Set in a world where the concept of music ceases to exist. The story begins when a boy encounters Myuu, a mysterious girl who possesses an audio input jack in her body. The two intermingle with the history of rock music and embark on an unforgettable journey. (Source: MAL News)
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HEY! Listen! “Listeners” is fucking garbage, and in most cases, I’d say you’d have to see it to believe it but I pray no one besides myself has to lay themselves bare to this level of unfiltered drek. If the litmus test for a half-decent anime screen-writer is having listened to the musical stylings of Jimi Hendrix, Prince, and Pink Floyd (among many...many others), then you can consider most dads in the continental United States accomplished enough to pen something equal to or better than Listeners. This isn’t a show for music nerds or people who can appreciate the hallowed halls of surface-level dad-rock, no, no,Listeners is a bit more sinister than that. Listeners is 12 straight episodes of some smug prick patting himself on the back for having listened to the most bare-essential “classics” in the history of popular music. You like Nirvana? So does the rest of the world, dude. Besides its flashy concept and presentation, Listeners is one giant nothingburger of an anime. Its intentions are pretty damn transparent, to the point where its disjointed narrative throws caution to the wind in order to fulfill the fucking reference quota in any given episode. The dialogue in this script simply acts as a placeholder for more fucking references. I shit you not, entire sequences of conversation in this show can be boiled down to two Talking Heads (see, I can make references too) reciting famous song lyrics to each other in place of substantive discourse, exposition, or character interaction. I’ve seen some call this “impressive” for sheer virtue of the fact that you have to frame this in a manner that both visually and narratively fits the story… PUHLEASE! Mu, of course, the mascot character and strong female deuteragonist. Another mysterious Mary McGuffin who lacks social graces, sports a bitchy attitude, and is generally unlikable by most standards. Complete with a nebulous past that is somehow directly involved in the plot, lovely, haven’t had enough of those. But she wouldn’t be complete without “Echo”, what a lovely character. An intrepid young lad with an appetite for (reconstruction?). These two may as well just be Kamijou Touma and Index but even they had better chemistry than these two buffoons. Your average character interaction between them will generally involve Echo regurgitating essential world-building and Mu calling Echo a weirdo for doing so, brilliant. I get that this show is supposed to be some kind of kitschy tribute to artists of old but there’s little to no consistency in terms to what it chooses to riff that the references at best come off like a Spotify playlist of rock essentials. The world of Listeners suggests a reverence for rockstars, but the references wouldn’t lead you to believe so. This makes me question references to MBV and Robert Johnson, I mean does the type of music Kevin Shields produces exactly scream “rock star?” People under the supposition that this show has consistency in terms of what music it chooses to pay tribute to are gravely mistaken. Additionally, artists like Kurt Cobain who famously repudiated this degree of blind idolatry have flagrant references strewn about like kitschy decor, which is stunningly ironic. It would be one thing if all these on the nose winks and nods to popular music acts from back in the day were for the sake of aesthetic (take Jojo’s for example), but it couldn’t be that simple, this shit is intrinsically tied to the narrative. Everything from “Teen Spirit” to “The Wall” has some form of off-the-cuff functionality in the world-building that lives and dies with whatever episode it was mentioned in. Also, I have to question the rationale behind making the Jimi Hendrix (widely recognized as one of if not THE single most important black musician in the history of music) stand-in, a generic pasty-skinned rock god catch-all. What kind of optics are these? Who the fuck co-signed this shit? The same dude who tried to cast Julia Roberts as Harriet Tubman? The CG models for the mechs are chunky and distractingly out of place which makes for some of the most awkward action sequences I’ve seen come out of an anime in this year. Give this concept to Trigger or David Productions and I’m sure they’d at least be able to cobble something together with the visual panache to distract from its cliched sensibilities. Yeah...so...Listeners, that was a thing, I guess? Alright, listen (okay...I’ll stop), perhaps this show wasn’t made for someone like me who is cognizant of most if not all of the musicians it proudly flaunts, but I have to question if this show even really has a target audience I could recommend it to. If you’re someone who is completely oblivious to all or most of the references, what leg would this anime have to stand on? There isn’t a compelling story, not a single noteworthy character, or even just a brief cut of decent visuals that isn’t just lazily aping the music it pays tribute to. It’s just utter nonsense and sci-fi gobbledygook. Needless to say, this anime made me foam at the mouth, and not in a good way. This show is so eye-roll inducing that my sockets have ballooned by at least a centimeter over the course of its 12 episodes. Fuck you Jin.
