***Warning, the following may contain spoilers for Kiznaiver. Reader discretion is advised.***
Series Synopsis
Katsuhira Agata (voiced by Yuki Kaji) is a bit of an anomaly.
Ever since he can remember, Katsuhira has been unable to feel physical pain and has found it difficult to express any kind of emotion. Wandering through life with indifference, one day, Katsuhira meets someone who might be able to explain why he is the way he is.
A girl named Noriko Sonozaki (voiced by Hibiku Yamamura) informs Katsuhira of the Kizna Project, a large-scale experiment dedicated to finally bringing about world peace. To accomplish this feat, the Kizna Project has developed the Kizna System, a mysterious program that disperses one person’s pain across multiple people. Katsuhira and six of his classmates have been chosen, against their will, to participate in the next phase of the project.
Katsuhira, along with Chidori Takashiro, Hajime Tenga, Nico Niiyama, Tsuguhito Yuta, Honoka Maki, and Yoshiharu Hisomu (voiced by Yuka Tersaki, Tomoaki Maeno, Misaki Kuno, Nobunaga Shimazaki, Rina Sato, and Kotaro Nishiyama), are now linked by the Kizna System.
As the experiment goes forward, the participants grow more connected through their shared pain. However, outer bumps and bruises eventually turn inward. Over time, the seven begin to sense the inner turmoil of each other’s hearts.
Through this, these kids develop a bond much stronger than friendship. Together, these seven become one, thanks to their special role as Kiznaivers.Series Positives
Going into this review, if you are not aware, Trigger, the production company behind Kiznaiver, is one of my favorite animation studios. This is the company that gave us Kill la Kill, Little Witch Academia, and Space Patrol Luluco; all of which ended up being a ton of fun, and the first two were nothing short of phenomenal. When I know Trigger is attached to a project, I instantly become interested in said project.
With that as our context, yes, I was very much looking forward to watching Kiznaiver.
I mention this because the only thing I knew about this series going into it was the reputation of the studio that produced it. As a fan of Trigger, I, of course, didn’t want their reputation to take a hit with something subpar, or even worse, something awful. But despite me having a lot of hope at the start, if things went sour, things went sour. It is unrealistic, as well as narrow-minded to claim a studio, or anyone for that matter, will always do great work one-hundred-percent of the time.
That said, having now seen this show, I still haven’t run into a bad Trigger series. While nowhere near as excellent as Kill la Kill or Little Witch Academia, Kiznaiver was solid. With one or two issues here and there, all of which I will get into later, Kiznaiver was no doubt a product of its studio.
Trigger has been killing it with their original works. When there is no source material to pull from, there is no obligation to limit what can be done with an idea. Granted, I’m not saying Trigger has been coming up with new, never-before-imagined stories, but this studio knows how to put its own spin on familiar concepts.
For Kiznaiver, the focus was connections between people, and how one comes to understand those around them. Using the Kizna System, this became a tangible concept. Seven individuals, each with their own secrets and backstories, suddenly became one. Once they were part of the Kizna System, none of the Kiznaivers could hide behind fake smiles or hollow actions.
Like any other Trigger series, it was hard to guess where the Kiznaiver story was going. Coming from someone who has seen way too many paint-by-number, slice-of-life anime, the sense of not-knowing is a beautiful feeling.
On to another point. Trigger knows how to animate. There is no mistaking a Trigger anime for anything else. This studio knows how to be expressive, wild, and fluid; all of which was in Kiznaiver. While this wasn’t an action series like Kill la Kill or a magical fantasy like Little Witch, Kiznaiver knew how to tell its story through its visuals. And for a story that centered itself around understanding emotions, that was an important thing to get right.
So for the two things I just said, originality and great animation, yes, they are both good things to have, and every show should strive to accomplish them. Except having them won’t mean anything if the base story isn’t interesting. And this is the reason why I hold Trigger in such high regard. With every Trigger series I have seen, one way or another, they have all managed to find a way to grab my attention.
Kiznaiver was no different, and I am more than happy to discuss the eight things this series used to make itself as engaging as it was.The Characters
If you are expecting me to highlight individual characters, that is not going to happen. While there wasn’t anyone I would call frustrating or pointless, no one stood out either. There wasn’t a single breakout character, which is one of the reasons why Kiznaiver didn’t quite reach the same level of excellence of other Trigger shows.
That notwithstanding, the main eight characters, the seven Kiznaivers and Noriko Sonozaki, are worth talking about as a group.
That notwithstanding, the main eight characters, the seven Kiznaivers and Noriko Sonozaki, are worth talking about as a group.
To give this series some slack, it would have been strange for one character to rise above the rest. Although you can argue, and I would agree with this, both Katsuhira Agata and Noriko should have been more pivotal to this story then they were. However, having the main cast be on equal terms worked in this show’s favor.
Granted some characters were more equal than others.
From the opening five minutes of this show, we learned that both Katsuhira and Noriko had always had a connection to the Kizna Project. As such, a good chunk of this show’s story, as well as its climax, centered around these two’s past. Along these two, though, the other one character Kiznaiver spent a decent amount of time getting to know was Honoka Maki. For the first half of this series, it was Honoka’s story that served as one of the more prominent focal points.
While Honoka had more of a background than some of her fellow Kiznaivers, she wasn’t the driving force behind what made “her” segment of Kiznaiver important. The thing that did that was the other Kiznaivers and how they went about trying to ease Honoka’s suffering.
When the seven Kiznaivers first became connected via the Kizna System, the only thing they shared with each other was physical pain. When one of them got hurt, the other six, to their chagrin, knew about it. A positive side effect of this was, the person who got hurt would only experience one-seventh of the total amount of suffering they would have otherwise felt. Early on in this story, this resulted in plenty of slapstick moments, and nothing was ever that dire. After all, physical pain is something most people, without much effort, can sympathize with.
