Hand Shakers Series Review

Posted on by Karandi
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In case it doesn’t become immediately obvious, this review has zero objetivity and is mostly just a rant. Please feel free to ignore and check out one of my other actual reviews.

Overview:

I could be really snarky here but let’s just go with it’s the story of co-dependent people who have a mental disorder and hear the voice of god before hallucinating fight sequences while on LSD. Or at least, that would be a better story than the one we get.

Um… Pairs of people called Hand Shakers are fighting supposedly to try to meet god who may or may not exist in the context of the show?

Wait… I’ve got it. Koyori wants to learn how to cook because she’s been in a coma forever and she’s hungry.

Okay, I went with snarky. Sorry.

If you would like to see my descent from naively hopeful that maybe this could pull something half-decent from the mess into mostly just incredulous that somehow this show didn’t get axed mid-season, my episodic thoughts are here.

Review:

In case I wasn’t clear in my overview, I really hated this. I don’t say that too often about an anime, particularly one I watched all the way through, but in this case it is fairly well deserved. Even if the visuals weren’t hideous distractions, the characters tepid, and the plot a mish mash of poorly delivered expositions, there was still a chance that the interesting concept hinted at early on might have become something. Anything. Give us some reason to care about anything that has happened, please.

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But no. This show is content to ramble at you when it should offer something resembling an explanation. It focusses on cute girls, idol wannabes, and creepy sisters rather than plot. Mostly it meanders all over the place and then in the final episodes conjures a villain seemingly from nowhere, for no purpose, and has a fight, where even the established rules for fighting seem to just be over-written at will, before we pull a deus ex-machina style ending to save the villains. We get some non-explanatory style dialogue and then we all just go back to being Hand Shakers but we’re no closer to knowing what that actually means of why they exist.

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I do try to be fair when I review a show so I’m going to search really hard for a positive… and I’m not going to find one outside of a potentially interesting premise that it does absolutely nothing with. Music, setting, characters, writing, themes, plot, and anything else you can name about this anime is just wrong. The fight sequences are semi-interesting (if visually off putting) in the first episodes and progressively just become blurred lines and explosions with no coherence to them.

However, bad as it may be, my pet hate for this show is reserved for the protagonist’s catch phrase.

You know, I actually used to like the word mesh. Things meshing makes such a satisfying sound. Now, I actively find myself rewriting a sentence if I start going anywhere near the word.

I’m sure there is an audience somewhere for this show but I know that audience definitely shouldn’t have been me. I really and truly hate this anime and would not recommend it to anyone (except the person who insists they’ve seen everything anime has to offer). This review is short but there just doesn’t seem any point in going on and on about how much I disliked this or ranting further.

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Hand Shakers Episode 12

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

This show and I do not mesh but this is the toned down version of the rant because the first draft was unpublishable in every sense of the word.

So, let’s just fight, a lot, with attacks we’ve never seen before and don’t know the rules of so don’t really have any reason to feel tension about who might win the battle. Let’s interspersed that with some nonsensical dialogue. Random action that somehow leads to victory, maybe (honestly I tuned out when they started flying around without using the gears with no apparent explanation). Exposition dump from formerly mute character explaining information we don’t care about because why would we when we’ve only just met these two characters and so far have been given no reason to care. This question from Tazuna:

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And somehow that’s the end. Let’s smile. Lots of voice overs reminding us they were supposed to find god somewhere in here but if this is a hint of a second season I’m kind of hoping the final line, “Just kidding” was serious. Full review coming in the future though no surprises about what it will say. The only question I’ve still got is why on Earth did this ever get made?

Hand Shakers is available on Crunchyroll.

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Hand Shakers Episode 11

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

So some of the missing pieces were explained, through a heavily narrated way too long flashback sequence. You know when ACCA decided to give us the backstory, they gave it to us from the perspective of an interesting character and we gained more of an understanding of the world and the characters we were already interested in. When Hand Shakers does it, we get a talk fest with characters we barely care about, and other than filling in one or two of the more ridiculous plot holes, it adds nothing. I don’t have any more understanding about Koyori now than I did before seeing her childhood (other than that she was born in the Ziggurat which at least explains why she’ll die if she loses). But that could have been conveyed in about five minutes rather than the entire episode.

And then we get the wonderful speech about how we’re not afraid and we can win because we’re together. Isn’t every pair of hand shakers together? Doesn’t that mean none of them should ever lose if that’s all it takes to win?

Anyway, getting closer to the end of this.

Hand Shakers is available on Crunchyroll.

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Hand Shakers Episode 10

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

Nothing, nothing, nothing, random glasses guy from previous episode appears, “Before I end this, I’ll tell you everything.” Episode end.

That is what happened this episode. Unless you enjoy watching Tazuna and Koyori team cook or enjoy creepy brother and sister team showing up for some stilted and pointless interaction, there’s really nothing else to this episode. Watch the last 5 minutes and you’re all set for next week.

Hand Shakers is available on Crunchyroll.

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Hand Shakers Episode 9

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

Visually this episode went to a new low on the completely ugly side of things and instead of anything resembling actual plot progression we get an extended fight with the villain from last week (which almost makes you wonder why they didn’t just wrap the fight up then). A few pressing questions came to mind while watching this.

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Why are his parents suddenly acting like parents?

Why is Koyori suddenly speaking?

Why does Koyori need a transformation sequence given none of the other Hand Shakers needs one?

Maybe it is because I watched this while feeling really unwell, but to be honest this wasn’t even amusingly bad anymore. It was just kind of tedious to watch.

Hand Shakers is available on Crunchyroll.

