"Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later."
- Og Mandino
Kubikiri Cycle: Aoiro Savant to Zaregototsukai is an 8-episode OVA adaptation of a light novel series called
Zaregoto Series, written by Nisio Isin who happens to be famous for his Monogatari series, and as
Kubikiri Cycle is also animated by the same studio,
Shaft,
which is a known group of people for their consistently high quality
frames and fluid animation in their Monogatari series's projects.
This
post will be rather long as the series is short, it's one of those
series that can be gone in depth into without it feeling like I'm doing
too much. Sometimes it's good to take time to analyze .
The
story begins with two people, a young boy and a woman, sitting beside
each other in some kind of metaworld, pondering questions about what
matters really in the world and to a oneself.
The setting of
the story takes place in Raven's Feather Island where the Akagami family
residence resides in. The mansion along with the entire island is owned
by a person named Akagami Iria, a person who reeks of "magical girl"
with how she dresses and acts (but not too much for anyone to feel the
same as I) who happens to be the granddaughter of the head of a
succesful Akagami business company but who was banished from the family
for some reason and got the island for herself as a place of exile where
she's forbidden to ever leave from.
"First floor - Storage
room (my room)" yes, that's where our nameless main protagonist resides
in, in the mansion where a silver-haired maid, the head maid Handa Rei,
walks along the spiral staircase of the mansion with white flowers in
her hand. In the mansion three maids that work under Handa Rei, a family
of three women, the middle sister, darkish green-haired Chiga Hikari, a
brown-haired oldest sister Chiga Akari as well as the youngest sister,
the dark-haired Chiga Teruko, also work in the residence as maids. Our
main protagonist considers himself as an accessory to the mansion
owners, and accessories don't have names. He's however always called
Li-chan by Kunakisa Tomo. He's quickly shown to be an extremely fast
thinker capable of reading ahead to the end-point of Sonoyama Akane's
shadowgame of shogi.
The soundtrack for the anime is pretty
decent. It's fitting but nothing stand-out. The opening looks nice, with
the introductory names for the characters being visible (as is with the
name boxes you can see in other manga series; boxes that introduce the
names and sometimes the ages and occupation of the character that is
shown), but the song itself is mediocre. The ending song is nice. The
best part of the series however is the presentation of the frames. The
world of the crime scene feels sort of abstract - not realistic at all,
characters make serious faces which bend to the back in
Shaft's style
familiar from Monogatari-series, as they talk about abstract things
without much purpose, which seems kind of popular to do in light novels
these days - anyways, it's a way of presentation which is off the walls
hit-and-miss for me personally not really focusing on anything important
at times. Murder mystery series should have good presentation if it
makes the watcher feel emotions. Also I'm a firm believer that the genre
is more often than not more suited to being about
substance over style -
as in, that would be necessary for a decent case - a self-contained
story with a fitting pacing. Style is more filler for these types of
series I feel. I just don't feel more into it even though it has such a
different style and way of presenting simplest of things; there's
probably not enough punch in how these stylistic changes flow. Music
does not change with the frames, frams jump left and right and center
along with computer generated effects and plenty of different colors etc
without it taking its time to set up a certain mood within that one
frame. I can tell the mood that's going on during the events, but I
don't think the stylistic effects and effort from the animators enhance
the series at all.
The
characters of
Kubikiri Cycle are very quirky but I feel as if they are lacking in personality.
Genius
engineer Kunakisa Tomo, a light blue haired young girl who doesn't like
to take showers. She's a long-time "friend" of our main character whom
she calls Li-chan. Her real purpose on the island is to find more out
about a past case. Capable of quickly upgrading computers two
generations ahead. She's a person who claimed to be hard to speak to as
she rarely listens. Our main character's known her for about five years.
The
Genius cook Sashinori Yayoi who likes to cook in the kitchen, but as
she's a Genius visitor, she's not a servant. It's said that she can make
any dish taste better than anyone else who's alive is capable of
making. Her taste and smell are superior to other people's as she's
capable of telling a person's blood type from licking their skin -
through the sweat. She claims that she's able to tell between 200 000
different tastes at 12 levels of intensity and her nose most likely tell
the smell from half of that.