Listeners (2020) First off this is a show that will be slated and in some cases for good reason but at the same time, it is a bit harsh. I think this would have benefited having more than 12 episodes but not as many as 24. Perhaps the ending should have been an OVA immediately released to allow it to spread more of the story. The show itself does contain a pretty basic plot and it is also one that does a full 360. In this I mean we have an event that causes a war-like scenario which is then repeated to have a different ending.The ending is more representative of the 1960-1970 era of the hippies and love. The show started off really strong and it was building itself to be a real show breaker coming out of the generic storyline to actually build. Problem is that it faltered about 6 episodes in. Personally, I believe this was due to it being only 12 episodes. If it had a few more it would have been able to portray itself much better. The art of the show is actually pretty brilliant. It is a high standard throughout and really shows the symbolism that it wants to give. The CGI used on the mechs is also of a great standard. Sound in the show is good, not quite as I would have hoped since the music it was based off is so iconic. I guess there must have been some legal reasons that dulled the authentic feel down. Characters mainly Mu and Echo the protagonists are really good. To begin with, you believe Echo to be the soul main with Mu then coming to take over and then it is shared. A few other characters of note make for an interest situation. Nir is very interesting since she actually gets an episode purely for her which was so unusual. We must remember most characters are based off someone generally. Best girl tournament in this for me: 1. Nir 2. Sally 3. Roz 4. Mu 5. Janis Mu is a great girl but she develops in a different way and her Tsundere personality is handled a bit weirdly. Remember in episode 12 you see 'track 13' so it sort of has a short ending episode with a short OVA you could say. In the end, I would say honestly the show is good. Nothing more and nothing less than good. It would have been a solid 9 had the show not been rushed to cram in content and possibly a 10 if the music was that little bit better and more authentic. The show is an enjoyable ride as something casual to watch. I would recommend it since the ending is pretty nice and a cliff hanger. Saying that I don't expect to see it renewed, I actually don't think it needs to be as it left on a nice note.
This was the original creation of a guy whose name is "Jin" who created a lotta musical composition in a lot of anime, so basically this was his only anime creation and yet IMO he did a good job. Ok, here were my ratings: Story-Good 7: Ok, so the story maybe the usual guy finds anthropomorphic girl and from there their adventure begins, but in this original anime, the adventure wasn't your typical one, cu'z it was more like an adventure of self discovery when involves a girl who has no idea that she's the baddie around here and a guy who save the day andmanages to save the girl in the end. Art-Good 7: Well, given that the motif of fashion and illustration, it was kinda good when something from the 70's was blended with something from both the 80's and 90's. Sound-Very Good 7: that's for the opening ""Into the blue's" by ACCAMER" and the various ending theme and the soundtrack that were played around this original anime. Character- Decent 4: There wasn't much about the characters around here, when we talk about Echo and Mu as usual Rick Echo was this weakling guy who gets to be on the receiving end of Mu'z tsundere thing , everything else were just the usual baddie and ally thing.... Enjoyment-Decent 4: Well, it wasn't a chore to watch given that this was more on the musical side. Overall-Good 7: Not bad at all........IMAO...
Music as the main theme including mecha action and implied cyber or steampunk elements. That sounds like a pretty cool and extravagant mixture. Unfortunately, despite good ambitions and ideas, the series cannot deliver what it promises. Even though there are many allusions to music and stars of the last decades, but that alone does not make wine out of water. Music means a lot to me, the anime is dedicated to it and that's why it's hard for me to write this, but the anime as a whole is just not good. Story: At first glance, simple & predictable, so the great thing about it isunfortunately only explored by music enthusiasts (4/10) It's such a shame that the script is so banal and far too short for the story. The really cool and well thought-out references to music and contemporary history are unfortunately mostly hidden from viewers who are not so keen about music, a real pity! The story begins in a world where there is no music. No music can be taken literally, and I personally think that's the main reason the anime can never be a success. If there had been a couple of weird and cool guys in the series who just made music that matched the allusions, you'd kill two birds with one stone that way. On the one hand, this would add delightful comedy to the story, and on the other hand, it would give some cool examples of the allusions to the music that might spark some interest in the audience to look up what the music is about. But in the absence of clues or music samples, most viewers see just a simple story about a boy who meets a mysterious girl with amnesia and goes on an adventure with her because of a small mishap. Characters: Like the story, the main cast is not well staged and therefore not really likeable (4/10) The MCs are extremely stereotypical, perhaps this was intended so that the allusions to the history of music and the plot are not superimposed. If this is the case, then I just can't understand why the supporting characters were made so much more eye-catching and interesting. However, it is irrelevant, because the more interesting and engaging characters disappear as quickly as they appeared. Rec, Echo: A teenager with a shy nature. His hobby is electronic equipment, he wears an orange work suit and of course boys like to tinker with devices. The name "Echo Rec" is an allusion to an effect device by Binson. The "Echo Rec" is a delayed playback of the original sound, so that an echo is created. Myū (μ): She is a so-called player, easily recognizable by the cable connection in her body. The players fight against mysterious beings known as earless. Players use large robots that transform themselves from the so-called equipment. Even though Echo is a big fan of the players, they are generally not very popular, because 10 years ago a tragedy happened during a big event of the players. Suffering from amnesia and not knowing her real name, "Echo" gave her the name " Myū (μ)". In my opinion this is a really successful allusion to "Planet Mu (Planet µ)". The label is known as