance the plot that can only be fulfilled by them; a side character was not randomly chosen to perform a task that a main character could've done.
The art and sound weren't the best either, but they did fit well into the show. I do like the opening and ending themes.
Overall, Occultic; Nine can seem like a mess, but it was quite enjoyable. I wasn't sure how it would turn out at first, but I became really interested in seeing how it would unfold by the third week or so. I'd recommend this to sci-fi fans who won't the fact that it will seem rushed.
KayB
Occultic;Nine is the newest entry in the semicolon universe among other titles such as the beloved Steins;Gate, the not-so-beloved Chaos;Head, and the no-one’s-quite-sure-how-to-feel-about-it Robotics;Notes. For most people browsing sites like anichart and putting upcoming seasonal titles into their proverbial shopping cart, any show that has a semicolon in its name immediately gets thrown in the basket thanks to its storied legacy. As of late however, it’s easy to lose faith since the majority of the semicolon titles have come with mixed reception. Fall 2016 has rolled around, and the first semicolon entry since 2012 unveiled itself as Occultic;Nine. 2016 was, in many people’s eyes, anoverall weak year for non-sequel anime, so many saw Occultic;Nine as the last bastion of defense of 2016 before going into the new year. In many minds, this begged a controversial question filled with a lot of expectation and (in some cases, hesitant) excitement: would Occultic;Nine be a Steins;Gate or another Chaos;Head?
As the final minutes of the 12 episode long series come to a close, I unfortunately have to conclude that Occultic;Nine falls under the latter category. While it has its fair share of interesting and cool moments, the majority of the show is marred and sabotaged by its overall abhorrent pacing and sloppy execution.
Upon watching Occultic;Nine for the first time, the most immediate aspect of the show you might notice is the blindingly fast dialogue. In moderation, this style of narrative isn’t automatically terrible; it can be considered a stylistic choice to help support the atmosphere of the show. Unfortunately, the dialogue speed feels less like a stylistic choice and more of way of squeezing as much content as possible within a given time frame, and it remains consistent in all 12 episodes of the show. The result is a sloppy, exhausting mess that drags down nearly every other element of the anime, including character development, setting, and plot progression. But it’s not simply the dialogue speed that’s the problem; it’s the little breathing room in between each line in the next, and this dramatically affects the immersion and effectiveness of the show. It doesn’t matter if the characters are talking about what they ate that morning or revealing important plot elements to the viewers, each line of dialogue falls directly over the next and this continues until each episode concludes. The viewer is given almost zero time to absorb any information at all and it becomes difficult to distinguish what is fluff and what is important. Because the dialogue moves at such unrealistic speeds, the scenes and characters seem more unnatural, almost as if they’re reading lines from a script. Any build-up effectively gets ruined, and any investment diminishes even at reveals or character development. In addition, quick dialogue is often times a specific character quirk meant to tell us about a character’s personality. In Occultic;Nine, everyone shares this unnatural quality which greatly homogenizes the already bland cast.
It’s not just the dialogue that moves unnaturally either. The plot jerks around at different speeds, often spending either way too much time in extraneous details or suddenly advancing the plot with no warning at all. While the first episode pushed the plot forward a little by unveiling a murder scene in the final moments, not much actually occurred in the show until around episode 6; until then, the show was mostly exposition. Aria is one such example; her exposition occupied an entire episode, yet she remained relatively uninvolved with the story even at the end of the 12 episodes. Now it’s not necessarily a bad thing to give more exposition to side characters, but it is when it comes at the expense of the main plot. In the latter half of Occultic;Nine, scenes would sometimes jerk from one to another, and often times I would bear witness to a scene where I had no idea what was going on. The most noticeable moment of this to me was when a scene shifted from our cast of main characters to suddenly the board meeting of villains (unveiled for the first time) with zero transition or exposition. It’s disorientating for no reason and made the show not only feel rushed but also unnecessarily confusing.
The story on average isn’t well-polished either. While there’s grounds for a relatively interesting and creative plot, it’s watered down by the amount of telling over showing. Occultic;Nine at its base is supposed to a thriller, and most tend to stay more dynamic in order to keep the viewer invested. Occultic;Nine rarely does that, and most of the plot isn’t explained through action but through dialogue (and like I said earlier, the style of dialogue is horrendous). As another friend of mine put it, “the show is all exposition,” or in other words, rather than letting the plot itself do the talking, it’s often the characters that have to explain the plot and pseudo-science toward us, which 80% of the time is mostly just unnecessary filler to justify the hazy connection between hard science and spiritual superstition. To elaborate on this further, the reason why I say that that the explanations are usually unnecessary justifications is because despite how fervently the anime might try to insist scientific jargon, a lot of the time it invalidates itself, often through the use of deus ex machina plot devices (one such example is Gamon magically sprouting wings under the validation that he is in fact a ghost, the possibility conveniently unveiled to him only at the final episode of the show). Finally, as you might expect from the dialogue, the show ends blindingly fast, riddled with more loopholes than a Starbucks Wi-Fi network. What happened to Ririka? Who is the mastermind that orchestrated this phenomenon? What on earth happened to the other 250 victims? Many large questions are still left unanswered if not straight up forgotten, which is incredibly frustrating and borderline unforgivable for a narrative that claims to be a mystery.
