Shows I Dropped in the Spring 2019 Anime Season: 'RobiHachi', 'Fairy Gone', and 'Shoumetsu Toshi'

At the start of the season I was curious about RobiHachi. A show that takes place in the future, in space, with the two main characters getting into shenanigans are all right in my alleyway. However, in watching the show, I found that within the first episode there is a quirk to this show. It is incredibly detailed and colourful, vivid even. Yet throughout there were cut-aways to things that made me question why they were cut to in the first place. The set up was strong enough—one of the main characters owes money, the second main character is originally hunting him for the money only to be taken off-world by mistake with the person the lead owes money to hot on their heels.

The show has humor; however, it was the same joke over and over again with the exact same expressions from the characters even midway into the third episode. It was at that point I decided to give up on the show. The characters were loud, and one of whom experienced a sense of wonder that was borderline obnoxious. It felt repetitive, yet oddly schizophrenic at the same time. It was going for a sense of weird and I can say that that feeling was definitely earned. Ultimately, this was a show that frustrated me and was one that was clearly not for me and so I decided to drop it.

Is not a dumpster fire. However, it is one that I got progressively more frustrated with as a result of a combination of many things. Characters are introduced, only to be forgotten about for multiple episodes at a time. Which made it incredibly difficult to keep track of who was whom. The show jumped back and forth in time so many times that it is very likely that a viewer needs to have a notebook and pencil ready to remember what happened when with which character, and where it happened. The only way to discern the time period was in the minute ways that the characters look different, which is mostly of no use. There are multiple political factions, multiple antagonists, multiple protagonists, and multiple story threads progressing at the same time that one would need a spreadsheet to keep track of everything.

The narrative tried to be an epic, and at times it looks like one, when the 3D and 2D animation is working well together, and the characters are intriguing when they are on screen. The narrative seems to have no focus or direction as it felt as if things were happening around the characters with them having to react to them. We know the motivation of one of the characters, and that is all. It starts out as a copy of Naruto trying to find Sasuke, only to forget about that for a few episodes before bringing it up again. There is a very real side of me that believes that the only reason why I watched as many episodes as I did was because I like the opening and ending to the show, which are both fantastic.

Is a visually impressive show with a great soundtrack, opening, and ending. Unfortunately that is where the praise ends. The first episode was incredibly strong, grabbing my attention right away, and then the second episode was serviceable with high points and low points. Then the rest of the show carried on. The show starts with purpose, only to have it drift off in multiple different directions. The show is as interested in fake killing the characters as a Marvel film, where there were multiple times within the same episode when character deaths were faked. At times the same character multiple times.

The characters, while they have a fantastic design to them, are incredibly bland to tolerate. As the show went on and we were getting to the mid way point of the show, I knew no more than I did about who the characters were at the start of the show. As a result of a combination of the meandering narrative and the weak characters, this is a show that I ended up dropping. Which is a shame because this is probably the first time I have every dropped a Madhouse anime with no desire to return to finish it at all.