Review of Kyousougiga
The experience of watching this anime was simultaneously beautiful and bizarre. Kyousougiga is dripping with gorgeous and imaginative art design, animation, and shot composition, all of which is bursting with color and life. Accompanying this, however, is a story that feels like a bewildering, disjointed mix of mythology and postmodernism that is akin to a raging bull which the viewer must somehow manage to cling to. In this way, it is hard to say much at all about this anime as a unified work, but it must be attempted regardless, even if it broadly defies analysis. Beginning with the story,it's almost impossible to choose a place to begin. The basis of this story is rooted in a mythological story structure, with the interactions of gods and spirits and the interplay of morality throughout, and that provides this story with a sense of grandeur and mysticism that becomes a running current through the show. However, as it progresses, it deconstructs the seemingly solid themes the viewer is presented with at the beginning, with gods doubting themselves, people doubting creation itself and the purpose of it all, and even the deconstruction of one's own life as a thing that matters. These two streams of thought come together to make for an interesting contrast, but they also conflict with one another to the point that the story suffers as a coherent continuity. The world operates on these amorphous principles of magic and divinity and dimensional separation, and the viewer is largely left to pick up on how everything works as the show goes on. Undoubtedly it manages to be interesting episode by episode, but to link the larger parts of the story together into something that makes sense takes some work to do. It also doesn't help that there are regular flashbacks, even one flashback within a flashback, and very little of the world's metaphysics is explored. If the story managed to restrain itself just a little bit, it could have been great as a whole, instead of a confused collection of good episodes.
The art, as goes without saying, is incredible, and is this show's strongest point by far. Like was said earlier, everything is absolutely bursting with a life and color that astounds, and not a single thing was left underdone. From the sprawling landscapes to the distinct character designs, pretty much everything is a pleasure to witness. Interestingly enough, I feel like the general 'vibe' of this anime is somewhere between FLCL and Kill la Kill, due to the colorfully kinetic nature of the former and the masterful visual quality of the latter.
The sound is similarly excellent, with a grand, sweeping score and an immense amount of audible detail, right down to the smallest sounds of life like beads clacking together, blood dripping, or the chatter of a large crowd.
The characters are broadly good, and generally serve their purposes within the story, though I don't feel like they really blew me away like the art and sound did. They simply feel good enough, and neither add nor detract from the show as a whole. Koto and Yakushimaru are the strongest characters comparatively, while other major characters like Inari are left lacking. Overall, while Kyousougiga is beautiful in a way that many anime try and fail to be, it still isn't for everyone, because as great as the audiovisual experience is, the overambitious and overwrought story really weighs down one's enjoyment of the show. I was able to make sense of things by the end, but it felt like work to do so, and I feel like that's a feeling most people don't enjoy. Give it a shot if you're ok with that, or if you feel the art and sound are more than worth that price of admission, but be prepared for a meandering journey indeed.