One Whole Crazy Story About Just ONE Island. Literally.

Oh, hi! I'm back. It's time for me to write as many blog posts as possible. Anyway, this post is specially written for someone in AniList. This is for you! To be honest, it has been a while since I have made the post related an anime that I have finish watching recently.

Probably one of the more mind-blowing stories I have reviewed...

Anyway, with that said, it's kinda obvious (for that one person) that the anime that I gonna talk about in this post is the anime Island (and yes, so many other anime has the word, Island in it. LOL!). OK, without saying more unnecessary things, let's go!!!



WARNING:-

SPOILER ALERT!!! If you haven't watched it and plan to watch it without anyone being the spoiler, please DON'T CONTINUE READING!!!



P.S. If you want to be spoiled, well, go ahead and read it. You HAD been warned. Don't blame me for being spoiled if you INSIST on continuing to read this post.

Introduction

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The anime cover...

The anime, Island (in Japanese, アイランド) is adapted from a visual novel (VN) developed by Front Wing and published by Prototype. The VN was released on 28 April 2016 for Windows and ported to PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4. Subsequently, on August 2018, Steam (which I once used it to play Dota 2) release the English version of the VN. As for the anime, it is made by the studio Feel and was aired between July and September 2018. And yes, it is a really recent anime.

The VN cover

Plot

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Nice view of the island...oh yeah, these are Karen and her friends...

The story starts off with a naked guy on the beach, who only remembers his name and vaguely on what he is trying to do on the island. He remembers his name as Setsuna and the family name Senzenkai was given by a girl named Rinne later on. Who's Rinne? Let's put her aside and move on with the story.

naked guy on the beach...and poor Karen...

He was later found by a girl name Kurutsu Karen. Obviously, she is not (and probably will not be) a fan of looking at someone's dick. Oops. Didn't I say that the post is PG13? Sorry. My bad...let's move on from here. Shall we?

The police station arc...

Karen and Setsuna went to the police station and somehow got to stay on the island under some weird circumstances although the head of one of the three most powerful family on the island objected to his arrival. Anyway, he somehow 'landed' become a maid of the Ohara family because of Rinne. LOL!

A meeting with Rinne...

From there, he found out about the weird (and a non-existent disease)..."Baimonbyō" (or translated as the Soot Crest Sickness). And then, he slowly found out about the legend of a tragic love story and many other weird dreams he had. Slowly, he came to solve the mystery and also helped Karen and a priestess girl, Garando Sara's trouble...just like the VN and the anime that I have once talked about on this blog before...Grisaia series. I will restart the Grisaia series but not anytime soon.

Karen's route...

Sara's route...

Anyway, with the two girls' problems solved, the MC, Setsuna had to move on with Rinne's problem in order to grasp hold of his reason to be on the island. Well...let's said that it didn't turn outright. And then we are given a glimpse of the working of the Island world...CRAZY!!!! Why? The world's timeline keeps repeats itself, like a loop. AND...it's literally a loop of 20,000 years. MIND BLOWN! The machine that Setsuna is gonna ride on is some sort of incubator that allows a user to sleep through thousands of years.

The sleep that twists the narrative...

What?! What is this place?!

So, OK...the anime brings us to another scene, another era and to another Rinne. Wait...isn't that just deja vu? Yes, this world's timeline is a loop. WHAT KIND OF MADNESS IS THIS?! Anyway, again, the same thing happens but in the other way. Sara and Karen die but Rinne lives. Yes...the thing that didn't turn out right is that Rinne died. And like in the previous run, he places himself in some incubator that allows a user to sleep through thousands of years with the price of most of your memories.

Not again in this place...

And then, the anime once again brings us the familiar scene again. For those who did play the VN, they will know the choice that they need to make (unless they wanna torture themselves). Anyway, back to the anime. Back in the same place, this time, Setsuna returns to that island again, with quite a lot of the memories intact. Of course, weird things happen when you are a time traveller with memories intact. You just know what will happen next...but Setsuna will soon found out a weird mystery that he needs to solve in order to finally end this time loop and time travel madness.

