Cagaster of an Insect Cage

I matter of fact, they did an astounding job, the artwork and the plot. I even binge watched the entire season. I would recommend this to anyone who likes trying new things, etc. 10/10

This was a little hard to get into, but eventually it turned out ok once the main story arc got going. I have only watched what was the 1st 12 of the anime in Dub on the Netflix, so do not know much about the rest of story from manga. This story has a lot of characters where you can easily just HATE, especially the military villains. One huge missed opportunity is with the English cast....you have a character who is a macho male crossdresser who looks very similar to the great Willem Dafoe, but they did not cast him for the voice over! Rest of cast is ok, Johnny Yong Bosch is one of the voices, can literally never go wrong with him.

I liked the story, watched all in the same weekend (12 episodes, no boring fillers).

I thought the main character would be the hybrid guy from the netflix thumbnail, then I though it was the cliche cool cold swordman, but it is more about the the girl he rescues and the backstories of the people she meets and hers. His character is there to protect her when something shows up, this isn't dbz, no battle lasts more than 5 mins. Except from one minor antagonist added at the end of the story to give them a goal, everyone has something to tell, no one is just evil.

The only problem is that they used 3D for the background and creatures (they look really unsetting) and 2D cell shading for the characters. Netflix has been doing this with other animes (f.e.: Ajin and Godzilla), not sure if because it is easier or because they think it looks cool (it doesn't). Once you get into the story, you forget about the art (it only annoyed me the first 2 chapters, though I have seen other animes like this one so it wasn't that weird).

I see a lot of people talking about the animation issues. I will admit that's bad, but it's not what kills this show for me. What really destroys it is the uncomfortable way the show treats age and sexuality.

Incest is an accepted part of the show. Even if it isn't REAL incest, the implication is certainly made that we are supposed to understand it to be. Furthermore, Kidow and Ilie's relationship is strange and uncomfortable. The age gap is never properly established, but soldiers call him "sensei", so he's implied to be older. Compound that with the time he just about rapes her and DOES exert physical power over her, and it's.... problematic. ESPECIALLY when you add in the sexual relationship he had with an older woman when he was a child.

This is... bad. It's real bad.

To start this out the story is a solid 8.5, as an Anime fan it earns that. Where Cagaster fails is Netflix's approach to CGI animation for their Anime's, it just doesn't work. The color is flat, there's a clear lack of illustration detail, and the character movement s is stiff. Look no other than Episode 5 to what this show could have been, through a series of flashbacks, the show switches to traditionally styled Anime animation techniques with what looks like 2D hand drawn animation. It's almost as if the show runners and lead animators are subtly saying "if you want traditional animation you only get it with flashbacks." As if they're saying that's a thing of the past. The 2D style that is shown briefly in episode 5 is beautiful and I wish the entire series was animated this way. If they do green light a season 2 -- season 1 ended well enough if that they may not -- they should consider learning from the mistake of CGI in season 1 and take their time to animate this the right way, which may lead to better action sequences as well.

Cagaster of an Insect Cage, a mix of zombies, Attack on Titan, and bad animation. What could have been. I'd recommend it if you need a quick binge.