But as the Kiznaivers grew closer, so too did their connection. They began feeling each other’s inner suffering. During Honoka’s storyline, it was Nico Niiyama who put into perspective what it was the group could do for one another. There was something she said that gave credibility to the Kizna Project’s good intentions.
Once the Kiznaivers began feeling the inner pain of their comrades, that was when this series became really good. This culminated into a scene that I can only describe as extremely heavy.
Now, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, I’ve only been talking about the seven Kiznaivers despite me mentioning Noriko’s name as well. I also said the Kinza Project was founded with good intentions. Unfortunately, the Noriko we met was the result of what happens when good intentions go awry.
Let’s not forget, none of the seven volunteered to become Kiznaivers. The administrators of the Kizna Project forced their will onto this group. And these same administrators’ past actions resulted in Noriko becoming the figurehead of the entire Kinza experiment, as well as a focal point for the Kiznaivers to focus their contempt. In this way, Noriko became the most tragic character of Kiznaiver.
But the reason I’m not saying Noriko was this show’s breakout character has to do with all the things this series stumbled with. And to Kiznaiver's detriment, these were inevitable stumbles thanks to one fatal choice.
Series Negatives
To start this section off, I’m going to come right out and say it:
I’m not sure how Kiznaiver resolved itself.
This was one of those stories with an ending that just sort of happened. That and this series began throwing in a bunch of pseudo-science jargon that may or may not have been accurate. Although I can piece together an interpretation of the events that occurred, I don’t believe Kiznaiver was meant to be a show you interpret.No, I think this was merely a poorly executed conclusion.
Sure, Kiznaiver’s end was satisfying in the sense that I didn’t feel like there were any lingering questions. But there was also no big payoff to what this series was leading up to. Then again, I’m not entirely sure what it was this series was leading up to.This show had its big hurrah moment a few episodes before the finale. That was where I got my satisfaction, and that is where I’m drawing my conclusions from.
I’ll let you try your hand at figuring out how Kiznaiver got to where it ended. The entire show before this point will more than make up for this last bit of confusion.
However, the one thing that would have helped Kiznaiver, both with its ending and with everything else, would have been the inclusion of at least twelve more episodes.
This was an issue I saw coming as early as the first two episodes because it was just simple math. There were eight characters we had to get to know, and there were only twelve episodes for that to happen.
A grade schooler could tell you this show, on the surface, had the room to give each character an episode of their own and still have space to spare. But after the events of the first two episodes, multiple character-centric episodes weren’t going to happen.
The first problem: by the end of episode two, we had met Noriko and six of the Kiznaivers. The issue, though, this show had seven Kiznaivers.
To give this series credit, Kiznaiver introduced the seventh member, Yoshiharu Hisomu, in episode three. Thus, this series did integrate all its main characters early on, which is more than I can say about a lot of other shows.
That aside, going back to the events of the first two episodes, specifically episode two, the Kiznaivers were given their first mission – self-introductions. And by self-introductions, I mean the Kiznaivers had to reveal one secret about themselves.This was where the problems began to surface. Instantly you could tell which characters were going to get the most attention.
The discrepancy in the Kiznaivers’ secrets ranged from comparatively lame to downright dark.
On the low end of things, and to make my point, I’m going to have to give away what this was, Hajime Tenga’s secret was his crippling fear of dogs. While this was a considerable source of embarrassment for Hajime and he didn’t want this to ruin his tough guy image, this never once came into play later in the show.Compare that to Honoka who, like I mentioned before, was dealing with a ton of inner demons.
This is not to say Hajime had zero character development. However, he might as well have had zero since Kiznaiver dedicated a significant chunk of its total run time to focus on only Honoka. And once Honoka’s arc was effectively resolved, this show was going into episode eight, and most of the remaining main characters had little more than small personality quirks to their name.
Following that, Kiznaiver ran into the very problem I knew it was going to run into. With not a lot of time left, this story had to fast-track a bunch of its remaining development.
For instance, Kiznaiver’s best scene, which occurred after Honoka’s arc, worked because the Kiznaivers as a group worked. Too bad this story was only able to get to this scene because it had to introduce a super important detail out of absolute nowhere.
This was the kind of detail that should have been common knowledge by this point in the show. Instead, the series needed to force-in this necessary information because it ran out of time to let this come about naturally.
And to make this entire series of events even more annoying, once Kiznaiver finally did introduce this crucial detail, this show had the audacity to play it off like it was an obvious thing the entire time.
It’s a good thing Kiznaiver was strong overall because I don’t take too kindly to being treated like an idiot.
All this notwithstanding, would a longer episode count have fixed this problem? While more episodes would have given Kiznaiver the room to maneuver, this is nothing except a big should’ve-would’ve-could’ve situation. The only thing I can say with certainty is:
Kiznaiver couldn’t accomplish everything it needed to do in the time it gave itself to do it.
Final Thoughts
This show didn’t have the smoothest of endings. I’m not going to deny that.
However, I have seen a lot worse, and the road to this ending, though a tad jumpy in parts, was a lot of fun. Thus, now that it’s all over, I can say I had a good time with this series.
Individually, this show’s cast of characters didn’t have any standouts. But as a group, they were what made this a great watch. Along with that, this story kept you engaged the whole way through, making this yet another win in Trigger’s growing catalog.
Kiznaiver is one I’m happy to recommend.
But these are just my thoughts. What are yours? Have you seen this show? What would be your advice concerning Kiznaiver? Leave a comment down below because I would love to hear what you have to say.
And if you liked what you read, be sure to follow me on my social media sites so that you never miss a post or update. Also, please share this review across the internet to help add to the discussion.
I’m LofZOdyssey, and I’ll see you next time.
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