Review of The Labyrinth of Grisaia: The Cocoon of Caprice 0

I normally don't write reviews for single episode shows that are just part of a larger series, but I'll make an exception here since I do have a few things to say about this. So what is it that compels me to write about what is essentially just episode one of the sequel show? Well... - Story & Theme One criticism I had about the first series was that it didn't really focus a lot on the protagonist and this time around it's the opposite. This is the big backstory episode where you get to learn all about Yuuji Kazami and who he is. The problem isagain that the story is just about the story and never really the characters. There is little actual growth or change beyond what is expected and while we get to see many new characters they all fade away quickly from the mind. The protagonist is still a Gary Stu and this time around there is quite a lot more fanservice and implied sex between people of inappropriate ages and inappropriate positions of power. There's a large serving of male fantasy scenarios written for and by people who, most likely, have little to no actual experience with anything like it. The incest vibes are strong too and the bad taste from the first series was quickly replaced with a worse taste from this episode.

- Characters & Writing
Did I mention that Yuuji is a Gary Stu? Because he is such a Gary Stu. He is good at almost everything he does, instantly liked and adored by all women and quickly end up in what seems to be the wet dream of any 13-year old boy. At times he comes off as an autistic savant, but then he is shown to have a good grasp of social interaction and none of the problems. There is no real tention anywhere because of this, coupled with the fact that it's a prequel story so we already know what will happen to him. The rest of the characters suffer from being written only to play up the protagonist and there are plenty of situations where people do things that simply does not make sense.

- Style & Presentation
Nothing special here. The animation is fine, the music is fine, the style is fine and so on, so forth.

- Conclusion
In all, this isn't a great episode and while a bit of background is needed for the next series to make sense it isn't handled very good. Parts of it are entertaining while others are plain boring or just bad. Nothing really stands out here and the pacing and timeline is all over the place. If you want to watch the series that comes next this episode is, unfortunately, required viewing but if you're on the fence I can tell you that while the series that follows is better than this it's only better than the first series in some regards and worse in others.