the home of Grime, Dubstep, Breakcore, Acid, Glitchy Shoegaze and Footwork. Even Breakcore and the revival of acid and electronic pop of the 80s were celebrated under the µ-symbol. Label founders Mike Paradinas and Planet Mu have created some hypes and revolutions in music, and I think Myū should embody that. Let's have a look at the supporting characters. Nir: She's also a player and a student at the Freak Scene Academy. She is shunned by her classmates, there is a rumor that she would attract the earless. Her character is pretty cool, it's definitely a reference to Kurt Cobain, the songwriter and founding member of the American rock band "Nirvana" from Aberdeen. The look fits pretty well, Kurt Cobain was a man, but with Nir nobody notices that she is a girl. Anyway, pretty good innuendo with a supporting role and if you don't know the band, I recommend you to listen to "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Denka: He is the leader of the purple kingdom and at the latest with the allusion to the color "purple" it is clear who was the model here. Denka's attitude and appearance as well as the scene in the bathtub can only be dedicated to Prince Rogers Nelson or simply Prince. An exceptional artist who wrote his own texts, composed and arranged the music. His musical spectrum ranged from R&B to funk, soul to jazz. Here, too, the portrayal of a supporting character is extremely well done. If you don't know Prince, I would like to recommend the track "Purple Rain" or if you want to see the original to the bath scene, "When Doves Cry". Neubauten “Sisters”: These three antagonists are a slightly more difficult allusion. It is actually a play on words. You have to put the first names of the three in the right order, then you get "EinStürZende Neubauten” and that is the name of a German experimental band that is active in the genres Industrial, Dark Ambience and Noise. This isn't quite my cup of tea, so I don't really have a recommendation here. Ritchie & Lyde: These two perform as a duo, and I liked them immediately. They are residents of Londinium (= Latin for London), the city is a bit on the brink of collapse, it certainly has nothing to do with Brexit, but it hits the nail on the head. Anyway, the two are close friends, even if it doesn't look like that at first glance. Maybe they seem so normal to me, and that's why I like them. Nevertheless, there is also a clear allusion in the two of them. Here again it's the looks and the names. It's about the British band "Sex Pistols". It concerns the members of the punk rock band, John Joseph Lydon (stage name Johnny Rotten) and John Simon Ritchie (stage name Sid Vicious). So Ritchie and Lyde, I really would have liked to see more about them. There are still many references to the music scene, such as Janis (= Janis Lyn Joplin), an American songwriter and singer known in the rock, soul and blues genres, whose most famous song is "Mercedes Benz". Another reference is the name "Leo Marshall", the name is combined from "Leo" Fender and Jim "Marshall". These two names adorn musical instruments and amplifiers, without them the music world is unimaginable. Jimi Stonefree: It is rather a simple allusion to the virtuoso guitarist Jimi Hendrix. This allusion is so clear because there are several references in the series. The name "Stonefree" is a title from the album "Are You Experienced", which was released in 1967. The play in the anime, also has the title of a Hendrix song: "All along the Watchtower" which is from the 1968 album "Electric Ladyland". I'm very excited about this reference because I'm a huge Jimi Hendrix fan, although I don't quite understand why Hendrix was used in the first place. One might ask now, why is my rating for the characters so low, when there are actually good thoughts in it and the allusions are easily recognizable? The answer is the same as for the story (see above). Great ideas are of little use if the meaning is not perceptible. A lot of work has been put into the characters - except for the main characters - but the meaning, why these, why Jimi Hendrix, why Sex Pistols, and so on, remains unclear. The series is too short to convey the premise correctly to the viewer. Let's leave it at that, I got a little carried away already, and there is still so much that could be described. For example, the record that Janis pulls out of the pile in the basement is "King of the Delta Blues Singers", a scrapbook released by Columbia Records in 1961, which contains songs by US blues musician Robert Johnson. No, no... Here I go again... xD, I'll let myself be carried away again... Visuals: Overall not well implemented and therefore below average (4/10) The visual appearance has attractive aspects every now and then, but the shortcomings outweigh the advantages. I enjoyed the world building, the background art. The character design wasn't really my cup of tea, however. The design of the characters corresponds very well to their real-life role models, I have to admit. But I am simply not a fan of the short, thick eyebrows. That's just a small thing, one could object now, but the face is a very important detail and especially the eye area. The character sketches are varied, but that's already results from the real-life models. The design is not great but the characters do not have a generic look either. The colour palette is adjusted to the tonality of the anime, which I think is a plus. Unfortunately, light and shadow effects as well as shading are less well done. The art seems to be a bit blurred overall and therefore details often vanish in the haze of the unrecognized. The topic details builds a bridge to animation and, my transition here is literally more fluid than the animation in the anime. A lot of CG is used, which would not be unusual for a Mecha as it creates clean contours and allows for a detailed and appealing design. Well, let's briefly ignore the fact that it is not quite clear why Mechas are used in this anime in the first place. The idea from above, a few cool and weird guys with instruments, even if it were only the voices of the singers, would have been more than enough. For example, it would have suited the anime to give the "Rat Pack" (Sinatra, Davis Jr., Martin, Bishop, etc.) a revival or, on the other hand, a vocal battle, just think of the movie "8 Mile". Regardless of the criticism of the meaning of using Mechas, the CG elements are sloppy and therefore shadows and shades are incorrect or rather irritating. The CG technique seems often choppy and the robot fights look more like a failed Idol concert, with no music and singing, but dance instead. Music: All right, but too weak to raise the score for the anime (6/10) Some details about the music have been mentioned, but this was more about the visual appearance of the characters. In the field of music there is a little more to