The Series starts as there is an earthquake right after the Tokyo Olympics that devastates major parts of Japan. We focus on the Mutou Household, who escape the city amid the destruction, and the kids Ayumu and Gou with their family of four. The extreme conditions, when the entire Japanese land is sinking through their feet, they struggle to find a safe place for themselves. Ayumu and Gou are the main focus of the plot, and they go through major changes as the story progresses, getting more robust to the new conditions. Japan Sinks is indeed a strong series that was released on Netflix.
Review
Japan sinks 2020 series is a Netflix original series. The anime is based on a novel written by “Sakyo Komatsu” and published in 1973. The novel also got 2 live-action adaptations. When the trailer came out, people were already in the hype when I saw that the anime was directed by “Masaaki Yuasa”. As a “Yuasa” fan, I knew something was great coming up, and the trailer was giving expectations that this would be no less by Masaaki Yuasa. This anime got a lot to talk about, so let’s get started with basic things.
The anime is directed by “Masaaki Yuasa”, as always, with the “retro-style” “old-school” animation, which is also the key feature of this anime. If you don’t know, “Masaaki Yuasa” also directed some great works like “Devilman crybaby” and “tatami galaxy”. Speaking of “Devilman crybaby”, it has some similarities compared to “japan sinks 2020”. Similarities like “running” we saw the same sports in Devilman crybaby, and japan sinks 2020, I think that “Masaaki Yuasa” wants a message from the show if you know both Devilman crybaby and japan sinks 2020 have the same type of theme about “world ending”, the meaning of putting running sport is this anime could be “ just look forward and keep moving ahead” as the family Unites and stays positive in this disastrous situation.
The main thing which I liked about this show was “character development”. The development is good in this show, not only for the protagonist but also for other characters. The character just looks real, real. I mean, the decision-making and the reaction at certain times are close to reality, we connect a lot to the character in this show. Each episode just feels intense that you get curious for the next episode, there is a movement for some time that has happy movement, but after some time, it ripped away from the happiness for some of the characters, As it has a unique theme of “disaster”, the disaster we see is natural (or man-made) it does not have any supernatural element in the disaster like any other anime.
It has some movement that people won’t like in this anime, like the animation and for some cheesy scenes in it, but me it was the go’s English speaking, don’t get the wrong idea, but at the emotional scene when he is talking English for some reason it doesn’t go well with it, and the other thing is the rap battle thing on the disaster or japan it was felt little off and awkward rather than that it’s fine. As I was saying about character development, most of them we recognize during the sacrifice of character.
Sacrifice is a bit of a difficult part of showing it in the anime. We don’t see the sacrifice in every anime, the way “Masaaki Yuasa” shows the sacrificing scene is well done like Masaaki Yuasa knows how to play with a character and especially in episode: 6 where the show loses multiple characters, for example: when the shan city speaks for the first time it is the happiness and horrible movement at the same time, and that moves with the emotional music in the background.
Whenever a character dies, the character voice-over starts as remembering the good old days, In its already been half a year. We didn’t get much anime this year; some got delayed some will directly launch in next year. But in my opinion, it’s looking like the “JAPAN SINKS 2020″ IS THE BEST ANIME OF THIS YEAR SO FAR”.
