After watching Hand Shakers earlier in the year, a series would have to do a lot wrong to be the worst anime in 2017. Luckily, a new challenger has emerged. Its name is Neo Yokio and you should do everything in your power to ensure no one watches it.
Writing
The story focuses around Kaz, a Magistocrat, a magician who also is an aristocrat. His job is to slay demons in a city which was the gate for a large group of demons to appear back in the day. Sounds like the standard setup which could go either way but luckily this show decides to take it in a total nosedive.
Kaz is bored with his life and it shows. He seems to both care about and give little thought to the Bachelor Board (a board which shows the most eligible bachelors in the two) in times square which regularly has him high up. Kaz asks “Who am I without the bachelor board?” He previously didn’t care about where he was on it. This is the level of vapid and shallow character who we have to follow through all six episodes.
Kaz is rich, spoiled, but still finds a way to suck the joy of more than half of his sentences when he means to. The character visits his own grave, not because he is dead but because he actually already has his grave picked out and is depressed over his ex-girlfriend. At the same moment a young girl is possessed, floating in her room, and it’s his job to handle it. This is our hero folks. He’s more worried about his own interests than about saving people from demons. Sadly, he is the center of the entire story and offers little entertainment to the viewer.
The idea of being humiliated at a party is the greatest drama a person faces in this series. This is beyond melodrama. Nothing has any stakes and frankly the characters do little to make the audience care about them. Everyone is just trying to act fashionable and be popular.
Acting
This show features voice talent by Susan Sarandon, Steve Buscemi, and Jude Law. Yet it still finds a way to be hard to listen to. Most of the cast is forced to spout some of the worst worst lines of dialogues ever written for a dub script. Lines such as “Her blog is our bible.” or “Her voice is like cashmere.” It feels like the script was meant for a dub for the 90s, but when the crew was told they were going to be put on the late night block they decided to occasional drop the F word.
As the series continues, you find yourself begging for the show to stop using the term “Herb” as an insult and name dropping expensive high end brand names like Chanel and Louis Vuitton. Clips of this show’s dub will and should be featured on future YouTube videos of cringeworthy moments. It needs to be experiences to be believed but this should highly be avoided.
Art
The artwork for the series is colorful yet bland all at the same time. Charles the mecha butler looks like a robotic design from the 80s and his all white esthetic just seems to highlight how underwhelming he is. Every character looks like they came from the late 90s or early 2000s when overwhelming color palettes were in high demand. This series started development in the last two years, it shouldn’t have production value this poor.
The series tries to redeem itself by presenting a few anime references here and there. There is a blatant Ranma ½ joke but it seems more forced than anything. Especially later as the character who turns into a woman use the change to hit on a lesbian. The joke seemed dead and wrong at this point.
Music
The opening and most background music is classical music and blues. It’s almost as if the soundtrack is trying to distinguish itself as being higher caliber. Until the pop or dance music comes in to remind us all of how it’s supposed to be modern. It feels more like elevator music then it feels inspirational which is probably what was originally intended. The soundtrack should definitely not be added to anyone playlist, ever.
Conclusion
Don’t check it out. Don’t give this series the satisfaction of your views. It’s the only way you will stop this kind of production from being made. This whole series is trying too hard to be classy, yet modern, and trendy. It this series gets a second season, the news will feature one line describing this bit of information, followed by a list of anime which never got a second season or are in need of a remake. All of those series are much more worthy of having additional content made for them. If you can’t tell, Neo Yokio is NOT a good series.
