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Occultic;Nine
Drowned in Mediocrity
Series in a Sentence
The world of Yuuta Gamon, a blogger that runs the website “Kiri Kiri Basara,” and eight other individuals is thrust into chaos after a mass drowning incident occurs in Japan.
What I liked
In my spoiler free review, I pointed out how I enjoyed the production surrounding the show and I have to echo that here. The show’s opening was fast paced and mysterious, the ending theme’s beats and interplay with the episode preview was infectious, and character designs were, for the most part, really appealing. From Yuuta’s two-toned coat to Miyu’s unique hoodie and Sarai’s cool blue coat to match his personality, each character was memorable and unique from the other. Likewise, though rough in practice, I liked the initial separation of the group into different factions. The actions of the bloggers, police, fortune-tellers, and journalists starting separate and slowly weaving together as the story went on was a nice idea that could have been executed better, but I have to give props to the team for trying. Also, the odd focus on a card game close to my heart (Cardfight Vanguard) and the clan that I play (Shadow Paladin) did make me smile.
What I Didn’t Like
Before I get into my feelings on the twist towards the end of the series and my dislike of everything surrounding it, I have to talk about my issues with one particular character: Ryoka. Her character design was both overly exaggerated and distracting, giving the show a childish and fan-servicey feel. Furthermore, her personality and the writing of it just furthered the annoyance I had with her character and what made it worse was that her character was central to the plot. The fact that she was essentially the illegitimate daughter of Tesla felt like a shoehorned in plot point towards the end that was never truly hinted at and the twist that her laser gun actually served a function felt like an equally disrespectful plot point. Throughout the whole show, this gun was used without anybody questioning it as if to trick the viewer into believing that it did nothing. This type of “gotcha” writing has never felt right for me in series before this and it didn’t feel right for me now. Ultimately, this whole Tesla-based twist felt half-baked: It relied on a character shift in Ryoka that was hardly fleshed out and the function of an item not acknowledged by any of the cast while ultimately devolving the series into an occult-power fueled battle series. Coupled with inconsistent character development, plot points that never got fully fleshed out or that felt unrelated to the main plot, an incomplete feeling ending, and a huge dearth of topics rushed through the series just felt like it was stringing me (and other viewers) along with pointless or meaningless plot points until it was time to drop the major twist in an attempt to wrap things up. One should never feel like a series didn’t respect their time, but here I felt like the show just didn’t care.
Overall Feelings
Occultic;Nine was a series that tried to use its twist to justify seemingly incoherent or insufferable plot points rather than using plot points to set up a twist. While other, smarter series are able to make a twist feel shocking yet natural, the writing here made the Tesla-based plot at the end feel like a last-minute excuse. Sure, you could point to the shorter run of the series as an excuse for not being able to set things up properly but the fact still remains: This series did a piss-poor job of making me feel fulfilled. Sure, I liked the characters and in theory the plot progression worked but when all is said and done, the combination of the factors made this series feel like it was trying too hard to have an intelligent twist and this resulted in the show feeling brain-dead. It's a sad but true fact that when you try to act smarter than you are or have any right to be you will only come across as incompetent.