This episode has a long sequence of blocky 3D animation. My husband walked in during this sequence and said “This looks like a Mary* show.”
I replied, “Actually, I don’t think it’s an anybody show.”
I don’t like being negative about anime, really. Just the nature of the medium means that so much care and art goes into even a poorly done show, that I find I often enjoy even series that have serious problems with critical elements, assuming I like the visuals . But the beginning of this season is testing me; I found the first episode of Necronomico to be almost aggressively unlikable.
Main girl Miko is a down-on-her-luck videogame streamer who has bills up to her eyeballs and very little income. She gets laid off from her job at a convenience store, leaving her desperate. She gets an invitation to go to some kind of event for streamers that will pay her 100,000 yen, so she jumps at the chance. Meanwhile video game streamers are ending up in the hospital; I assume they’re in comas, although I don’t think that is ever explicitly stated. So maybe it’s not the best time to participate in mysterious events for streamers, but Miko isn’t looking a gift horse in the mouth.
If you’ve ever seen Sword Art Online or Squid Game— or probably any number of franchises that have this kind of premise that I’m not directly familiar with– you know this event for streamers is shady as hell, so there’s no surprise when it’s all revealed to be mortally dangerous. The streamers are being pitted against each other in some kind of game show meant for an audience of squishy-looking aliens, and it appears their game may have intergalactic consequences.
And so far, it really doesn’t sound bad, right? It’s like Mojoworld in X-Men, and those stories can be really fun. It’s not a bad premise inherently; it’s just that it feels like there’s no one to root for. We still don’t really know Miko from a hole in the wall, and we’re supposed to be very invested in her triumphing over the aliens. The other streamers that are introduced aren’t terribly likable– one of them is an obnoxious know-it-all, and one of them is a teen girl princess who seems to think everything should go her way. This is a very subjective thing, but I found the style of the character designs to be rather ugly– everyone has small heads and wide bodies. The visuals aren’t putting in the work here to help make these characters pop. I do like the show’s over-the-top color palette, full of vibrant purples and greens, but that can only do so much.
And then there’s the 3D sequence, which in theory has potential– I like it when shows mess with the medium like this– but it’s just boring. I found my mind wandering while the little Lego-people were running around. It’s not terrible 3D animation, it’s just not particularly engaging.
One thing I do have to mention is that in an early scene, Miko talks to her Mom, and her Mom appears to be a transwoman. I have no idea how the Mom fits in here, but the scene of her and Miko talking was the only scene in the show where I felt like there was genuine human feeling.
As much as I disliked this episode, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t curious about how the story will develop from here, so the Necronomico did one thing right. I may give this one more episodes out of pure curiosity. But if you’re pressed for time in a pretty stacked season, I’d leave this one behind.
*I’m using the name Mary to stand in for my nine-year-old’s name, because I don’t want to use her real name online.
EDIT: News is making the rounds that Crunchyroll used AI for translation in at least the German subtitles for this episode, and that the English translation has many flaws. I don’t know how much this affected my view of the episode because I don’t know exactly which lines were wrong, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t help matters. Get it together, Crunchyroll: It would be really inconvenient for me to cancel my subscription….but that doesn’t mean I won’t.
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