say. It is known that the episodes are music titles. "Live Forever" is a title by Oasis from the 1994 album Definitely Maybe. "Teen Spirit" Ep. 4, is a reference to Nirvana "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from the 1991 album Nevermind. In the 10th episode the title is "Cross Road Blues" and refers to the musician Robert Johnson. This works with all titles in the series, just try the others. What is not immediately noticeable is that an attempt was made to represent a certain musical development. This goes well with "Grunge" by Nirvana, with Prince as a bridge over alternative rock to British pop from Oasis. Somewhat anachronistic in this series, however, is the blues in episode 10. The OP of the series is "Into the blue's" by ACCAMER. The artist also makes her debut in "Listeners". The powerful voice and the rocking guitar sound are a successful start to the series. Unfortunately, the animation promises more than the series as a whole can deliver. The idea of giving each episode a different ED is cool. I don't like all the titles, but for example "Slip out!" was really cool. I also really enjoyed "Top of Ocean". I'm sure that with twelve titles, everyone will find something to like. By the way, the fact that the titles all sound so different, even though it's always the same singer, is due to the fact that very different musical styles were used to match the episodes. My favourite title, however, is the Love song - side Hello. With the voice actors I noticed more the supporting roles again. As for the female voices, I especially liked Kugimiya, Rie. She embodied the role of Nir very well. Her interpretation of the emotions and the way of expression struck me positively. I also liked Hanazawa, Kana in the role of Roz. Among the male voices, Suwabe, Jun'ichi as the voice of Denka should definitely be mentioned. The extravagant and shrillness could be heard clearly in the voice and was interpreted very well. I also found the voice of Yamadera, Kouichi as Kevin Valentine very good. A very beautiful voice and pleasant to hear. Overall the sound section is the best part of the anime, but too weak to raise the score as a whole. To be honest, I am very disappointed. It almost hurts to think that a lot of effort and work was put into the series, and in the end all that effort was unfortunately for nothing. The plot fails to convey to the viewer what is really cool about the story. The MCs are unlikable, and cool supporting characters disappear in the blink of an eye. The mecha action is few and not well done. And since there's no music either, the anime just doesn't have anything compelling to offer its genre fans. Some would call this effort "wasted" or simply "wasted", so would I! As always, thanks for reading, but the anime is not worth the time.
Listeners shows you can't rely on good voice talent alone to prop up your show. When it was first announced, the list of A-list seiyuu being cast as virtually everyone had piqued my interest disregarding the actual content of the show. Talents and performances from people you don't really hear from that often nowadays with the influx of newer cheaper talent. So I vowed to myself to sit through this to the end at the very least, I mean, if they could spend enough money to get good talent, surely the actual show would be at least somewhat decent wouldn't it? Turns out I was deludingmyself to the highest degree. If I had wanted to listen to these performances, what I should have been doing instead is watching older anime. But enough about me, more on the actual show. That money had to have come from somewhere, and what remains is a lousy mess of animation that is neither inspiring nor is it interesting. Listeners is nothing but dad rock references propping up the main plot and narrative without having them make any much sense in the greater context of the overall story. At its core its a very simple boy meets girl kind of story yet executed in the dullest possible manner. The situations and setpieces Echo and Mu end up in just end up being music references to whatever the episode decides to be about, being references for the sake of references without providing any nuance or even humor to them. Like, the closest thing this reminds me of is Brutal Legend. But (for all its flaws) Brutal Legend at least managed to satisfactorily tie in its isekai rock world theme with its music references, Listeners on the other hand feels completely lost with its referential material not knowing what it actually wants to accomplish. It's hard to believe this was done by Mappa. Animation quality is generally stiff, the mecha designs are awful, and don't get me started on the Earless. The music in this is incredibly bland, with a lot of the tracks being lawyer-friendly copycats of the dad rock stuff they love referencing. Really, nothing in this show works at all. There is some irony when that QUALITY baseball show ended up having better music than a show about music. All in all, I made a new rule to myself in order to justify why I ended up completing a show I ended up disliking in the end. In this case it was probably some naive thinking that the show would come to its senses and deliver some spectacle that never happened. Or perhaps I wanted to listen to Kugimiya Rie's voice more. I don't know. 3/10
Listeners is a show that wanted to be something, but ultimately failed to ever materialise. An interesting/fun concept with poor execution. The show started off pretty well with a first episode that did manage to catch my attention and get me interested in the world. I got pretty heavy FLCL vibes from it given the focus on adolescence, the sexual undertones and innuendos, etc. However, whereas FLCL had a legitimate plot and was enjoyable to watch, I found many episodes of Listeners downright disorienting and difficult to sit through. The pacing and narrative are really all over the place with characters coming in and out ofthe story at random, overt rock and roll/drug references that are beat over your head every damn episode and an extremely confusing overarching story. After watching the entire series, I probably know as much about the series as someone who’s only read the MAL synopsis. Despite the awful pacing, storytelling and overdone pop culture references, Listeners is rather impressive technically. Some decent CGI scenes, cool character designs, beautiful art and a pretty cool soundtrack. Unfortunately the consistency of its art was not shared by its story. As a result, for only the 6th time in my life, I would have to advise against watching this one. Despite an interesting concept and world, listeners falls flat on its face. While I appreciate the effort by the studio, it could have been much better with better direction. Listeners gets 5 earless out of 10. Note: Listeners is one of only 5 shows that I have ever rated below 7.