Sonoyama Akane, presented just as a
"Genius - One of the Seven Fools" who likes to shadow play shogi, she's a
person who tends to use the wrong words and has to be corrected often.
She hates painters in general - and has that against Ibuki Kanami who
happens to be a painter.
Himena Maki. A genius diviner with
greenish-yellow hair. Her customers are important people. She's called a
psychic who knows and sees everything, she's supposedly even capable of
reading people's minds - but she's not capable of doing that to
"incompatible people." Our main character considers her creepy. She
hates our main character for being a person that lets other people's
opinions affect how he thinks.
Ibuki Kanami a genius painter
girl who likes short-lived things and was born with a defect in her legs
and so, has to use a wheelchair to move around, and she was supposedly
also blind until couple years before the story begins. She claims that
she commits everything to her memory before painting it, and she paints
everything when she's alone. So if she paints a person - she will
memorize the person and then paint later when she's alone.
As well as Ibuki Kanami's attendant Sakaki Shin'ya and mr. Aikawa, a genius whom gets called to the island in later episodes.
The
Seven Fools - geniuses among geniuses that are claimed to be able to
"solve the world." (as in mysteries of the world and existence of the
universe probably?)
The idea of the series - a rather generic
and average murder mystery sortofinnercirclecase etc. (you've surely
seen it a million times in golden age detective fiction) with somewhat
forced motives for everyone's reasoning to stay at the Raven's Feather
Island - is not episodic despite its OVA nature of animation. The pacing
of the story is rather slow for the amount of information that we're
shared as the animators put their focus on showing different
perspectives of the same thing many times. But keep in mind that it is
an adaptation, not the source material.
Every episode starts with a random quote from whoever.
The
first episode of
the eight focuses on setting up the island and it's current inhabitants
as well as the people called the Geniuses who have been called there as
visitors. They all used to be a part of a project for geniuses called
the ER3 System, our "accessory" main character Li-chan included (though
he dropped from the project before completing it). It's the third day of
"Li-chan's" stay at the island. We get couple of hints about hostility
between some of the people and the episode is quickly over. The
presentation is very interesting but it does not try to show or flesh
out how the mansion and the island look and how they're supposed to
work. We just get mentions of "who" and "which floor this person's room
resides in" without any sense of direction in the building. There's a
lack of foreshadowing that should be set up in the very beginning just
having a "suspicious building and setting" is not enough sadly.
The
second episode
starts off with the rules set to the visitors by the owner of the manor
Akagami Iria - People are free to do what they want mostly, but
everyone absolutely has to attend the supper together in the first
floow's dining hall. We're set up a clockwise showcase for how the every
person around the table has gathered. As with clock's hours - 12 people
sit on the table. "The twelve on the island." As Kunagisa is about to
leave in four more days, Iria tells that she's decided the next genius
who will be called to visit named Aikawa. Iria claims that she considers
"Aikawa" her hero. There's some conflict between the diviner Maki and
our MC "Li" and between the painter Kanami and Akane (the person who
likes shogi) but it's mostly fluff dialogue that you'd wonder why they
get so agitated about it. As the day turns to night the second half of
the episode picks up the interest a bit when an earthquake hits. The
entire situation seems pretty generic and a bit cliche however - people
talk about their mysterious purpose in being in the island but before
they can answer, an earthquake happens. The fourth day begins at the end
as the episode ends with a cliffhanger-ish moment that's shown quickly;
naturally, the first death of the series.
The
third episode.
