(13 episodes)
What’s it about ?
I’m not quite sure yet, but it’s certainly very creepy.
Characters
Kasuga, our protagonist. He’s an average high school student who’s completely unremarkable in every way aside from his hobby of writing bad poetry and totally digging Baudelaire.
Saeki, the beautiful top student of the class whom Kasuga (and most of the other boys) has a crush on. She gets maybe two lines in the whole episode ; her chief role is clearly to be an object of desire.
Nakamura, the weird creepy girl who makes a point of handing out blank papers and insulting the teacher to his face. She only has about two minutes of screentime, but she’s clearly the most memorable part of the episode.
Production Values
This has got a very distinctive artstyle, nearly photorealistic ; it looks quite weird animated, deep into the uncanny valley. Which may well be the point. The soundtrack goes out of its way to build an atmosphere of creeping unease. Too bad about the peppy OP song, which doesn’t fit at all the mood that’d been set up pre-credits ; the weird robotic-sounding ED song is much more fitting.
Overall Impression
Well, this certainly commits to its aesthetic, devoting the whole episode to creating this sense of mundane creepiness. The problem is that most of it is very boring indeed, as litterally nothing happens aside from the Nakamura incident. It doesn’t help that I’m not really into Beaudelaire’s poetry, and thus don’t have a clue whether to take Kasuga’s interest in it seriously.
Still, the progressively rising tension is intriguing, especially after the Nakamura incident exacerbates it ; I’m also quite curious whether the awesomely creepy visual of a flower’s shadow with an eye bulging out of it has any relevance beyond symbolism.
Also, the mangaka insultingly told me to watch the next episode. I guess I’ll do it, then.