The characters, in my opinion, are painfully bland as well. Both Touko and Sarai are incredibly dull characters that fulfill the same role, that being the smart and composed type. Ryo-tas served mostly as a nonsensical background distraction (which was occasionally charming but overall dismissible) who eventually turned into an equally nonsensical character (Tesla’s daughter) with no unique personality with her appearance having about as much effect as a shallow plot device. Miyuu is an overall boring personality with no qualities that make her stand out from the rest of the cast. And Shun is an incredibly boring character who seemingly knows pretty much everything for no reason, often deflating otherwise interesting conflicts with randomly obtained knowledge. Gamon is actually not a bad main character since he serves as an everyman in this cast of characters and bizarre setting. Ultimately however, he’s shoved with conveniently tied character traits that make him artificially special instead of naturally developing his own character to connect with the viewers as an everyman type should. The antagonists in Occultic;Nine are also insultingly boring. They have zero connection to any characters of the plot and as a result only fulfill the role as a vague, stereotypical organization that the main characters are tasked to defeat. The aspirations are as usual the most boring possible, which is to expand their businesses and create profit. Their designs are laughably typical, simply looking like corporate CEOs and businessmen. Most other solid thriller shows have interesting villains, whether it’s something as simple as being visually striking or psychologically threatening or slightly more complex as being relatable and empathetic or sometimes a little mix of both. Occultic;Nine’s villains are none of this, and it makes the story much harder to be invested in.
To give credit where credit is due, I do think Occultic;Nine did a few things right. The show on average was consistently well-animated, and the majority of the character designs and settings are aesthetically pleasing and occasionally unique (save for Ryoka’s unrelenting force that is her stupidly massive chest). There are even a number of well-executed shots throughout the entire anime. In particular, the scene where Gamon stares over his lifeless body was particularly brilliant and awesome. And the overall set-up for the plot isn’t necessarily bad. As much as I’ve harped on it, combining hard science fiction with the supernatural has the potential to be interesting due to how contrarian they are, and the duality of characters being both dead and alive in a single show hasn’t been explored as deeply in narratives as it can be. It’s not necessarily that the plot is bad, it’s more that it was executed poorly.
I’m sure most of us that were hoping for another installment of the semicolon series were looking for another Steins;Gate since a lot of us want to relive those thrilling 24 episodes that we experienced way back in 2011 over again. Unfortunately, Occultic;Nine is anything but that, delivering a sloppy and mediocre experience for those that have stayed dedicated to the series. With Chaos;Head and debatably Robotics;Notes, Occultic;Nine is a third strike, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who will dismiss the next semicolon anime when browsing for things to watch in future seasons.
OhWowzers
"Let me be a hero!" - Gamon (Episode 12) This is one of those anime where there are going to be alot of haters and alot of praisers I think. There are going to be people that will say... "This anime is too confusing, I have no idea what is happening, my brain is killing me." and people who are like... "This anime is so smart with it's story, it totally makes sense... omg, give me more plz!" To me, this anime does start out very very confusing, then I was like... DAMN!!! Let's get to the pros and cons of things. * * Story - 7/10 Cons: Oh What aRush! - Ok, the main problem is in it's first 3 episodes in this anime and it's how rushed and fast everything is going. It was very hard to tell what was happening because 1... The dialogue was going so fast that I had to pause alot of times, take a breather, and read the subtitles again. 2... It felt more rushed then Sword Art Online, I couldn't tell at all what this anime was even about in it's first 3 episodes. At least in SAO, the rushed mess that that anime is, you would already know what it's about... but in this anime, you'll have a hard time understanding anything.
Pros:
Wow!... What a Twist! - This anime started to become slower at episode 5. At episode 4, I knew, I finally get to know what it's about, and things start to make sense to me. Even the dialogue was a bit slower actually. Some will say it's still fast but I noticed a change of pace in the dialogue... That's probably just me idk. Anyway, the story was no longer too complicated to me, and when things started to pick up and become interesting, I was enjoying watching these later episodes. This story has alot of neat surprises that are dark and intriguing. You get to know why and how this mass suicide happened. I love these types of stories so much, it does remind me of Steins;Gate a little. It's also fun to make your own theories for later episodes. The last episode was actually just good, it wasn't anything too spectacular until the last couple scenes.
Characters - 6/10
Cons:
*Can you repeat that again please? - The character, they talk too fast for me, especially in the early episodes, they were talking like freaks. A lot of times the characters would talk over other characters. Where I have to pay attention to what both of them are saying. Again though, to me, they're talking has slowed down a bit in the later episodes but still though.
*Big Melons - So there is this one main female character whos, and you probably already know about this... It's that girl Ryouka. Her tits are just too big, like idk how she is even standing, dancing, and running around. They're bigger than the girls breasts from Highschool of the Dead I believe, and it's just too much. It's pretty unnecessary, It's very distracting.... Like i know there is alot of fan service in alot of different anime, even anime that aren't ecchi anime, but this is seriously dumb.
*Annoying - Sometimes, Gamon can be pretty dumb and annoying. In the very first episode, he picks up a knife that has blood all over it, and he acts like he doesnt notices it. He finds it, starts playing with it, then finds a dead body 10 seconds later, then finally realizes he's got blood all over the palm of his hand. Also, this dudes panics are so annoying sometimes, that's when he never stops talking and slows down. Like, yeah I would be spooked if I was in his situations too, but still, this guy needs a fucking chill pill. He's also the least interesting character in my opinion.