Li's (the MC) and 4th day on the island, and everyone on it has
gathered around a crime scene with paint on the ground. Despite the
earthquake a day before, the paint is still dry. Despite all these
geniuses in the room, our MC (who's supposed to be sort of a genius
himself) is the one that goes to the body. Afterwards everyone gathers
at the dining hall around the table. There's a mention of a "yet another
death" and we check out everyone's alibis before and after the
earthquake when the painter Kanami was still supposedly alive. There is
no mention of police, only theories of the time of death despite it
happening in the modern age. It makes the case feel rather artificial as
people don't act naturally - it does feel a bit forced. A set up
necessary to make logical and sound theories about what could have
happened; there's still the bare minimum but the author Nisio Isin is
clearly not that experienced with the genre to write it expertly enough.
The
setting of the case is this: Kanami is dead and her head is missing for
reasons unknown. The time of death is assumed to have happened either
before or after the earthquake that happened in the evening on our MC's
3rd day on Raven's Feather Island; Kanami's attendant Sakaki Shin'ya had
called Kanami after the earthquake, telling that she's okay but the
paint had fallen which makes our characters theorize the time of death
despite it being set in the era of internet, and there's an artificial
set up for why they won't call the police which honestly makes no sense,
it doesn't matter to the others what kind of history Iria has. Since
there's a pool of paint around between the door and the victim, so much
of it that it seems very hard to jump past, as well as the fact that
Kanami's room is on the 2nd floor where it is very hard to get to along
with its windows being locked, the case becomes a locked room case as no
one could have reached her. The characters focus on the fact that the
head is beheaded making it so that you'd usually change places with
another corpse to make it seem as if the places are changed but it does
not seem likely due to there being 11 left of the 12 at the dining
table. The lack of realistic portrayal of how things could possibly have
been done is not theorized; the way of the beheading is not just
something that can be done just like that, despite that, it's simply
just excused. The killer is no Dexter there would be should be plenty of
clues, flow of blood splatters and such, to investigate.
As
we don't come any closer to figuring out the answers to the time of
death, Li comes up with a plan with the lightblue haired Tomo where they
lock the prime suspect of this case, Akane whom hates painters, into a
room that can't be escaped from the inside to avoid more potential
murders. But the owner of the island will not allow the inference of the
police and the geniuses on the island have to solve the case
themselves. The arriving Aikawa, whom is heavily praised by the owner of
the island Akagami Iria to have an unparalled mind capable of solving
any case in the blink of an eye, arrives in six days on the 10th day and
is going to put the case into rest. The characters bury the victim
without telling the police, conducting in illegal activity of handling a
corpse.
The
fourth episode explains that Kunakisa Tomo
and our MC, the narrator Li, are conducting in more illegal activity,
prying intel on the people who are on the island - whatever connections
they have together. As well as talking about the illegal activity of why
Iria won't allow the police on the island - she claims that she doesn't
believe geniuses are equal to other people - that they are superior
beings that shouldn't be soiled with being in contact with the police.
Two of the three maids, Akari and Teruko, have left the island in search
to contact the notoriously-hard-to-contact extragenius Aikawa-san.
There's a mysterious mistake on the painting of our MC created by the
victim Kanami that shouldn't be there for a painter of such high talent.
We learn that the current suspect Akane is for reasons unknown ready to
get killed at any time at her own free will. The second half of the
episode focuses on the MC's conflicting thoughts about Tomo and feels
mostly filler that has nothing to do with the case.
The
fifth episode.
The start of the fifth day on the island for our protagonists. One of
the three maids, Chiga Akari comes to our MC and screams that something
has happened and to come to the first floor storeroom where Akane was
held in. Another locked room case has taken place in the same household.
Yet another headless corpse, with the head missing somewhere. There's a
locked door with no entry and an opened window that can only be opened
from inside of the house with a switch, a window which is too far high
up. Everyone's alibis are focused on and they, in the classic way, talk
about how being alone was too dangerous and it would be much better to
move in teams.
Team A is the current suspect who had the key to the storage room, maid Hikari, Tsunagisa and our
MC.
Team B forms from the maids Rei, Akari, Teruko and the boss Iria.
Team C is the group of Maki, Shinya and Yayoi.
