Kiznaiver, Episode 1-- Review

Kiznaiver begins with a 12-year flashback cold open wherein the main character is running through an underground subway station, within the city, presumably at dawn, as it looks very dark, though everything is colored red, so it is slightly difficult to tell. A girl is standing on the see-saw of a tall structure which is made up of a playground and is muttering some mysterious words about how he has to “get his pain back”. At this point, she jumps off the structure into an abyss and the main character’s hair goes from red to white after we see his chest flash and we cut to the opening.

Immediately, what this scene most reminds me most of is the opening scene to the Madoka Magica anime, with the stark difference of this anime having stark realism and industrialism as a theme, similar to the video game Silent Hill 3, as opposed to Madoka Magica’s Magical and Surreal themes. Another similarity is that the scene is disconnected from the immediate timeline, though in Madoka’s case, the scene was a flash-forward and not a flashback.

Anyway, here is where we cut to the opening. Now, it’s been a while since I’ve felt so strongly towards an opening. While it can be argued that it’s merely an excess of flash for little value, the synth-pop music of Lay Your Hands on Me by Boom Boom Satellites really makes the opening stand out amongst other anime openings. The pacing of the visuals in comparison to other anime openings is remarkable in that it does not follow the standard of showing the title card within the first five to thirty seconds. Instead, the title card is shown at the very end of the opening, similar to that of Kill La Kill.

Furthermore, the genre of synth-pop is less-frequently used for openings, and it might just be bias towards the genre, but it really connected with me. Immediately after finishing the episode, I attempted to go and find the track on YouTube or wherever, but it seems to be unavailable. Might be released with the score or full soundtrack? Here’s hoping!

Anyway, back to the show, we witness an interesting bit of characterization now that Katsuhira is twelve years older than he was in the opening (wherein he was presumably anywhere from four to six), his personality has largely been affected by the cold open incident. His personality is very nonchalant and seemingly emotionless and extremely calm.

As he walks to school with his friend, he asks why a cicada is lying on the floor to which his goody-two shoes friend Chidori Takashiro responds saying it might have come to the surface in search of friends. He instead says that it just wants to mate and breed, which makes her turn red. His straightforward response makes her ask him if something’s up, and he says nothing much. She asks about his bullying situation as it seems to happen often, and usually in the pursuit of money, which makes him say it does not bother him much, and this angers her enough to leave.

Cue the bullies to enter. Oddly enough, it’s a two-bully ensemble instead of a genderbent Queen Bee scenario, and the smaller guy is more of a rough-talker whereas the larger guy is the muscle in the operation. Because it’s a two-man team, this likely explains why they seem to be on equal status as shows like The Asterisk War has taught me to associate the dumb muscle guy as the leader simply due to brute force.

Regardless, we are shown that Katsuhira is broke, and thus ends with him beaten. A funny thing is, as he is being beaten, he asks that his shirt is not held the way it is because the button might pop off and that is far worse to him than being punched.

After the continuous beating, red muscle guy, whom we can assume to be good, shows up to beat the guys for Katsuhira. He, Katsuhira, remarks that it was alright cause he is not very sensitive to pain. This ends with red muscle guy Hajime Tenga being surprised. After Tenga tests out Katsuhira’s painlessness, he makes him pass out by accident, which makes Sonozaki enter.

Now, Sonozaki seems like a Rei Ayanami X Ritsuko character in terms of personality, though her appearance certainly causes a very lengthy exposition scene which is not actually boring at all due to the metaphors used and the change in locations and use of quick cuts to other characters as things are being explained.

Sonozaki compares all characters to the Seven Deadly Sins and then tries to get as close as possible to Katsuhira with him trying to avoid touching her, and she then pushes him down a flight of stairs. Later, she remarks that this fall might have killed him, were it not for the Kiznaiver system that has people be connected and share pain/damage together. The damage done to him was done away with due to the other characters we’ve seen compared to the Seven Deadly Sins absorbing the damage, and they get bored hearing her explanation thinking Sonozaki is nonsense.

It is only when a bit of joking around goes too far and has local quirky girl Nico Niyama slapping Tenga that they realize the Kiznaiver system is an actual thing all character including Nico feel the pain of the slap.

After confirmation of all this, the episode ends.

Now, this episode was incredibly interesting to me. What interested me most about the series was Nico Niyama and the Otaku teacher in this episode prior to watching it. Not gonna lie about that. I saw some screen caps and thought it seemed really fun so I gave it a watch and did not expect to be as intrigued and moved as I was. I am very excited to see more of the series, though it is very hard to speculate where it might go.

The Kiznaiver system seems to be a way to connect people on a much deeper level than is otherwise attainable through normal means, so it is likely to be very character-driven, but the fact that it begins as sci-fi as it does, makes me wonder if it will delve into the battle genre at all. Only time will tell.

Though that is it for this one. Thank you all for watching, and I’ll see you all later.