Review of Ikebukuro West Gate Park
Tell me, what did you expect after reading synopsis? I expected a criminal drama, where our mc tries his best to find out the truth while being caught between two fighting gangs. What I did not expect was to see a bunch of boy scouts instead of a gang who do such horrible gang crimes as dance performing, helping single mothers and immigrants and guarding peace in the neighborhood. If it does not sound even remotely close to crime drama - you are not the only one confused. 10 episodes out of 12 are wasted on showing how mc is a good "fixer" guy. Imay be wrong, but that kind of introduction should only take an episode or two at best, not most of the season. I could get it if those stories were linked in any way to the actual drama, that is shown in the last two episodes - it would be some insanely long build up, but if executed correctly it would justify all those unlinked meaningless stories. But you see, when you put a bunch of those stories and forget to give them any link to or place in the main plot line - what is even a point of having them? It felt like the first 10 episodes were a giant filler, and they are here just to waste viewers time instead of showing them the show they came for. As for me, cause of this mess I arrived at ep11 already bored and there was not a single chance that anything would redeem this huge waste of time. I doubt I have ever seen such big problems with pacing before.
If we move from discussing the plot - things are still pretty bad. Characters for example - there are lots of them. But only a few have a constant place in this show, and even those few are pretty undeveloped and feel more like the tools that mc uses to solve problems in the neighbourhood. Like what do we know about the King, who is literally the most influential character around and a great pal of our MC? Well, he is cool and respected, basically it. The rest of the cast either gets that kind of treatment or even worse.
Visuals? They are fine, being a real world it is not really hard thing to draw adequate, but nothing more is done to make the visuals stand out and be something above mediocre.
Sound? Well, the choice of tracks fits the theme, but it is not my type of music so I can't call opening and ending good. For bgm in episodes themselves - I can't even recall if there was a bgm to be honest.
Enjoyment? Story and paicing ruined any enjoyment for me.
Conclusion: a huge unfun waste of time. You may like it if you like unconnected shallow stories, but for most people I would advice skipping this anime entirely.