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Hand Shakers Episode 8

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

In a show where they can waste ten minutes on exposition that explains nothing, I probably should not be surprised by this episode. Essentially we meet an idol mid-fight as she takes out two opponents and maybe the dance would be cute except for the incredibly creepy animation making it nearly unwatchable. So, complete waste of an introduction to a character that has no personality beyond continuously quoting various notable people without any real reason to be doing so.

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The only noteworthy thing in the entire episode is Tazuna didn’t win the fight. Technically he didn’t lose because otherwise Koyori might be dead (I stress the might be because I’m not trusting anything they’ve told us at this point). But he certainly wasn’t victorious. However, twenty minutes to lose a fight and not learn anything or gain any insight is kind of lame.

Hand Shakers is available on Crunchyroll.

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Hand Shakers Episode 7

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

Eventually I will get over this meshing thing.

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No, I won’t. And now apparently its contagious because other characters are saying it.

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Yikes.

Anyway, there’s pretty much nothing else worth talking about in this episode. Instead of developing the guy who might be god, the point of the fighting, what hand shakers are, or anything of consequence, we watch Koyori learn to cook and then they run a stall at a festival. The end. No conflict, no revelations, no relevance, and zero point.

Of course, it seems like even the writers have given up trying to justify some of this nonsense.

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Smart move Hand Shakers. Tip your hand to suggest that maybe you would have a point and then just remove all the elements of your show that are still actually interesting.

Hand Shakers is available on Crunchyroll.

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Hand Shakers Episode 6

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

You know, there has been a lot of criticism of this anime but other than being ugly, having extremely long moments of exposition that explain nothing, a goal that makes no sense, and two characters that are about as interesting as watching paint dry, there hasn’t been anything too broken about this show. And yet, episode 6… Where do you even start?

I’m not even going to comment on the not one, or two, but three mesh comments this week. I promise. It isn’t even worth it amongst all the other things wrong with this episode.

Instead, let me focus on the battle itself and why this is a definite issue for a show that is built around pairs battling.

Firstly, there is no point. You might get a wish? This is even worse than WIXOSS where you get a wish, it just isn’t carried out the way you want it to be.

Secondly, our main characters can’t lose. Unlike other shows where you can get one or two losses and then come back, one loss puts you out of this game and in Koyori’s case might kill her (if we can believe anything we’ve been told) and so our protagonists are absolutely guaranteed at least a draw if not victory.

Which brings us to thirdly, how is Tazuna not very crispy-fried after being hit by repeated on point, very strong (to the point of overkill) attacks? He should not have been able to launch his final attack because he should have been killed in the first round of flames, at the very least from the giant flaming hand that crushed half a building, or any of the other attacks launched at him that he failed to avoid, including the last one that just of delayed him before he sailed through the smoke and won the day.

Oh, and a fourthly, just for a bonus, why do they only need to take out one part of the pair and how do you know which one? Explanations, please?

I’m not dropping this. I am watching it through to the end if for no other reason than to write a feature about appalling story telling. But wow. That was bad.

Hand Shakers is available on Crunchyroll.

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Hand Shakers Episodes 4 + 5

Posted on by Karandi
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Review Episode 4:

Let’s get this out of the way. They are still abusing the word mesh in this show. We get it. He uses gears and likes to fix things. Please, someone rewrite his dialogue.

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However, I didn’t really have too many issues with this episode (beyond things that are just inherently part of the show and have already been pointed out to be terrible). My biggest issue with this episode is that they reveal a lot of information about how Hand Shakers enter Ziggurat and why they shouldn’t use their real name and the Professor is just like, oh I forgot. Did we not waste 10 minutes of episode 2 on exposition and in that time were we told anything useful? Why couldn’t this information have come then? If they did that, we could actually start moving this plot along a bit.

Though other than that, this episode is still pretty much the same as the other three before it so if you haven’t already dropped it and you didn’t either scream in aggravation or burst out laughing at the timing of this explanation then you are probably going to continue watching.

Review Episode 5:

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Yep, it’s another mesh comment. Help.

Anyway, the focus this week kind of seems to be the card games being played although it mostly seems like this is filler while we wait for Tazuna to have some cryptic conversation with someone who from what he says might be the ‘god’ they are possibly going to eventually get to challenge (who knows). Five minutes of dialogue between the two and mostly I was just bored and I have no desire to go back and listen again for whatever clues I may have missed.

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But no, the lowest point of this episode other than being mostly boring and pointless is probably Lily and her little brother. If they were trying to make us care about the upcoming conflict they have failed because I have no reason to like or care about either of these two and to be honest, I probably would have preferred knowing less about the both of them.

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Episode 5 is done but we finish all set up for a fight no one seems to want but they aren’t backing down from. Maybe we’ll learn something about Koyori or maybe we’ll just rinse and repeat the previous battle experiences.

Hand Shakers is available on Crunchyroll.

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Hand Shakers Episode 3

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

Is this story meshing yet?

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Have our characters actually developed some character yet?

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Not unless a poor catch phrase counts as character.

Truly this show continues to demonstrate how you can have most of the elements you need for something that works and still manage to deliver it in a manner that is almost inconceivably bad.

The entertainment in this episode is entirely derived from counting down to see just how many minutes before they reveal that the incredibly short manages is in fact… oh, there it is and now we’ll fight but we don’t know why or understand how and to be honest their attacks and defences just seem to modify themselves at will and the whole thing is just a mess. An amusing mess, granted, but I somehow don’t think that’s the enjoyment I’m supposed to be getting from this show.

Hand Shakers is available on Crunchyroll.

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Karandi James.

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