Since nothing adds up at all, most of them fall flat on their faces. Each episode hardly connects to each other except for the main cast and the trouble climax. There are no set rules (like in episode 4 the girl’s still fully awake despite the rules imply that all of them having Sleeping Beauty syndrome), there’s no deeper implication to takeaway after each episode (like episode 2 shows us that the dream world can affect the real world, which ends up being wasted). Although possess a wide range of animation style, judging the show as a whole, the episode doesn’t add up much to the grand picture. As of now, I’d only recommend a handful of episodes instead of suggesting a whole package. The quality of each episode also ranges from plain bad, “WTF did I just watch” to really great. The genres and the tones change randomly as well as in one of the episode, 18if went full horror, other time it became an arthouse animation-showcase and at times it’s just flat out goofy. Most notably, in episode 7 the show hits the mark in full force with its European-influence aesthetic and tells a beautiful children story about the broken friendship that would be right at home with the classic works like The Little Prince. You can see the styles change in the character designs of Haruto. Its episodic nature, where different directors handle different episode, is what 18if’s most unique factor. In some episodes he only serves as a witness to watch the story unfolds. In addition, Haruto’s job is to confront those witches and only casually does he have some chemistry with the girls. They don’t often succeed on bringing the girls’ negative emotions to light, but their personal issues work as an emotional core for each passing episode. Those issues range from the pressure of being idol, bullying or even witnessing their family members murdered. These girls have a nervous breakdown and struggle to find happiness in the real world, thus succumb to the dream world in the form of Sleeping Beauty Disease where they can do whatever they like, most of the time destructively. The ending, however, tries hard to connect the dots and runs out of its steam fast with confusing tone, weak writing and nonsensical message.įor one thing that 18if does quite consistency despite its format, it’s that the show explores the real-world issues of multiple teenage girls in a dreamy surreal fashion. For the most part, 18if stays true to itself, albeit below-average. That unpredictability in plot, the surreal nature of dream world and the diversity in animation styles are what I was personally looking for coming to 18if. The quality of each episode is like a box of chocolate, you never know what you gonna get. This format results in 18if as an inconsistent show by design. Here’s the main catch for 18if: each episode is handled by different directors with different animation styles AKA the directors’ own take to the world of 18if. The concept that each episode our main character Haruto will need to save a Witch of the week – make her confronting with her dark and learn more about herself – in a dream world could lead to interesting places. The first thing you need to know about 18if is that it’s a multimedia project (along with a mobile game and VR game), which can probably signal you about the overall quality of the anime version. Allow me to skip over the last episode coverage for this full review of 18if, since I was too underwhelmed by the finale to have anything concrete except pointing out how messy the ending was.
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