Pros:
*Personality - Yeah, alot of these characters are pretty damn interesting though, even Ryouka, you might think she's just there for laughs and giggles but no, she adds alot to the story in this anime. And that surprised me, when she showed her true self to Gamon, that blew my fucking mind. Also, the detective dude, Shun, has such a funny personality, I like how he gets into everyones business, sometimes making jokes at them, annoying them, scaring them, and sometimes just having a normal conversation. He's such a funny dude, he's me laugh quite a bit here. Other characters I find interesting is Aria, who talks to that ghost looking dude, she's pretty cool. Also Touko is a very good character, I like how serious she can be, and she's always seems to make really good choices too.
*Development - Most of these characters had some pretty decent development here. Like Aria, we get to see alot of her past with her and her brother. And we get to see why she is who she is now. We get to learn Sarai's past a bit, with him and his father. Ryouko actually had some major development, in the later episodes. And it was all surprising to me, something that happened to her that I never saw coming. Miyuu gets some development as when she loses he friend. And also the gay bartender gets some good development, we learn alot about him in the later episodes.
Art - 10/10
Pros :
I gotta say, I was a huge fan of the art and animation of this series. IT had it's own unique style and it's a style I really like. I also love the character designs. Most of them, because...well... ya know lol... All of the character designs were pretty unique as well. I haven't notices any derps on the characters faces either. The artist really paid close attention to detail, even on the things you won't notice in a scene, and I'm a big fan of that.
Sound - 7/10
Pros: The Op and Ed was nothing too special, it was just... good. I wasn't loving it, I wasn't hating it... I just kinda like it. The OST was pretty good. Had some pretty spooky sounds in scenes where things were getting... ya know, pretty spooky, and those sounds were nice to my ears actually, I liked those sounds lol. And sounds that were not so spooky were ok as well. No big complaints here. It was all just slightly above average.
Enjoyment - 9/10
I gotta say though, despite the complaints I had with this series, I enjoyed this anime a ton. I loved the twists, I loved the nasty reveals of the characters, I love the development of the characters, and I love the interesting story. Story is only a 7 becasue of it's major issue in the first few episodes, I can't give it any higher than that even though I loved it, because of the huge rush. But yeah, I definitely enjoyed this anime, again it's not for everyone, some people aren't going to get it, and will probably drop it before things get intense... but it's whatever.
I'm giving this anime a strong 8 to a light 9. Thanks for reading this, have a good one guys :)
Shingster
Intro Every year you wound encounter an anime thats a little different to what you would usually find in a given season. In this season this will be occultic nine. Adapted from the light novel series of the same name So then lets get started Occultic Nine has a rather unique story in that it combines the traditional evil organisation/corporation's evil plot with the occultic which in this case deals with the use of spirits. The story combines the elements of these two type of story types with elements of mystery into one storyline that is full of twists and unexpected revelations. Indeed while thestory can be difficult to understand at first and indeed this is one of the complaints that i have seen other viewers have expressed the story does become clearer as anime goes on. The story of occultic nine follows the lives of nine characters that in normal life situations would not have likely have met each other but are drawn together when they discover the evil plot and that they have all been affected by it. One of the things that i like about the story for occultic nine is that it brings people with sometimes differing personalities together and force them to work together to hunt down the truth while at the same time allowing them to expand their knowledge on what they think is real. All in all i thought that the story behind occultic nine while certainly slow to start got better as it went on.
Yuta Gamon voiced by veteran voice actor Yuki Kaji of Accel world and Attack on Titan fame who is usually referred to as Gamon in the series is one of the main characters of the series. A high school student like Ryouka and Miyu Gamon is a self described Neet that runs his own blog that centers on the occultic and the paranormal that he calls Kiri Kiri Basara. Gamon has a rather simple outlook and view to his life in that he wants to merely run his blog in peace and live off the money that he runs from that while at the same time looking for interesting strange and paranormal phenomenon. Personality wise Gamon changes quite a bit in the course of the series so much in fact the its almost like he's a different person. In the early parts of the story Gamon is laid back and cowardly and cares little for others and only cares about the blog and himself and at the same time gets scared rather easily when confronted by the unknown. However this changes after he begins to unravel the truth in that he becomes a more determined and serious person that while still getting scared at times has learned to not let that affect him as much. Gamon also become braver and closer to his friends and more than willing to protect them which is a far cry from when his character was first introduced. I thought that Yuki Kaji did a great job portraying Gamon and his character is arguably one of my favorites on this show.
Ryouka voiced by veteran seiyuu Ayane Sakura of Charlotte Fame is one of the main characters of the show. A high school student like Gamon Ryouka is Gamons best friend and indeed only friend at the beginning of the story. Ryouka is a affiliate of the blog that Gamon runs and is one of the reasons why its popular. One of Ryouka's most prominent traits is the size of her breasts which is often used for comical effect within the series. Personality wise Ryouka is a bit of a ditz but nonetheless has a kind and caring personality and it is apparent that she cares about Gamon as a friend. Around halfway through the series Ryouka's personality changes due to to her being possessed by the spirit of the granddaughter of a well known inventor and real life persona that changes her personality. Here Ryouka/Aveline is a more serious person and a more driven one that while still caring of Gamon and co is also determined to stop the main enemy plot. This leads to her trying to decide on what actions to take for the endgame which i thought was well done. Ayane Sakura i felt did a great job portraying Ryouka here.