Best album I've heard from Jin. Anime? What anime? I was just listening to a Jin album with Rie Takahashi instead of vocaloids. There were mechas? How the hell did I miss mechas? Were the fights good? They were short as all hell? What do you mean Prince and Robert Johnson were in it? OK, so apparently there was a story. I guess it couldn't have been that interesting. TL;DR Buy the soundtrack, especially if you like Rie Takahashi's singing. Otherwise, don't bother watching, they really try, animation is decent, sound is amazing, but the narrative is needlessly confusing, and not in the way the Kagerou Projectwas.
Ok, it's easy to understand why this anime has a score this low, the first episodes are garbage. until episode 7-8, it's super boring, nothing happens. You have each episode unrelated to the previous , just 7 boring episodes on friendship LEL. But then you understand that the anime was just setting the world and the characters. From episode 8 to 12 it's a banger, the story has a meaning and all episodes are then all related and they aren't center on the main character. The timeline isn't linear but it's not disturbing, it makes you want to know more about what happened and i was super restlessto know what happened with one of the main character. This show is great but you have to get through the first episodes that are boring af. Btw sorry for my english mistakes, just wanted to bring some love to this anime that doesn't deserve so much hate.
This show was amazing; it feels like a spiritual successor to Eureka Seven. While I do think it could have given it self some more room to breathe and let us live in the world a lot longer what you do get is fun and unique. I know there will be a manga adaption and I do hope it is longer. It's short and sweet and worth a watch. Every episode comes with an original ending theme and the visuals for the endings are top notch. I think people didn't give it a fair chance and are being hypercritical. This is a hidden gem in aseason of new shows being introduced right now and it bares giving a second viewing.
This is not a anime for everybody, in fact this is not an anime for millennials or new generations who wants some of the same nor is for people who thinks know about music this is for people who understand what means to see their favorite bands represent in a classic Japanese style, let’s say that makes the same for some bands and genres what Scott Pilgrim Did for the Pop culture All the references and the details are the key to enjoy this anime. And of course is a hot mess but you can enjoy with any problem at all.
Let's start with the good things about Listeners: it has a great OST, its opening and ending are awesome; the art is good, sure sometimes like any anime in the last 10 years have those weird looking moments, but overall good; the animation is alright and sometimes good, when they are not relying in CGI. That's it. The idea behind the story is good, but its execution is a mess, it is pointless and with no closure, there are loose ends and they try to sound deeper than it actually is. One of the things they tried to gather fans was relying on good music andIRL references to great Rock musicians, you can't hold viewers for long if you are relying just on that. Then we get the characters, Echo is the same coward shounen hero you have seen a thousand times, a forgettable character even, Mu on the other hand felt more unique, however don't let this fool you, she is just the brave shounen hero, but as a cute girl - and, yes, I did eat the bait for her. I usually like to praise or criticise the voice acting, but I was quite indifferent on that matter. There is no sense of accomplishment in those episodes, they don't achieve nothing, it is a cat and mouse sorta. They tried introducing some deeper elements, but probably due to its age-rating they couldn't fully explore them - which could make the show a bit better -, so some of them felt rushed or one of those moments when we are lead to believe that "remember that thing happened a few episodes? Let's forget that happened, okay?" Listeners brought a new idea, I can't help but think about the Silmarillion's creation of the Middle-Earth world through music, but this concept was terrible adapted in Listeners. I hope that the public repercussion doesn't affect the future release of original animes, I just think they need to put some more work behind it and not release a good idea with a poor story.
Listeners will change your life on how bad it is, it's one of those anime that if you binged like i have, its like being frozen in time for 5 hours , and coming out of it only remembering how much time that you have wasted,NO actually, its not like that, it IS that. Listeners feels like its plot was made by a generated AI, it ignores the steps of making a story: exposition, rising action, conflict, falling action, and conclusion. Shit just happens every single episode. Its formula is trying to explain stuff to you ,since the show does an awful job of it inthe very beginning, but as a result, all of the rising action and conflict is trimmed and/or watered down to the point where its boring.And that ending is crap as well, the conclusion doesn't make much sense, people who die come back to life just because, and like rotten food, i projectile vomited just about all the mental things that i have seen from episode 1. I'm not kidding at all when i said this is the most boring anime i have seen. 95% of it is talking, and the rest are just very poorly presented fight scenes. Actually this a great time to tell you how presentation plays such an important role in storytelling. You can have the greatest story of all time, but if it is presented in a sloppy manner, where the audience doesn't understand or becomes bored, you might as well not even make a story,you have to grab the audience's attention by showing and not telling.Boring an audience is a cardinal sin when it comes to anything.And in this case, listeners should be damned to hell when it comes to visuals.The animation is so low quality, movements are stiff, and since characters talk all the time, movements aren't even apparent that much. The designs are okay, but are just so poorly animated, And the fucking meccha designs are ass, like the assiest of the ass.They are absolute trash, which is not an overstatement since the mecchas fight in a dump most of the time. Now i know what you're probably not thinking, "where did the animation budget go", well about 60% of it probably was put into the opening sequence, Listeners OP the listeners op is too good for this world, i even considered it the best anime op of spring 2020. Animation wise, it everything you want to see in this show, but some of the things that happen in the OP don't happen in the show.And at this point, I don't even