#and the games that we've been given are not games designed for immersion. they're designed for interactivity. which is cool and good

[camellia-thea]

sometimes your heart wants to doodle old men rather than write your academic essay

[the-twewy-sequel]

TWEWY: The Animation - Episode 1 Review

Like a bolt from the blue, it’s time for the TWEWY Anime Review!

After a lot of anticipation, it's finally here, and I sure do have a lot to say. So no stalling—let's get to it!

The show starts off right about where you’d expect it to—Neku waking up in the Scramble Crossing—and to me, a strong feeling that “the animators did their research”.

From the early scenes where Neku dodges incoming traffic in a movement style reminiscent of his dodge animation in TWEWY, to the poses and facial expressions of the characters introduced so far, the way the show is presented and paced feels not only natural, but authentically “TWEWY”.

Remember this pose? She also does the hand-wavy thing too, but animated, and it's great.

Of course, the foundation of this authenticity is the amazing art style that we knew we were being treated to from previous trailers—not just colorful and vibrant, but endearing through its simpleness, immersive, and an overall pleasure to look at. Then, throw in the excellent voice acting from some notable voice artists, well-executed dialog that feels accurate to the characters, and thankfully, actually treating partners like they're both important—I was admittedly sort of worried they would make Shiki seem a bit too weak/helpless, but she's moving around, fighting, and carrying her weight like I'd expect her to—and you get something that I think is, at the very least, trying to do justice to the source material as best as it reasonably can.

However, while the art style is pretty great when there's not much movement going on, it does take small hits from the usual pitfalls of 3D/CG animation. The variance of thickness in the lines and slight heaviness in the movement as the models are rotated in combat scenes feel like they give themselves away, and it can sometimes be a little bit difficult to process what's happening in fight scenes. I felt this was especially evident against the bear-like noise where Neku and Shiki do the anime's version of "syncing up" for the first time.

However, as long as you're not analyzing it too much, it shouldn't be a deal-breaker or anything. It's not like the CG jumps out at you or anything, right?

Story-wise, it's an adaptation of a game, so it's given it's going to cut some corners and simplify some things—but again, I don't think anything that's a deal-breaker has been cut-out yet. Smartphones are updated, missions might be simplified a bit, and Rhyme can apparently shoot energy-somethings around, but I think it's paced so that people who haven't played the game won't lose interest, which I think is fair given that RPGs can be a bit "slow" to get interesting.

Further more, even though we're only a single episode in, we've already established the core cast of both player characters and antagonistic ones, and just enough information has been given to give us a sense of what the characters relationships are—or in some cases, could be.

Rhyme and Beat seem to get along fairly well, while Neku and Shiki... well, don't, actually, but also Shiki is so forgiving and flexible it kind of works out, and Neku DOES show signs that he's not a jerk at heart.

And like in the game, Neku adds a bit of tension to everything, but the goodwill of everyone else keeps things going for the moment. In the mean time, the viewer is getting used to the whole premise of this "death game", what the enemies are like, and more, and I think just setting things up like this is all we could ask for in an intro episode.

Beyond the story and visuals though, it would be a disservice not to mention the music, which features both familiar and original tracks that I think are mostly used well—one could maybe argue the game songs don't perfectly fit an animation context, but if they continue a balance of hitting us with the soundtrack-based fan-service and playing music that fits the actual context, there should be nothing to worry about.

While I don't have too much to say on the general sound design, it definitely felt fine and fitting enough that... well, I don't have anything to say. Sometimes saying nothing is a good thing, yeah? Just not necessarily in Neku's case...

Given that it's the first episode, me and everyone else watching are forming first impressions, but it'll be exciting to get comfortable in this visually mesmerizing show (the scenes that don't clearly look like CG are seriously, seriously beautiful IMO—I'm actually kind of moved, haha) and see how the pacing adjusts as we go through the... well, you all know how many days it is, right? ;) For now though: thanks for reading, I look forward to your thoughts, and I'm excited for the next episode! --- First Impressions: 7.5/10 if I'm trying to be objective about it (it's a game adaptation, it can only be so good imo), but 9/10 because I'm a diehard TWEWY fan XD