Miyu voiced by veteran seiyuu Hitomi Yoshida of the Digimon adventure tri fame is one of the main characters of the show. A high school student like Gamon and Ryouka Miyu is relatively popular due to her beauty and personality and is also a well known fortune teller that makes use of tarot cards to divine fortune and as a result she has a rather large fan club following her despite only being a first year. Personality wise Miyu is a kind and caring person that cares about her friends but at the same time is fearful of the occult and things that she doesn't understand. Miyu's friendship with her best friend Chizu who she calls Chi chan forms one of the foundations of her personality and also forms one of the sub arcs of the main story. When Chi vanished without a trace Miyu's personality changes and she becomes more withdrawn and depressed which is different to her usual positive self and at the same time she becomes obsessed to discover what happened to Chi. Though the arc ended with a sad fate for Chi Miyu at least found out what had happened and from that become a stronger person that become braver and at the same time caring towards her friends.
Sarai voiced by veteran voice actor Kaito Ishikawa is one of the main characters of the show. A university student unlike Gamon Sarai is also a realist that believes only in the facts that he sees in front of him and as such being confronted with the paranormal which itself is difficult to prove as there is no proven facts about it proves challenging for him to understand. Sarai is the son of Professor Hashigami a renowned and respected professor that was well respected within his field and is indeed a character central to the overall plot of the series. Sarai is a serious, intelligent and clear headed person and indeed among the cast along with Touko is the main brains within the cast. Sarai's relationship with his father is one of the main points of his character and seeing him try and understand the reason why his father decided to look into Paranormal and how he was connected with the main plot was actually quite hearwarming to see especially when it become apparent that his father was trying to stop the same plot that Sarai and co was. Another aspect of Sarai that was interesting was his relationship with Gamon. As a realist Sarai did not agree with Gamon on a lot of things including Paranormal and as such they are often at each others throats due to their differing viewpoints and beliefs. However as the series progresses and Gamon and Co discover more paranormal Sarai is forced to admit that even in life there are things that define common sense and ultimately results in Sarai actually calling Gamon his friend that opened his eyes.
Touko played by veteran seiyuu Shizuka Itou is one of the main characters of the show. A veteran reporter for a famed occultic magazine Touko is a highly motivated person that does her best to determine the truth behind the paranormal that she discovers. Like Sarai Touko is a bit of a realist but she is more willing to believe in something that can't be proven by facts if the theory behind them is sound. Being a reporter Touko crosses paths with many of the main cast before she too is dragged into the plot by the machinations of the villain. Personality wise Touko is a determined, efficient and focused person that is serious about her job and at the same time is also a smart and freethinking person that is not afraid of thinking outside of the box. Despite her rather serious nature Touko does care about her subjects and friends which is best seen in her interactions with Miyu in the aftermath of Chi's disappearance. In the cause of the series Touko develops a catchphrase of sorts in which she mutters the words Ascension whenever she discovers something and when something becomes clear in her mind. This i found to be quite amusing. In the course of the series Touko develops a good working relationship with Sarai as they are often out together looking for clues and at the same time she also makes friends with Miyu which i found to be nice.
Asuna voiced by veteran seiyuu Satomi Akesaka of Gate fame is a support character of the series. A special agent of the FBI despite being a high school girl Asuna shows up near the halfway point of the anime having been sent to replace her sempai Morisaki who had vanished during the course of his investigation. As expected of a detective Asuna is a perceptive, inquisitive and intelligent person thats also logical and dutiful. Asuna both respects and admires Morisaki a great deal and her reasons for investigating the case is as much as in finding out what had killed him as it is in finding out exactly what is going on. Not merely being content with examining evidence at the station Asuna also goes into the field quite often and as such crosses paths with the main cast when she encounters Gamon. Despite being confronted with a case that deals that the paranormal that is well outside of her expertise Asuna was able to determine the various connections that linked the various cases together something that local police had trouble in doing which ultimately led her to assisting the main cast in stopping the evil plot. Apart from having great deduction and investigation skills Asuna also has some sort of power in that she is able to see the last few moments of someones life as a movie. This i found to be quite interesting and actually made her character stand out more.
Aria voiced by veteran seiyuu Miyuki Sawashiro of Sword art online and High school of the dead fame is a main character of the series. A teenager that practices the art of Black magic in which she can place curses on someone by using a piece of their hair. Before becoming her current self Aria whose real name is Rin Minase was a somewhat rich girl who lived with her brother Takaharu in a large house within the city. As a result Aria had a rather close relationship with her brother that many mistake as incest but this is far from the truth as Aria saw him as parent figure that was the only person that cared for her. The shock of brothers death that resulted from a botched operation was the result of a kidney transplant ultimately drove Aria over the edge where she become Aria who is able to speak to the devil. Like Ririka Aria does factor in the main plot but only provides advice to the main cast indirectly.
Ririka voiced by veteran seiyuu Mamiko Noto of the Persona 3 movies is a renowned Dojin manga artist that seems to have the ability to predict the future. Her manga's serve as a central plot element within the show. Ririka is familiar with Professor Hashigami's work and is also familiar with Sarai as they both go to the same university. A mysterious, intelligent and mature person Ririka is an interesting character in that while she certainly knows more about the events that are going on she doesn't do anything to either help or hinder the villains and indeed seems content to wait and see what happens instead. Indeed Ririka like Aria only provides indirect advice to the main cast.