want to consider the op as something that determines my overall score on the show,because not only is it exponentially better than the actual show,the song done by accamer puts the actual music in the show to shame, it was all animated by one person as well: Shinpei Kamada,and you can just watch the op, come up with a story, and it would still be better than the actual story. The characters are -i dont even know,i cant talk about any single character because they all are interchangeable, the two main characters have no chemistry, Mu is always the sassy girl, and Echo is the quirky kid who gets walked all over, and that's it, Mu always worries about where she came from, where did she go where did she come from cotton eye joe, and its annoying that while acting as such, she becomes stupid out of nowhere and ends up sparking the sudden,large "conflict" of the anime. And the only thing i can say about Echo is how the hell is he able to talk to people when he has those big ass headphones on the whole time? For an anime about music, this anime has some pretty low-grade music, all of it is loud rock music that is so unfitting that i will never complain about the music in FLCL ever again, and every single insert song was done by Rie Takahashi of all things and its the most subpar j rock music ever. lets just say that "into the blues" and the remix of it in the final episodes are only reasons i gave the sound a 4 instead of a 3 This is probably a weird place to mention the EDs but i had to because of how weird they are, the ending animations are all different but they just use animated parts of the episode but edited them in weird ways,its like those youtube videos where people professionally edit in anime clips into other anime (like saitama getting punched by tohru from dragon maid)but when its in listeners its awkward. i think the best way to wrap up my review is just quote the first lines of the show, which basically sums up the whole show. TRASH ,Even the marketing for the show was poor, Funimation kept shilling the show hard before it came out with interviews and the like, yet literally the only selling gimmicks the show has is that the dude who made that Vocaloid show is behind it and another shmuck who worked on Eureka seven wrote the script.Like wow.To be honest, this shouldve been a series of music videos instead of a show.Animated by mappa and such.Because the shit plot thats elongated into 12 episoddes is just overkill, i just cant deal with this one,its a waste of time money, and or energy and the fact that mappa can just let this happen, is just disappointing to be honest. Overall 2/10 i want to die
Okay first time writing a review for the world to see...so here we go~ (WARNING this might be a long one so strap in people OoO since I got to keep it a spoiler Free review) What can I say about this show...about Listeners... At first, the show has a very promising premise about these kinds of people that can control amp-like robots and defeat monsters known as "Earless" ((Although to me they totally looked to have ears due to their horns)) but then all of that is kinda thrown out the window once we "get" to hear about Jimi ((people who've seen it know where I'mcoming from)). It never really gave any major information on any of the supporting characters, like what is the relationship between Bilin and Kevin ((and if someone is about to say "erm...they are married?" then where in what episode is the proof because I can't find any info on that)). Heck if the show can give more flesh on characters like Lyde, Ritchie, Nir, and the old lady (an old lady Lyde and Ritchie lives with) then where is that for the supposed main characters that are Echo and Myuu. Also, the relationship between Echo and Myuu seems really forced and I don't like it. Like the only characters that I liked were Lyde and Ritchie, as well as Denka. To me, a show like this deserves a 6 out of 10, it's worth your time if you got nothing to do and want to spend about 5 hours of your life on something, then be my guest to watch Listeners. I due hope that I kept it a spoiler-free review and to a point (somewhat). Talk to you guys later Sayonara Bye Bye~ ^w^
Listeners. When I heard it was about 70s rockstars, you had me interested, when you brought in Mecha, you had me slightly disappointed, when I watched it, you had me appalled. Spoiler warning, but here's a small spoiler, just don't fucking watch it it's terrible. Wow... WOW... This show's bad, like bad. Horrible. Where do I even start, man I had a bit of hype for this as it had music inspired theme which I so dig. I love those classic, influential rock bands like The Beatles and Pink Floyd and hearing that these are in the show got me interest. Straight from the first episode, Iwas let down in an instant and the rest was just an eyesore to watch. This even got to a point of me thinking, 'Why am I watching this???' Character issues are everywhere, from the top to the bottom, left to right and even diagonally can you believe that? We have this pathetic virgin of the main character Echo which we have to stick with for the whole show. That alone is already no good. Even fucking Mu, I don't find her anything appealing or interesting about her. So from the get-go, we have 2 utterly shit main characters that we have to stick with. What comes after that is their intentions that form the main story. What the fuck am I watching, literally Mu was like 'Let's do this' and it just goes, like from nothing just appeared a story out of nowhere. So fine they wanted to find where's Jimi and they two alone made like so much progress despite them both being kids, like what. Speaking of Jimi and all the inspired characters, why is Jimi white? Like fine if they just wanted to use his name at least make him look or act like Jimi, they got Prince right why can't they just get it on Jimi? That boggles my mind. Oh and don't get me started on the script inspired or name inspired moves that characters say. Like they literally use famous song sentences and incorporate it into their lines, the result is pure cringe and a failed JoJo inspired wannabe. Like who thought that those lines were good? Who in the fuck thought any of this is good, "Oh let's just cut up some lines and just make the characters say them, that be cool right???". Now the story, I won't say there's no story cause there clearly is. So the goal was to find Jimi and bring him back, getting there is another problem altogether. The story alone is bad, but it's not disappointing bad or like, angry bad. It's laughably bad. I laugh at how poorly written this story of theirs is. It's so childish, it's so boring and it's so uncreative. Like there's nothing to the story that is interesting or at least worth something. It's just dog shit all the way. Production-wise, what