Anime Review - Mayoiga - A Very Disappointing "Mystery" Anime

I adore the mystery genre because it always keeps me engaged in the story. A good mystery anime, novel, etc. will always keep me thinking at every point in the story, no matter how fast or slow the plot progression is. However, there are many attempts to prey on our desire to satisfy our insatiable hunger for mystery anime, and these often leave us with a sour taste in our mouths and make us pissed off for the rest of the day or night. Mayoiga is possibly one of these mystery anime which attempts to explore the mysteries behind a lost village, which supposedly had been recently abandoned. Unfortunately, the fruit does not bear and viewers are generally left dissatisfied.

Story (2/10):

The story started off on a good note. The mood was foreboding and there was unknown mysteries that kept me engaged. After arriving in the village, the big group each encounter a mysterious horror (Nanaki), which is different for each individual. This was an interesting aspect and made sense. However, as the story progressed, the plot unravels and there is no sense of coherency in the plot progression. 

One major flaw was how individuals suddenly could see other people's Nanaki, which is supposedly not possible. This was a really big plothole that basically threw out the initial premise. However, I didn't really mind the idea of the need of "removing their Nanaki", rather than running away from the village. Near the end of the series, it was revealed that one of the characters (Koharun) had a father who ran away from the village, and thus part of him was left in the village (and this resulted in him aging significantly). Another flaw is how Mitsumune arrive back in the village after he returns from the real world. Supposedly there are several conditions that must be satisfied in order to reach the village, but somehow he arrived in the village without satisfying some of the conditions. Sigh... really? Talk about cliche.

Nevertheless, the overall idea was resolved in a cliche manner and there were many questions left unanswered. Did everyone who left the village manage to remove the Nanaki from existence? I presume that everyone who left did. Also, why were there no villagers in the village? That was never explained and I think that would have been more interesting. That is the only reason why some of them are still remaining to solve the mysteries behind the mysteries, but I wish that was explained. :'(

Character (1/10):

Don't get me started on the characters. Each and everyone of the characters are extremely unlikable, and perhaps the studio made it so - they are people who purposely left society in search for a "free world". Some of them had legitimate reasons to do so, but some of them are just pure pathetic (and that's coming from a person who has low self-confidence). Many of the characters are either stupid, cringy, crazy, and only some are actually normal. Maybe some of them could actually be decent people, but when an anime has so many characters, it is impossible for us to develop a relationship with the characters.

The only redeemable character for me was Valkana. Despite his appearances, he's actually logical and sane, but I don't really get why he came to this village (there was probably some explanation that I forgot about). He also looks like a leader and badass at that - too bad he wasn't the MC. MY MAN! I guess another character that was somewhat interesting was Lion because she supposedly can see people who will die? It's probably a "fake power" because we see her backstory and she didn't predict correctly, and she also didn't predict Mitsumune's death correctly either.

Sound (5/10):

The OP is not bad - it is catchy and probably the only thing I was looking forward to listening every episode. The sound effects are not bad too, but some of the character's voice acting are extremely "cringy" or uncomfortable to listen to. However, these voice acting suited the characters they were voicing so I will give them that.

Art (5/10):

The art is nothing spectacular nor is it terrible. It is average at best. I feel that a lot of the amazing art could have been better. The Nanaki looks pretty creepy and the distinct nanaki representations of each characters were pretty unsettling too so I'll give them that.

Enjoyment (3/10):

I have to say that I was engaged in the first few episodes because the concept was interesting - we didn't know what was happening and that's what made it mysterious. However, as the story progressed, it was easy to predict what will happen next. Even if we didn't predict what happen next, most of the scenes are extremely cliche.

Overall (3/10):

Mayoiga had a lot of potential, but there were just too many flaws with it. An anime that gave me a similar vibe was Another, but that anime was much more well done and there was a decent plot twist at the end. Mayoiga threw out its initial premise and just went onto the cliche route, and a large group of characters resulted in the viewers not connecting with the characters and what they were going through. I think what's sad about this is that this anime was actually crowdfunded (I didn't know that until I browsed some images and I stumbled upon an article). I would not recommend this anime to people because there are other mystery anime that are so much better. (Another is a start).