Arts and animation
I felt that the character designs for the main characters was well done and detailed and that the environments were well designed and executed. Animation i felt was well done especially with all the occultic scenes.
Music
The music for the series i felt was nicely done and i liked both the ending and opening themes that i felt set the mood for the series.
Voice acting
Voice acting in general i felt was good with Ayane Sakura, Yuki Kaji and Hitomi Yoshida deserving praise as i felt that they managed to portray their characters pretty well.
Conclusion
Occultic nine i felt was an interesting series as it combined the traditional evil corporation troupe with the paranormal and though it wasn't perfect by any means i quite enjoyed the story that i found to be both interesting and at the same time kinda disturbing. Animation and art i felt was reasonably good as was the music and voice acting. With regards to the characters however i felt that not all the characters were given enough character development. Certainly the main investigation team of Gamon, Sarai, Miyu and Ryouka were given great character development but the characters of Aria and Ririka both of which were voiced by veterans were not and apart from having a good backstory which even Ririka lacked they were not featured in the main plot that often. I felt that the story could have been expanded to include them in and give them a bigger role than what they had in the current story.
Apart from that however i quite enjoyed the story of occultic nine which mixed the evil corp troupe with the paranormal.
LegendAqua
Occultic;Nine might as well be LA's most indecisive anime for Fall 2016 and with good reason...LA had no idea what was going on...no actually that's not quite right, LA "struggled" to fit the pieces together. Mind you, it took LA 10 episodes before LA FINALLY knew where Occultic;Nine would be good or bad and when the plot fragments finally blended together into a cohesive narrative. For what Occultic;Nine has for "science" as this is a part of the ; Science Adventure visual novel series, what the science themes are "Nikola Tesla's experiments", nonetheless what it also has are Japanese horror stories, fortune telling, precog, a clandestineorganization, seeing the "devil", detective work through pschyometry, mass suicides...you can already tell what the problem is right?...THERE'S JUST TOO MANY IDEAS all jumbled up with one another. At least Chaos;Head had one theme, about delusions, Steins;Gate had time travel, Robotics;Notes had robots. Occultic;Nine feels like it wanted EVERYTHING to do with occult and nothing about it at the same time.
Occultic;Nine's characters are at best have inconsistent character development for when the plot demands it, such as Yuuta Gamon voiced by Yuki Kaji an occultic blogger, Ryouka Narusawa voiced by Ayane Sakura his assistant, Touko Sumikaze, a journalist to an occult magazine and Ririka Nishizono voiced by Mamiko Noto a doujinshi author that makes future predictions. Occultic;Nine however isn't exactly character-focused as the major plotlines and the occult drives these character forward into finding out just what the hell is going on. The only other character that actually seemed to get proper character development were Aria and Kiryuu Kurenanino voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro and Kishou Taniyama respectively as well as Miyuu Aikawa voiced by Hitomi Yoshida a clairvoyant and in finding her friend Chizu Kawabata voiced by Maria Naganawa, but once their development comes to pass, Aria and Miyuu gets hardly gets mentioned again and Miyuu's arc blends in with the the main gang afterwards. Shun Moritsuka voiced by Tetsuya Kakihara and Asuna Kisaki voiced by Satomi Akesaka, both detectives, along with Sarai Hashigami voiced by Kaito Ishikawa a son of a scientist and Touko Sumikaze really relays crucial information to the main gang as their function. Again the plot moves the characters forward, not the other way round (though ONE character becomes the exception later on). LA's favourite character would just go to Touko Sumikaze voiced by Shizuka Ito only because she seemed one of the more level-headed characters and probably remembered her for her catchphrase "Ascension!", second would easily go to Ryouka Narusawa, NO not because of her *ahem* "defining feature", but for voice actor Ayane Sakura and later events that focus on her and the impact she has to the plot in greater detail.
Ok, so Occultic;Nine pacing is at best what would happen if you merged SHAFTian animation with Durarara!!'s plot pacing with how it to tie all the characters together, at times Occultic;Nine will throw us a bone with expositional episodes, the problem is your suspense of disbelief if you can actually handle this. LA kinda did through trying to tie all the plot lines together and how it concerns the characters involved, but some of plot twists are hard to grasp or believe, the main one for LA being the clandestine organization and their plan which both becomes cliche and confusing. But for such a fast paced anime for fast speaking expositional characters, LA can see WHY it was soo fast paced at the very least, there were LOTS of material for the audience to grasp onto and see how the "fragments" would fit in through it, if it didn't, the 12 episode runtime wouldn't just be enough. Sure the fragmented nature of the anime makes it even worse and extremely confusing what's going on, but once the plot twists resolves and blends how the plot is "back on track", makes the fast pacing more or less compensation for that.
On speaking of plot twists, the plot twists felt like it had an impact on the viewer, not so much the characters themselves (Yuuta and Miyuu excluded), as once they realize the plot twists themselves, it just like a normal thing to them and they don't budge or react as much kinda dampening the effect of revealing the plot twist when the character reactions are just like "meh". The only leeway LA can guess is that the main cast has dabbled in the occultic thus it IS just a normal thing to them, but then the characters who are more level-headed grounded characters didn't freak out during their revelations, instead the character who are more crazy does. GAAAA...either way something LA had taken notice to.