happened MAPPA? Did they use up all their budget for Dorohedoro or their upcoming The God of High School, which to be honest looks quite good. If so then why proceed with this shitty show, they even got sponsors for this show, did they like get the money and just made this low-produced show to get the cash only? So many questions, so little answers. I'll admit, the reason I'm not giving this a straight-up 1 is that they did put in some effort. Like every outro has a different animated ending or that they try to sync up the music with scenes and stuff. Honestly, it's more miss than hits. Art-wise it's like line art with the bucket tool to fill in the colour, that's all. No interesting design and even the Mecha all looks garbage. Plus the fucking 3D doesn't even match the 2D. -SCORES- Character- 1/10: Fuck all of them, at least they had Prince which I like for it's... Prince. And err... anything else erm... nope, just Prince. Art- 2/10: It's so bad that it's laughable. Writing- 1/10: Hahhahhaa... Sound- 6/10: While I compliment them for using rock music to fit the theme and having a different outro every episode. I must say, compared to the show's inspired songs like Jimi Hendrix and Sex Pistols, the songs they give are not even close to those. Overall, this show tricked me into thinking this is a rock-inspired anime, I feel cheated. GIVE ME MY TIME BACK. Light to Decent 2
.::The premise::. The set up is actually pretty neat. A world under the threat of some monsters called earless fought back by some famous dudes called players based on actual musicians fighting on their mechas which are actually their amps. Episode 1 starts with the Echo finding a mysterious girl (Myuu or µ) which is an unknown player and also she doesn't have any memory. Now Echo has to travel the world trying to know who she really else all while they meet up with other players. Sadly, it just doesn't deliver what you might expect as the music undertone is severely missing almost in every aspect. .::Characters::. Echois most of time an interesting character and Myuu is pretty likable girl; their development as a couple is heavily hinted from the start and their dynamic feels great in episode 1 and 2... but then every episode insist in splits them in different ways, to the point where they spent entire episodes on their own. In the end, you feel like you didn't spend enough time with them (together) to be impactful for the obvious climax Players just share some little homage to their counterparts in their name or design. Most of their designs are pretty unique, but most of them are just bland in personality or just appear as part of the next stepping stone in pointing the MC into the right direction. Jimi which is main figure in the series is the one who suffers the most from this by not living to be the legend the series makes him to be. .::Sound::. The soundtrack is just OK which is sad for a music based series, there seems to be a main music theme for the series but it's very underused. The neat part is that every ending video has a new song with an unique video featuring scenes from the same episode in a net way. I saw every ending, but not a single song stuck with me or felt particularly good aside from the opening song and video which is great. .::Story::. The story is pretty linear and most episodes have a self-concluding sub-arcs, but only some arcs rise above average. Since the world building is pretty bad, is hard to care, and most of things resolve by shouting harder, by having random stuff happen or just cause. In a nutshell, the story doesn't feel like it has something to tell, nor it makes use of the music thematic. .::Animation::. Most of time is above average, the opening and endings animations are a banger, the CG is ok. .::CONCLUSION::. Episodes 1 - 8 were pretty serviceable for me, it entertained just enough to keep watching, but episodes 9 to 12 it takes a nosedive with nonsense, focusing on less interesting characters and by doing random BS to keep the story going, making me reflect on why did I even spent time watching this. It might not be awful, but it'ss not a good mecha series, it's not a good music anime, it's doesn't feel like good shonen material and doesn't deliver a compelling couple dynamic.
I wish I could tell you this is an amazing anime. It's obvious this is a passion project, that this was an idea that was held dearly by those who worked on it, unfortunately passion and good ideas are not enough. Execution is the lion's share of why anything is good, and the execution of this anime is... honestly laughably bad. Because it is an anime let's start by talking about the animation. I'm of the (perhaps controversial) belief that good animation can save an otherwise mediocre story. The reason's why are for another time, but suffice it to say that whenI saw a preview for this anime I had high hopes because I already saw really interesting character designs and a unique art esthetic that pleased me. The character designs are still unique, I'll give this anime that, but the art is washed over by a haze that makes everything ten times less brilliant and takes the art from unique to drab in an instant. Don't believe me? Compare the art in the episodes to the outro visuals that are pulled from the episode itself (this started in later episodes) and you'll wish you had seen the anime that's been shown in the outro. Ok, let's talk story. I needed to brace myself because this is just a mess. And it saddens me because I always try to root for anime originals. I wanted this to be indie, and grungy and tell a interesting story. I do feel it was trying to do all those things. It didn't succeed. The storytelling is so garbled that the viewer is left honestly confused for most of the runtime and this confusion is not the good "oooh I wonder if I'm going to get my questions answered" type of confusion, it's the "I honestly have no questions because I don't know what the f**k is going on!" type of confusion. One of many problems with this type of confusion (and the most prevalent in this anime) is that if the viewer is not really understanding what is happening and what is the stakes... then climaxes fail to impact, emotional moments have no payoff, and the story as a whole suffers. The last episode is especially egregious. Without spoiling for anyone that still wants to see this dumpster fire, it manages to simultaneously have too little time and too much time! Yes that's right, the conflict gets resolved so fast and so easily you might blink and miss it, but you get like three different ending none of which feel like you needed or wanted. Also, anything that might have had a lasting impact gets rolled back so nothing mattered in the first place. I'm not going to touch on music because it's honestly a shtick. It's not worth talking about.