As
the groups have been set up, team A has things to do. As they arrive
back in Kunagisa's room, they find her computers all destroyed by the
culprit whom most likely wanted to avoid them seeing what was in the
photographs that Kunagisa had taken after the first case, photos she had
moved to her computer's drive files. I guess she doesn't have an online
cloud app on those computers despite their advanced technology. The
mystery is: since the computers were fine when team A woke up, and they
were the last ones to arrive in the dining room, none of the 10 there
could have destroyed the computers. The group check out the window of
the storage room from the inside which is open - and despite being so
high up in the inside, it's very low on the mountain side outside,
however it doesn't seem likely that the culprit could have done anything
through the window with the victim Akane on supposedly guard.
The
sixth episode begins
with showcasing both of the crime scenes without narration. Our MC goes
to team B's room alone. One of the maids Teruko whom likes to play
around explain that ms.Iria is on the island because she's a criminal
supposedly with wounds on her wrist despite not having any when Li saw
Iria almost naked before, putting clothes on. She's a person with an
Abusive Behaviour System, D.L.L.R. syndrome. Iria had a twin sister
named Odette whom she had supposedly killed. Our MC mentions what was
wrong with the paint of himself - his watch was being fixed when he was
with the painter Kanami and in that painting it was there. A weird
mistake. There's theorising that Iria might be the culprit or the person
who ordered the murders. At this point our protagonists claim that they
have all the clues and have practically solved the case, and it's time
for a counterattack.
The
seventh episode starts with
narration of some meaningless woo abstract stuff about how people can
reach deep ends.. Or something. It's one of those series similar to
Subete ga F ni Naru
which constantly uses random talk about meaning of existence or such to
try to sound deep, but it has no point in this story and case. The
genius chef Yayoi acts shocked and calls everyone crazy. The sad part of
this is that it's nothing but acting as later confirmed, it's sad
because it seemed like the first realistic reaction that should have
happened a long time ago.
The plan is set into motion to
catch the killer. There's a very nice action sequence in a dark room
between one of the maids, Teruko, and the a certain woman, and the maid
gets shot but the shot apparently misses. Narration about how the main
character won't care if he dies. There's one cringy moment in the moment
with both of the MC's. We get an important moment for the case; the
realisation of two culprits. Which makes sense considering that the
computers couldn't have been destroyed by one. The logical cluing for
why a person is a culprit; has to do with a stretcher and a sleeping
bag. In this part you could have added mud as a clue. One of the two
reasons why the body was beheaded uses rigor mortis as a way to escape a
locked room in a way that was planned from the beginning with the first
murder, the proble arises from the fact that there was no reason for
the events to reach that point that perfectly, I doubt that "trick" even
works that well despite it being simple. It's an unnecessary addition,
you could have literally had the accomplice help the killer out the
window. Nothing stopped that from happening. The culprit claims that
they had no real motives but ofcourse there will be something hidden
there. There was not much going on in the second to last episode all
things considered.
Episode eight,
the final episode, in which the presentation is very well done atleast,
gives me a comfy feel, anyway; a glimpse of a cruiser. Our protagonists
travel there as they are leaving the island. The reason why Ilia
doesn't have those supposed scars in her arms was revealed. Spoilers
Ilia was a fake and the head maid was the real Ilia. She didn't allow
them to call police to the crime scenes because it would be no fun at
all. Afterwards our MC walks around a library narrating about what's
happening with the others. The culprit and the accomplice never got
caught because they never called the cops, letting the murders stay as
unknown mystery. The long talked about Aikawa Jun makes an appearance
with his/her weird car, driving off a cliff onto a boat etc. A weird
red-haired person. Aikawa tells that there are a number of things that
may not fit. Why would the culprits kill off a person close to them?
Motives unknown need explanations that were not given earlier. We go
back to the painting - why does it have a watch when he wasn't wearing
one at that point? Aikawa claims that he has solved it all. That Kanami
did not paint that painting. A fake painter. There's nothing mysterious
about this, I had also figured it out in the first episodes. When you
don't see someone do what they claim to be able to do, it's likely a
trick. Aikawa goes to explain that Kanami became Akane just for kicks
before they even arrived on the island and then one had to die for the
other to completely become the other.