The animation by A1-Pictures, again it felt like SHAFTian animation but with differing character designs across the board along with differing styles to match it at the same time, the animation wasn't annoying for the most part as it did bring in the cohesiveness of what was going on and really reigned in the occultic atmosphere it needed with it's grunge black colorings and bolded and light-toned character designs to make things even more crazy to say the least. If anything the animation was pretty decent overall and it's fast pacing added to the animation frantic stylings too, the animation by A1-Pictures was very good all things considered.
The voice acting really needed to be in game and it's one of the better aspects LA saw in Occultic;Nine, reason being because of all the expositional info dumping through ALL characters, the entire cast essentially speedread their lines along with their emotional impact to boot, this voice cast DID AMAZING because of it. If LA would hone in on one voice actor, it would go to Ayane Sakura, let's just say SHE HAD RANGE and still kept the frantic pacing of the anime pretty much for LA, LA's favourite voice actor in Occultic;Nine. But overall, excellent voice casting to fit it's style it needed to bring out.
The ending really did feel like it reigned in it's themes (after LA tried to analyze the ending for 20 minutes after the final episode anyways) though it finally narrowed down all the themes it had down into one BIG goal that Yuuta and Ryouka had to pull off, but this BIG GOAL was what reigned in the cohesive narrative together albeit a few loose ends never told to us by the end of it and left in a both good climax but anti-climax afterwards due to how it "just ended" with no proper epilogue to see what the hell happened to the rest of the characters be it minor or not. It was a climax because of all the attention to the BIG goal and how to get there and let it be accomplished, the anti-climax happened straight after the conclusion of the BIG goal. LA didn't know how to feel about it....satisfied?...but wanted more?...is probably the best way to say it.
Occultic;Nine, is most definitely an anime you NEED to watch more than 4 episodes before casting your vote in as to what you think about it, all due it's fragmented storytelling along with it's many many MANY plot twists that goes along with it makes it a rather hard anime to pin down whether it was good or not. Hell as LA said it took LA 10 out of the 12 episodes before LA could tell and from LA's perspective, Occultic;Nine is a decent anime overall for LA, having the plot twists handy to get you re-invested towards what the hell is going on and thinking about the suspension of disbelief "theories" and either accepting it or not and sure many people might get heavily disappointed or annoyed by it's frantic pacing, lacking character development and the more obvious response of "what the f- is going on?", but seriously, LA will say this, if your gonna watch Occultic;Nine, it's definitely one of those animes that you need to keep your investments in check as the reward in staying and not passing judgement to an anime soo quickly, might bring great satisfying rewards later on and that was what LA got, not so much from the ending as it still left questions after it's resolution but the rest of them makes for an interesting anime nonetheless. Not the best from the Science Adventure series LA has seen, but an interesting confusingly fragmented as all hell narrative with a crazy cast of character in an even crazier "take it or leave it" suspension of disbelief and some decent production values to go along with it.
animeluvor21
Honestly, for all the people saying this show is a nightmare, you're clearly wrong. It isn't a nightmare. Unless you can't read fast enough. In that case, don't watch this show and watch something else. Okay, if you cannot catch onto details quickly, this show will SHOVE ITS ASS UP YOUR FACE. If you don't want to be extremely confused, watch it with a friend or don't watch it at all(or go on reddit). The show has some problems with pacing. It's paced quickly, which is a problem to some people. However, the pacing eventually slows down so that you can actually pay attention. (By the way, forthat one reviewer that says that "the first episode adapted 200 pages, so it's terrible, you're dearly wrong. First of all, the first light novel did NOTHING except establish characters.Who wants 2 episodes of NOTHING? Plus, the first episode skipped some material. STOP LISTENING TO WHAT OTHERS THINK AND READ THE LN.)
Ok, let's begin the review.
Story: 9
The story was great. It had a lot of potential. The pacing ruined it a bit, but it still was a great story. The characters interacted a lot. The events of the story make sense and the twists are completely random. If you love a good mystery anime, watch this show.
Art:9
The animation and character designs in this anime are wonderful. The character designs by Pako are unique, stylish and represent the characters of the show. The animation is fluid and aims to get your attention. Its unique shots make you either get grossed out or you get a earful of fanservice.
Ok, the main complaint of the art that people have is that Ryo-tas has GIANT BOOBS. Okay, no. First of all, the light novel did this, so don't blame the anime. Second, what is wrong with having big boobs. You people make it seem terrible to have big breasts. Just stop.
Anyways, the art is pretty good.
Sound:9
The music is great. They add music to dialouge and that makes those long talking scenes more interesting. The music is creepy, mysterious and really sets the mood. However, sometimes they use the same soundtrack over and over again, so that's why it's a 9.
Character: 5
Ok, this is the low-point of the series. The characters are not well-developed, except for the main protag and his sidekick, Ryo-tas. If they integrated the character's backstory into the anime then it would be much better. Don't expect any "great" characters in this anime.
Enjoyment:9
This series was very enjoyable. It was fun to make theories and see if they were true or not. I loved making theories and testing them out. The pacing was bad, but that didn't stop me from enjoying it.