The dairy that will end this madness...

How did it gets solved? With a ring and a diary locked up in a drawer. Of course, the story will diverge a bit from the original VN story. I didn't play the game but I know VN games can be quite long and knowing the fact that the story cannot be portrayed with just 12 episodes. Plus, the VN's route based nature means that it's not that easy to merge as a single coherent story. You can get confused if the story is broken up into different routes (like the Yosuga no Sora anime. Don't ask me how I know it. Just...shut up.)

Time to end this madness...

Anyway, back with the story. With the final mystery solved, the true ending is achieved and have a final, happy ending to this story. Speaking of the true ending, there are quite a number of uses in multiple Japanese games (including VNs and also the Island VN.) OK, back with the story. Setsuna finally found his true love. Not the Rinne she met from the beginning but Rinne that changed her name to Kuon. Don't ask questions about this. You need to watch to get the context. I'm sorry but it's quite twisted to explain the context and reasoning.

That kiss...

The kiss to marriage that they have been waiting for...

So, should you watch it? Hmm...tough. The story is quite nice in the beginning...and then turn into some next level madness. If you dun mind mind-blowing plot twist, then go ahead. If you are not really a fan of it, you can choose to watch it or not. It's up to you. For me, it was quite mind-blowing. It took me some time to digest this madness and understand this story and the world. Anyway, let's move on.

Mind-blown!

Anime Rating

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Story (Rating: 6/10)

The story was at first pretty decent. Helping the girls to solve their problems...wait, that reminds me of Little Busters anime. AHHHH!!!! I should have reviewed it but I didn't! AHHHHH!!!!! OK, back to the topic. As I have mentioned, the story twist and turned into some sort of madness...involving time travel and time loops. It took me a while to understand the final part of the story. To be honest, I won't recommend this story based on the last few part...oh men, it feels like Charlotte again...well, it's not like I did finish watching Charlotte and only skimmed through parts of it...

The machine that twists the narrative...

Art and Animation (Rating: 7/10)

The art and animation are pretty decent. No character that super moe for me though. BUT, hey, the characters still look good. The animation is really consistent. No full marks for animation though. Sorry.

A random view of the island. Quite nice, isn't it?

Sound and Music (Rating: 8/10)

Good music, I say. Good music. Beautiful music for both the OP and ED. The feels of both songs fit the narrative of the story. The lyrics? Same. Fits the narrative well. The song that Rinne sang? Beautiful and deeply connected to the series. As for BGM, really? If it's bad, it will be too obvious. Anyway, to be honest, those two do require me to have a special mood for it like most songs that of similar nature of that the OP and ED song of this anime.

Part of the opening song scene...

Characters (Rating: 7/10)

Character? There is character development for most of the main character. Sara and Karen have resolved their problems. Rinne? Complicated...as a result of the legend and the crazy twist of the story. The characters are quite confusing because of the existence of two different eras with the main character's name of the two eras having the exact same name but only with different endings. Not exactly a good VN to be animated, to be honest.

Rinne and Setsuna...

Enjoyment (Rating: 6/10)

To be honest, the anime is kind of...not really my thing. Probably because of me watching a lot of cute girls doing cute things show in recent years, making me not so adept in abrupt twists. Wait a minute...the twist is actually abrupt. Anyway, not really a fan of this show.

burn them at stake...wait, what?!

Overall Rating: 6.8 (7)/10

Screenshots

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Karen...you have been found out.

Sara...lying on her bed

Mess me up?! Wait, wait, wait, wow...wow...

Wait...fire?!

The place where Rinne remembers her painful past...

People...meet the other Karen

And yes, of course, meet the other Rinne!

And lastly, meet the other Sara...and there is also 'copies' of the other characters

It's a fan...wait, why are you only wearing your underwear?!

PV/Trailer

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Conclusion

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So...congrats! You have reached the end of the post. Anyway, I have a few other anime-related post including talking about anime song lyrics. Well, that's the end. Hope you all enjoy it. So yeah, hope to see ya again. Goodbye, and God bless you!

The honeymoon ship...