(12ish episodes ?)
What’s it about ?
Adaptation of visual novel which seems to have some explicit boys’ love content. I’d kinda guessed from all the pretty boys in the main cast.
Characters
Aoba, our protagonist, works in a junk store called “Mediocrity”, which immediately sets the tone. Er, let me rephrase that, as this just sounds too mean in retrospect. It sets a relatively playful tone, really. Aobo’s relatively well-adjusted right now, although he does have tragic flashbacks of being called a girl because he had (and still has) long blue hair. Er, yeah.
A big thing in this setting is the AI helpers everyone has with them ; Aoba’s is called Ren, and takes the form of a black cat. (It’s a popular new model ; some other people have them as different kinds of animals.) Those are really nifty, and the world as a whole has tons of augmented reality.
Aoba’s got many handsome friends (or “friends”). The hairstyler who’s a bit too touch-happy is instantly memorable. The gang leader who stops some hoodlums from attacking him is okay. After that, they grow progressively more forgettable.
Nobody gets murdered here, nor is there any sign of such a thing being about to happen. The worse that happens is a racketting attempt, and the cops shutting down a rave party.
Production Values
Actually quite nice ; there are tons of interesting visual ideas that contribute to the world-building and make this very fun to look at. The techno beat permeating the whole soundtrack’s quite fun too. The character designs are ridiculous, but they kinda fit in this highly-modded world.
Overall Impression
I feel a bit cheated. For some reason, I expected the start of a murder mystery ; but nothing of the sort seems in the offing, and instead the main character ends up challenged into some crappy AR fighting game at the end. This might work as a visual novel ; here, it feels like all the world building is being swept off down the drain.
By the end of the episode, I had lost all interest. Nice try, though.