If there is a way for you to experience Listeners in an audio-only medium like an audiobook or a musical album, that would be a much better alternative to what this eccentric mess has been. I'm probably a weird case here, where I was immediately hooked upon seeing JIN'S INVOLVEMENT in the anime. For those who don't know, Jin is particularly known for his Kagerou Project, which anime adaptation's quality is debatable. I am a huge fan of Jin's approach to storytelling, but Listeners just didn't cut it. For all its eccentric aspects, Listeners wound up being quite underwhelming. It could have been so much moreamazing, yet it ended up feeling like it only tiptoed from one theme to another. With an interesting premise and an intriguing world and cast (supposedly), it just failed to deliver the any punches. However, I do like it, but more as a weird MECHA ANIME with quirks quite unique to its genre. A large number of mecha animes I've watched, I only watched for a simple and carefree non-serious viewing. I acknowledged their flaws but enjoyed them nevertheless for embracing the fanservice tropes of what makes a mecha anime. However, Listeners clearly wanted to be more. With the themes of music, love, partnership and a strange sort of individuality involved, the anime supposedly was meant to be packed, but the rough episodic arcs seemed to serve it for the worse. The investment for each mini-arc felt unworthy. Maybe it would have been much better with 24 episodes, especially with the flamboyant narrative that it so wished to incorporate. And please don't get me started with the large amounts of ENGRISH in this anime! Characters 3/10: The set of characters partnered with a strange narrative left me with a weird feeling of disconnect instead. Meanwhile, side characters are severely forgettable. The episodic pacing of the anime for its characterization did not serve justice to a lot of these characters. They're mostly bland or would easily fit in a trope, making developments not really that interesting or outright predictable. The characters felt like mere plot devices rather than people you would get affection for or investment with. I don't want to drop names, but I really wanted one eccentric character to have more screen time. Sound Design 10/10: Then there is this. Huge fan. I will probably only suggest "watching" this anime to experience the amazing OST. A strong mark of distinction that fit well with the anime's intended atmosphere. I could even go so far as to tell new viewers to just listen to each song that the anime has and leave it that way. It's fun. It's immersive, way more immersive than what the anime itself delivered. And it's powerful. Art Style 4/10: I feel the art style suffered from the vibrant sound design. It actually ended up feeling bland in comparison. Since I can't give an image example in a review, take the image of a scrap heap like that of Astro Boy's but make it look muddled in its colors. I feel that the anime wanted to give off a dystopian feel to it, but it just felt lackluster or even lazy. Also with the premise of sound, the delivery of the "impact" of sound in this anime is very unfulfilling. It is seriously way more fun to just listen to the OST and just be carried away by that. Plot 5/10: One boy meets a mysterious girl with amnesia. Starts off with a trope, pushes through with a criminally underdeveloped world, ends with bland predictability. They set on a journey to search for information, and also fight in a weird and undefined robot system that's not really worth a second thought. It was fine. It's personally interesting enough to just follow along and let things happen. I'm pretty sure others will see this anime as a waste of time, and I have no problem with that. Final Note 5/10: I will NOT suggest watching this anime, but I kinda liked watching it.
Bad but not horrible, I think that's the best way to describe this show. For a while now i have been itching to watch a good ol' mecha series in the charts, so when I'd read the synopsis of this one i thought: why not give it a shot? The concept really is interesting, at least to me sounds that way. Not just music powered mechas but a world with references to rock and pop culture, characters based on musicians and the "equipments": amps that when connected to the performers or "players" turn into mechas they then pilot. All this, I think, had potential for a richand interesting world-building, like technical differences in the robots, diverse and characterized fighting styles between the players and stuff to name a few. Instead we got clunky and generic CGI mecha action, really bad CGI monsters that looked like a fog biker mice (?) and characters that resembles iconic rock/pop figures only on a superficial level. The may look like them and even throw a line or two out of their songs (which by the way it's done in a really awkward way) but there's not much more to them, no character development or thought in the relation between them or the main characters. Anyway, with a messy story, bad character writing and not too sharp animation it has details about it that makes me believe that there was love or passion put into it, like the detail of different endings for all the chapters with cinematic sequences from the chapter but rearranged to a more symbolic retelling of the episode. So even if the final product has it's flaws i think it's good that some studios keep staking with original projects.
I Think Its Actually Very Good. Many people don't speak that well about Listeners, I think its a good anime, mainly if you like music and that sends a good message and shows how music brings people together all around the world, I don't think it's only for music "nerds" as some have pronounced. The animations its good, short story, but I think its good, the animation it's 10 out of 10 for sure, the music as well, the sound effects and all of it. I think the issue many people don't actually understand the anime, and why Myuu is like it is, she is nota bitch, she is a rockstar basically, she is that artist that have and fell a need to shine, is very immature and impulsive, and echo its a very passive person, that was living a life without meaning its just normal to so worry about everything and be so innocent, basically, they need each other in order to have a balance. This may be based in the influence of music from the 70's till the late 90's but its not for older people as some mention, this is the message of music, how music brings everyone together in a peaceful way, no matter the style. Jimmy can be a personification of jimmy Hendrix, and following the hippy concept, a mix of our reality, but that it, now a day there is much more options and that gives you more choice, but music is music, we may not feel attached to cert cultural music or style, but everyone likes something in this world.
