In the spirit of Halloween here on Desu Ex Machina, I’m going to be revisiting and reviewing some of the worst anime I’ve ever seen. Join me for this journey though the frightful forests full of incoherent plots, nonsensical characters, skewered art, and pointless dialogue! Hundreds of new reasons to go “Boo!!!”

(out of 4)

Review: Akikan!

Akikan is an anime about beverage cans that are magical girls and who do battle. While the premise seems interesting and creative enough, the show fails to create any kind of coherent narrative or humor. Quite simply, the show fails to entertain as a comedy, move as a drama, excite as an action, or appeal as a romance.

The Winter of 2009 saw quite a few good shows air. If you, like me, chose to forgo titles like Maria+Holic, White Album, Maria-sama ga Miteru 4, and Minami-ke Okaeri for Akikan, then pat yourself in the back. You are in for a ride of remarkable mediocrity. Daichi Kakeru (cv. Fukuyama Jun, good god what a waste) is a stereotypical brainless, perverted, hot-headed, virgin, high-school, anime male lead character. He is of course clueless to the glaringly obvious advances of classmate Tenkuuji Najimi (cv. Toyosaki Aki). I just don’t understand why they design some characters to simply be unable to connect the dots. Is it supposed to be funny? Anyways, he buys a can of melon soda one day and it magically turns into a magical girl full of magic. The show explains that the infusion of carbon dioxide via kissing turns the girls into human form. Technically, carbonic acid is the agent that carbonates liquids but I somehow watched on.

Kakeru is, and I hate to say it, the most interesting character in the show. I am in awe at how stupid someone can be. The guy has a cute classmate and a magical girl that lives with him throwing themselves at his feet and he is none the wiser. Still, he is entertaining enough, spewing colorful or funny dialogue on occasion. More can-girls start showing up, and the main plot is eventually revealed to be some kind of steel can vs. aluminum can war to see which material should be the standard. Akikan has a lot to work with here in terms of humor or fun to have with the show, but it focuses instead on completely flat characters and relationships no one cares about. A “plot” eventually kicks in but by that time most viewers have completely lost interest.

The character design is actually pretty good. Kakeru is a cutout, but the girls are pretty distinct and cute. color coded for your convenience. Too bad the animation and art quality completely negates all of that, being infamously bad enough to draw attention from many sources as it aired. Don’t believe me? See for yourself.

THE EYES. WHAT THE HELL

The cast of the show is such a huge waste. Fukuyama Jun and Toyosaki Aki are one thing, but as we’ve seen over and over again, a good voice acting cast won’t save a show. Not Hirohashi Ryou, Yuuki Aoi, or even Nakajima Megumi combined save this show. The music is awful, with the ending theme Koisora Recycling leaving me utterly speechless and confused. Overall, Akikan is just bad, not funny bad (well, a little), not almost-good bad, it was just plain bad. Weak characters, and shoddy execution turned a show that had a fighting chance into a flop.