Anime Review - Inuyashiki - How a Neglected Father Became The Saviour of Humanity and His Family

Life is something that every individual should value, and most of the time, we take many things for granted. Inuyashiki highlights the miserable life of a father whose surname is Inuyashiki, where his family doesn't love him, instead they see him just a source of revenue, rather than a fatherly figure, and it is obvious that he is clearly stressed about his situation (he looks like a grandpa, when he should be in his 50s).

The story starts off the introduction of Inuyashiki and how he is neglected by his own family. Eventually he goes on a walk and he is obliterated by an object from out of space. This object is a highly superior alien race with technology that could rebuild people as robots. However, Inuyashiki wasn't alone - there was also another person named Shishigami (a teenager who is the son of a prominent writer), and the funniest thing that we discover is that they don't discover each other earlier on, even though they live next to each other. The main theme of the story is about the parallel between the two characters. We, as viewers/readers view Inuyashiki as a hero, something that he could never be, and something that he values and appreciates. In a sense, Inuyashiki had nothing to lose in the beginning and he actually "gained" from being killed and remade. On the other hand, Shishigami had his life ahead of him and he had lost everything as a result of being killed and remade. As a result, we can have a basic idea of why Shishigami kills people, and why Inuyashiki saves people.

As the story progresses, these two mechanical wonders eventually realise each other's presence and they eventually fight against each other. I must admit that these battles are generally tame and apparently the manga went well and beyond into these battles, so this was a bit disappointing. However, the battles wasn't really the anime's main aspect as we eventually see that the main villain is actually a METEOR. LOL - I didn't really expect this since there was only one episode just dedicated to this. Before they go sacrifice themselves to save humanity, we see the most important aspect of the story - these two are still "human-like" and they still had something of value to sacrifice their lives for. We see these two throw away their differences and sacrifice themselves to save humanity. Damn, it was impactful and it made me tear up slightly, and it also impacted the characters in the story - the family of Inuyashiki are proud to have their family name and we see that Inuyashiki's children has also became stronger as a result of his sacrifice.

A lot of people view Shishigami as the hateable villain and I agree with that because he just randomly killed innocent people. It was also kinda pathetic that he is angry that he is viewed as the villain when he just randomly killed people for fun. However, I kinda sympathesize with Shishigami in the sense that he's lost and sad (we see this representation in the Opening Song) because he's just a teenager - he's young and foolish, and being resurrected as a cyborg will certainly affect one's sanity, but I definitely don't agree with the killings. On another note, I liked that the cyborg also had a weakness - the cyborg is powered by water and its weapons and booster use up the water supply very quickly. If they have no power, they are just a hunk of metal, but an impenetrable metal nonetheless.

There is no doubt that this anime has one of the catchiest Opening Songs - there was no contest during the season and possibly during 2017. What made the Opening Song better was the animation since it reflected some of the themes of the story - how humanity will only react when something dire has happened; the duality between the lost and crying Shishigami and the strong Inuyashiki. The voice acting is not bad either and suits the character. The art however sometimes looks like someone has cut corners because some of the animation are a bit unnatural. One main problem of the story was the lack of focus on the meteor - they only dedicated one episode to this complication, so this complication was unexpected and was just resolved too quickly. There should have been another episode to build suspension and learn more about the backstories and ideals of Shishigami and Inuyashiki. Other than that, it was really entertaining to watch since the massacres made by Shishigami is awe-inspiring.

Overall, Inuyashiki was entertaining to watch despite being slightly too short. The manga too was rushed to finish due to not selling well, so this might reflect the anime too and how the studio just wanted to end the series as soon as possible. The two main characters are also very interesting and I also liked seeing how Inuyashiki's family appreciated Inuyashiki more just before and after his sacrifice, and they also became stronger both mentally and physically. If you are expecting a fully-fleshed out story in Inuyashiki, unfortunately you won't find it here. However, it's 11 episodes and you gotta root for Inuyashiki and sometimes Shishigami (if he didn't just go kill random people cmonBruh). BTW THAT TRUMP APPEARANCE THOUGH KEK

Score Summary (7.5/10):

Story: 7/10

Characters: 8/10

Art: 6/10

Sound: 8/10

Enjoyment: 8/10