Posts Tagged ‘11eyes’

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11Eyes Complete Collection Released By: Sentai Filmworks Released: 1/11/11 Reviewed: 3/30/11 Rated: 15+

After losing his older sister, Kakeru grew up as an orphan alongside his best friend Yuka and, even after leaving the orphanage, remain close even attending the same school. Born with a useless, discolored eye, Kakeru was always the target of scorn from classmates which continued all throughout his life. One day, Kakeru and Yuka begin to see a strange black moon in the sky which eventually breaks into a red night.

After barely escaping with their lives from a swarm of monsters, Kakeru and Yuka meet others at their school who are also forced into the red night to fight for their lives. As they work together, the group encounters a group of mysterious black knights who wish to see them dead. Luckily, they have all been given a new power with which to fight back.

Good and the Bad

This is an average series and to be honest, that’s being generous in some places. And while you may think that that’s all you need to know and can move on, you’d be wrong. What makes this series different is that everyone involved with this series had to have known that it was an average series. Between the staff at Dogakobo and the audience, no one is being fooled into thinking this is going to be of epic proportions. What this does is gives the series a new sense of freedom to do as it wants in its quest to bring the audience in. With this power it can actually strive to be better and after clawing its way through plot twist after plot twist, 11Eyes manages to do the impossible: it gets a little better… but not by much.

Initially, it’s pretty easy to see where the roots of this series lie. Based on an eroge by Lass, 11Eyes tries hard to create a dark atmosphere that always leaves the audience guessing. However in the beginning, a story is introduced that just fails to hook the audience in right away. You know how sometimes when you’re playing an RPG, the beginning can be kind of a slog because of all the time you have to spend leveling up? That’s what this series and its hero is. As a lead character, Kakeru is easily one of the more annoying to appear recently with constant whines about how he isn’t strong enough. Believe me Kakeru, we can SEE how weak you are and watching it is ten times worse than what you’re going through.

While the supporting cast helps a little, what 11Eyes is constantly trying to thrive on is its dark intrigue. Unfortunately with a third of the series spent just trying to get one character into fight shape, by the end of the first disc the series is just managing to hit its still very slow stride. Towards the end, things start to take a turn for the better as characters start to show real depth and growth from who they were. Even if this series isn’t particularly amazing, you’ll have to admit that 11Eyes always manages to keep fans guessing. The problem is that no matter what is happening, no matter how horrific the death or how yandere Yuka gets, it’s just hard to care.

Throughout the series, 11Eyes wants badly to be taken seriously as a dark mystery which makes it all the more annoying when those eroge roots decide to show up at the most inconvenient times. Generally taking the form of quick fan service or sex scene, the good point is that when the series does try to go sexual with its story, the general feeling is of eroticism instead of just fan service. The slow motions and dark lighting that surrounds Misuzu as she conducts her naked ritual, for example, or gives herself to another character always aims for erotic but usually misses just barely. Naked rituals and sexually shared powers? Leave it in the eroge.

Music    

What I did love about this series however are the absolutely gorgeous piano scores that constantly filled the scenery and gave it life where the writing was giving none. While I could never find who actually composed the music, the score for this series is just filled with wonderful, soft piano themes which are a primary reason for the series having such a heavy feeling. Ranging from organs to harpsichords, the gothic motif of the music played a huge role in 11Eyes never getting too fast paced. Always keeping things calm and heavy, it makes me wonder if this series could have picked up had the score been lightened just a little.

    
Overall
 
If you’re willing to put in the time to see all of the twists that this series will try to throw at you in a desperate attempt to keep you around, this could be a dark adventure that would be up your alley. When you have to put that much effort into keeping an audience that is rightly already bored, it’s hard to give a series much of a pass. Don’t invest any money into this one, this is a mostly average series that is worth a rental at best.

11eyes
Premiere Date: 10/6
Studio: Dogakobo
Genre: Harem Mystery
Trailer
Available via Crunchyroll

After losing his sister to suicide, high school student Kakeru has given up on life. Just existing day to day while surrounded by his three friends, it’s just a nothing existence. While out with his best friend Yuka, a strange pain overwhelms them both. When the pain finally subsides, they are in an identical version of the world they knew except completely alone and surrounded by monsters under a black moon in the sky. Escaping from that world once, their adventures there aren’t done yet after a mysterious new student joins their class.

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So yesterday I got to spend one entire blissful day doing nothing but working on two reviews. Neither one was completed but they should both be ready to be posted by the end of the week. So, with that out of the way I’ve returned with the latest batch of trailers that have premiered since yesterday. A few new trailers were posted to YouTube with the upcoming spinoff series Kiddy Girl-and getting three different trailers in three different places. On YouTube, Kadokawa posted this 30 second trailer showing quite a bit of character art:

But this is in addition to the second one posted to YouTube and a third posted to the official website. Luckily they all basically use the same footage so if you see the longest one you’ve essentially seen the others as well. Perhaps we could have started this promotional blitz more than a week before the series was set to premiere?

In other fall premiere news, the soon to be premiering in Japan and rest of the world via Crunchyroll 11eyes also has a new trailer available on the official website (click the CM button along the right side). It’s just a short one but if you’re excited to see this one (or at least just looking forward to it with something that doesn’t sound like apathy) than it’s worth checking out.

<Via ANN>

So nine out of thirteen announcements have been made by Crunchyroll so far and today they made it ten with the announcement of the Dogakobo produced 11eyes. Based on an eroge from Lass, the series follows a depressed teen and a group of his high school friends into a world overcast by a red moon. In the new world, they will be forced to battle against knights and survive in order to get home. The series premiered today in Japan but will premiere sometime tomorrow on Crunchyroll just in time for their next big announcement. The series will be made available everywhere outside Japan. This is an announcement that I can get excited about as this is one of the series that I was actually looking forward to this season. Nothing like a dark harem mystery to make the season feel complete.