Aikawa's "truth" behind
the case - the motive of murder being only about taking one's identity
seems pretty impossible in this current day and age, in which this
series has been written to take place in. No one will come look for the
murdered person for sure and know this other one is not her? The victim,
supposedly Akane and not the real painter Kanami, was said to have born
with defects in her legs... The "fake" supposedly used a wheelchair
just because, with no real meaning behind it. Not to mention she was
said to have been blind before as well. Apparently these don't actually
mean anything. If anything I would call these clear plot holes...
The
series picks up with the a addition of a few more mysteries to deal
with at the same time for atleast something tangible to focus on unlike
in Subete ga F ni Naru, and the mysteries definitely are better and more
clever than in the first 4 episodes, because that's really hard not to
do, but I feel like the tying ups of the loose ends are less than ideal.
I can say I did not
want there to be two culprits
before the second murder happened - thought the author
would come up with something more clever for some reason. The 'truth'
ex
plained by Aikawa as an infodump instead of it flowing naturally in
the story clearly tries to excuse all the foreshadowing and
contradictions just to arrive at a set conclusion. There's no sound
logic there. The idea of the culprits having a True motive beyond
killing is neat, but this one, in reality, is stupid. They knew they
just would not call the cops, get investigated and ever caught...
Swapping identities without any actual motive... Just an idea the author
threw there and didn't bother with making it any more coherent than
that, clearly, similar to the unrealistic actions of the characters.
Also we got nothing expanded on the reason our protagonists arrived on
the island, which is a past case; the murder of Ilia's twin sister. It
was never explained in depth by them really despite it being a motive
for going there... Hmph.
A last side rant:
Different
styles of presentation alone can make a series readable and watchable -
naturally because they would be "fresh" - something "new" to the
follower, which is what I hoped this to be like to me, but the funny
part here was that it did not enhance the downright mediocre and cliche
plotting of story in the slightest. And make no mistake there are many
series where I really do like these sort of inner circle cases in an
area where the police can't reach due to the world and situations
sealing the "world" off - but those series are well written with strong
motivations, meaning behind every action - great synergy of the events, atleast a decent cast of characters, decent plotting with an expansive story and so on. The moment they did not allow to call the cops and did shit like hide the corpse - and touch it, destroying the crime scene along with bunch of different problems surrounding the situation from the murder weapon - the possibility of this even happening, the lack of obvious evidence like blood splatters, etc.
We have
characters without much of a personality, alot of unnatural/unrealistic
acting - a lack of realism considering the genre it's tackling, a pretty damn bad pacing of half of an episode of absolutely irrelevant-to-the-case narration, and the
obvious lack of experience this author has with the genre - a true
recipe for disaster and a most mediocre case so shallow and badly paced
that shouldn't even fit the criteria to be counted as murder mystery.
Now I'll head back to finishing some Chandler that I intentionally left
unfinished to complete right after this one. Too bad out of those 200
000 tastes the chef can differentiate from, none of them seemed to have
been of good taste. Haha. Ha... I'm tired. This series was tiring
because I just did not manage to get enjoyment from it. I got more tired
the less brains I had to use for this. This took longer than I thought
it would I guess... They should have expanded on those backstories, that one
case from the past, with all that free time this series had.
I was just like how a well-dressed private detective should be. I was on my way to meet up with four million dollars.
Halfway through the book you, the reader, are basically left with an aftertaste of reading an O.K. mystery story with an acceptable murder case as Philip is one of those characters who has nice wits for a more realistic approach to the cases than what you'd be normally used to. The story halfway through gave couple of chuckles here and there as well. Afterwards it takes its time slowly getting to the end of the story, dropping the aspect of dealing with many characters and plots and becoming more focused on just one thing, and becoming more emotional, not in the sad sense, but in the sense that you can feel something while reading, especially tension, but it does drop off things that make the story better as well that were in the first part, such as Philip's quick wits being shown off as there's less planning involed in the plotting of the chapters.
