Back to Canameeeks's Profile Canameeeks's Profile

tdlr: watch for some yuri and action only. Do not watch it if you consider playing 428: Shibuya Scramble

Before I start, let me tell you a story of a man not known to many.

He's a very passionate journalist, striving to report the truth to the best of his abilities. He's very egoistical but had the talent to back it up. He has a quick temper and is quick to blame others. Despite this, deep inside, he's a kind man. He cares about those close to him. Even after his spirit was broken, he kept running until he reach the finish line.

People who have watched this ... anime probably couldn't guess that I'm talking about Minorikawa Minoru.

Hi, this is the 1 very Minorikawapilled review... thing

Canaan is based on the Canaan bonus story by Type-Moon featured in 428: Shibuya Scramble. Tonally, it's closer to Canaan bonus story (obviously) but more light-hearted and raunchy. I think it actually works quite well most of the time. Later into the anime, they drop it as the anime gets into its plot, like 428. It might sounds good, but the plot... uh...

The plot is a mess. It starts slow but it actually got interesting! ...until they threw that away and started again somewhere else. It kinda feels like they forgot what they're writing about halfway through while throwing new terminologies and concepts. I really don't know for whom this anime is aimed for. People who don't know 428? They'll get lost as they don't really explain anything, yet still spoils some twists from 428. Fans of 428? They didn't even do anything with that Minorikawa plot from the final side story of the game.

At that, Minorikawa... Who is this man? If you know the Conspiracy thing from 428, they must've gotten him. He's so normal. Too normal. He doesn't even really do his classic pointing pose. That's like what if Phoenix Wright stops pointing at people, or if Kiryu Kazuma stops ripping his shirt. That's scary.

Still, even with 10x more Minorikawa fingers, that won't fix the anime. The big problem with this anime is that it's WAYYY too ambitious for its own good. It wants to delve deeper into Canaan and Alphard's relationship. It wants to talk about topics like terrorism, oppression and human experimentation. There's like 10 different effects to the virus now. On top of that, they're adding several new characters that want that precious screentime to bloom properly. As expected, none of them are resolved nicely, some are even pretty much abandoned. They even tried to develop Minorikawa in the midst of it for some reason! I could argue that 428 Minorikawa grew in a much more compelling way than this Minorikawa, and he's the least changed character in the game!

The only thing that I genuinely enjoyed was the fleshed out relationship between Canaan and Maria. In the game, we only get very tiny bits and pieces, so having them actually do stuff together is just fun! Like Minorikawa, Maria also felt a bit off, though it's to a much lesser degree.

The art is cool. While personally I thought the design is quite... interesting (blonde Maria, Saber face Canaan), I actually like this take of their design. Minorikawa though... that's rough buddy. Even OG Minorikawa from the Kinpachi-sensei game has that obligatory cute factor missing on this Minorikawa. Anyway, the animation is beautiful. The action scenes are really cool, lots of eye candies here.

The music, direction, etc. are actually really enjoyable. It's just the plot isn't worth it. It's a shame really. While I didn't like, super like the bonus scenario this anime is based on, I was quite satisfied with it. It didn't overpromise anything, just a short story of how Canaan and Alphard came to be. Meanwhile, this anime made me wish that Minorikawa Minoru actually died during the bomb attack in 428.