Overall: 8
This show was good. It had pacing issues, but if you can handle that, it's a show to watch.
samuel_sfx
Occultic Nine is another dark anime involving mind bending story and so to say, mind bending timeline. You need to pay really big attention with the timeline, especially when the DATE appearing on the screen (3rd of March is the main date where everything is start happening). Ok, back again to the topic. Honestly, the concept of the story is really great, mystery keep happening the entire series and I always have this feeling of want to know what gonna happen on the next episode with STRONG curiosity. The only hard time I have finishing the series is catching up with the SCREENWRITING. Yes, the screenwriting...if youdon't know what is screenwriting, in short it is the dialogue. I am not a native Japanese and I DON'T like watching dubbed anime so I have quite hard time following the barrage of the subtitle while trying to catch up with what's exactly going on. It seems like the series cramped screenwriting of 24 Episode series into 12 Episodes series. EVERYBODY talk WAAYYYYY too fast and I feel like watching the anime on a rollercoaster. Seriously...it's a high speed train, the paces can feel like out of hand, some episode was feels really fast that I don't even feel ..."What? Did I just finish a 20 Min worth of Episode...what?"
This is the first time I met this kind of story so I could say that it's kinda original and fresh. I love it from the bottom of my heart but since this rollercoaster series going full speed from the start up to the very last episode but BOOM! the last episode was stopping in a FULL BREAK and I feel like ...errghh,,,what's the term of it..ah! yeah right! I feel like WHIP LASHED! That's the perfect word. Imagine you ride a rollercoaster and then suddenly its stop after running 100km/h. No no no, not that I don't like the ending (or so I wish it have a better ending but it doesn't) The way the story closed looks like it will have 2nd season or something so yeah...it is a bit hanging. So in summary, Occultic Nine leave me WHIP LASHED HANGING *lmao *cry
The art & animation? Always love Studio A1 and I will say EVERYTHING is IDENTICAL with SHELTER (that MV of Porter Robinson song) except that SHELTER have much better animation detail but that doesn't mean Occultic Nine not good, in fact thumbs up with the art, I enjoyed it so much (Just try to adapt with those nose drawings, it's a tad odd but yeah..it is odd). It is exactly like SHELTER but with far darker ambience.
Character. The entire series is filled with tons of type of character (except lollicon and tsundere) and all of them coming from different background, not knowing each other and then one by one introduced to each other through a perfect chain of events and all great. Secret after secret, mystery after mystery, why after why revealed one by one and connected to each other finishing the puzzle.
One thing I would suggest is try to open your mind to the logic, flip your head a bit because this series is good in term of mind bending. It is filled with rationally impossible theories (something beyond science yet the entire series is close to science) so I would say Occultic Nine is involving Sci-Fi genres in the process.
I am excited the entire series due to the lively ambience combo Ryotas and Gamotan and I enjoy the rollercoaster. I like the theme song and the soundtrack as well, it is not boring by any means. I found Occultic Nine pretty similar with Durarara in a lot of ways with ADDITIONAL SPEED and MIND BENDING SCI-FI.
cubedcubie
First off, I'd just like to say that for me at least the art was one of the best parts of this show. It's a really interesting style and there are a lot of interesting shots. The characters were also well done and developed, though the way they designed Ryouka's character is rather... questionable. The rest of the characters all look great though. The story is by far the most interesting part of the show. It's a mystery with a bit of a thriller-aspect to it (like the SciAdv series by the same author), and I personally found it very engaging. I would say that the pacingis slightly off in some parts; the last episode in particular had way too much going on in it.
For me though, the greatest issue I had with this entire show was the speed of the dialogue. I'm sure if I was fluent in Japanese, this show would be a point higher for me, but since I'm not, the speed at which they talk sometimes leaves you having to rewind, pause, and then read the subtitles again. Maybe I'm just not a fast enough reader, but anyways.
Overall a pretty engaging show if you don't drop it after the first few episodes because of the pacing and the speed of the talking.
x_amazing
This will the the first and last review that i will give to an anime here on myanimelist. I don't really do things like these ( giving reviews or being involved with anime besides watching it) but i think this anime has been rated by many users carelessly. (First paragraph contains what you may consider a spoiler but not really spoiler for the story) When i tried to watch this anime i was so caught up by the name and cover so i didn't even bothered to watch the PV and i watched the first episode directly. As many people say's "First impressions lasts", my first impressionof this anime was trash and garbage. I'm watching the first few minutes of the first episode (which is the episode that should capture my interest blah blah blah) but what i saw was an overly large pair of watermelon boobs bouncing around and around, its not that i don't love fan services but i did not considered even to the slightest that i would be shown boobs for the first episode and because of that i immediately dropped the series and scored it 1.
After that i've watched several anime and whenever i searched for next anime to watch i am always seeing this anime. So one time i got really curious and decided to learn more about this anime and i learnt that it is maid by the same guy who made steins;gate (an anime that i loved the most to the point that i bought the game). So i decided to give it a try again, and now im happy to end 2016 with this very smart decision of mine.
I feel that the overall score 7.1? is a clear injustice and misjudgment. The story is very interesting, if this won't get your interest i think nothing will. The story is rich, plots everywhere. Although you might really need to think hard to understand the story and go with the flow (i myself had to pause and rewind almost all the explanations just to understand it). let me just say this once but THIS IS REALLY A VERY GOOD ANIME, IF NOT THE GREATEST.
If you don't find this anime beautiful and story rich, you are a very hard to please.
Please give it a chance and watch it because it is really beautiful, the fact that i wrote myself is a proof enough. Happy New Year fellow MAL people!
BugEyedSamurai
Occultic;Nine had all the ingredients to make a fantastic show; but instead, it became a recipe for disaster. The biggest problem with Occultic;Nine is how it is presented. The plot and the art are setup perfectly to suite a dark and eerie paranormal fiction theme but it's almost as if the writers thought they were working on a sliceoflife/comedy. Any scene that is supposed to send chills down the viewers spine doesn't. Having every character talk at x1.5 speed with no pauses leaves little to no room for the audience to feel emotions towards someone dying in the background. It seems they were worried the anime wouldbe too scary so they made the main character a NEET whose lines consists purely of comic relief and a supporting character whose breasts are more exaggerated in size than any character this year.
If you plan on watching the show for its mysterious and intriguing story telling then let me stop you there. They start it with a shaky paranormal foundation and then it all falls to shit with an ending full of asspulls.
I can't say I regret watching Occultic;Nine
but I am however underwhelmed and disappointed.
Haps97
Occultic;Nine is like a new disease. At first, you'll be confused and unsure what to make of it because it's so strange. Then, you're given placebos, and it seems normality has returned to a certain degree. When the psychological veil is gone and the huge elephant is revealed to you once again, you treat the many symptoms hoping that it'll be cured over time. Unfortunately the symptoms simply return and in greater intensity until you decided to put your foot down to find the vaccine. And thank goodness we don't have to do that because we have a miracle drug that will fix everything! *cough*deus ex machina *cough*
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The premise is really good and captivating, but pacing was way too fast. Every episode messes with your mind, making you scream obscenities as if it'll help you make more sense of it. And then they info dump you because you were asking the wrong question, ya dummy.
Music and songs are great. Love the opening (that Steins;Gate opening band man) and ending songs.
Character development felt rushed because of how the story was paced, and half of the casts are underdeveloped it seems. But they grow on you regardless. Or maybe I'm just too obsessed with the mystery that I don't really care.
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Overall it's a fun watch, quite enjoyable, but it left me wanting for more with how it ended. Still many questions unanswered. Maybe the ongoing light novel. Maybe the upcoming game. *shrugs*
erayerdin
This was a really fast-paced story and it ended as it began. So the viewers might find it difficult to follow up due to pace but not story. There were some "good minus meh" theoretical grounds on physics in this show. Those positive scientific claims can be discussed in forum or Reddit. Let's begin. **Story** It was fair (6). The show did not succeed to amaze me while revealing true identities of some characters. **Art**Very good (8). Yes, the show was "meh", but it had a unique style. Drawings on faces, thematic color palette etc. It was unique (apart from a pair of huge bewbs).
**Sound**
Not a mess, and not unique either (6). I began to think some guy is up and creating OSTs for modern anime series. They all sound like some particular one person. I will not remember any of OSTs from this show. Even Chaos;Head's tense OST was good.
**Characters/CD**
DUDE, WHAT THE HELL! It was a mess, really. You can see those guys in every series. Starring;
- Mr NEET Talker (Gamon Yuuta)
- That Girl You Know Loving Cats (Aikawa Miyuu)
- Mrs. Silence (Kurenaino Aria)
- The Guy Who is Fun At Parties (Hashigami Sarai)
- Party Pooper (Moritsuka Shun) (Seriously, this guy appears INTO every conversation)
- My Ulti is My Bewbs (Narusawa Ryouka)
- I Drew You All Bitchez (Nishizono Ririka)
- Ascention (Sumikaze Touko)
- LGBTi At The Same Time (Izumi Houhei)
- I Use My Power and Wait 4 Cooldown (Kisaki Asuna)
CD awards:
The Most Original Character: 404 Not Found
The Most Annoying Character: Narusawa Ririka
The Coolest Character: Well...
The Most Hopeless Character: Aikawa Miyuu
Which is, character development is shit in this show.
**Enjoyment**
Good (7). Why? Because I could not find any other better shit in this season.
**Overall**
Good (7). Yes, the show was down, but they tried to fix something up on process. They slowed the pace down in middle episodes. They show'd another characteristic of Narusawa just to say "Hey, we are trying.". So, yeah.
For me, it is just waste of tiem.
OcculticFan9
A modern masterpiece. Where as shows such as Hunter x Hunter and Soul Eater failed to show the severity of it's themes, Occultic;Nine succeed at doing the impossible of tackling major themes with no issue in the slightest. Story:10 The story was so gripping and immersive at every turn. At most points it felt like i was really in the universe of Occultic;Nine as the main protagonist Yuuta Gamon. I won't spoil it for you here however just expect life altering development in your mediocre life. Art:10 I am a connoisseur of art and I must say the visuals of this anime a groundbreaking tosay the least. i have covered my wall in some of the frames of the anime and to be honest it is the best decision i have ever made in my life.
Sound:10
The soundtrack, don't even get me started. If i was given one word to describe it i would say CHILLS. The raw emotion it gives out makes me feel multiple things i have never felt before.
Character:10
Without a doubt, Occultic; has some of the strongest characters along side Lelouch(Code Geass) and Kaneki (Tokyo Ghoul). The characters are so good and deep that you could stick them in any piece of media and suprisengly it just works.
Enjoyment:10
Do i need to say anymore really this is by far the best anime ever made and instead of reading this review i strongly implore you to watch and take in this piece of fine art.
