The first time I read the plot in the anime chart and saw the animation studio my first reaction was "Oh God, it's those idiots again." But I guess everyone deserves a fifth chance, because honestly the anime turned out pretty amazing.
In a futuristic city of Youdon'trememberland, the protagonist Katsuhira lives a relatively uneventful life of being continuously beat up and bullied away from his money. He does not react to this however, because he is physically completely immune to pain. It's not that he's trained to ignore it or something, he physically has no sense of pain whatsoever. His lack of pain has also apparently numbed out all his other feelings as well, with him usually showing no reaction whatsoever. Along with him is his ever-whining friend/potential love-interest/annoying red-head, Raikiri. She spends the majority of her time criticizing him, which will quickly make the viewer hate her, but moving on:
SPOILERS
A mysterious girl, Noriko, traps the two, along with a few other characters with a "Kizna" (literally: pain) mark, inserted to their bodies through surgery. This mark links all their pain senses together, making the pain (both physical and emotional) of one being felt by the others as well. This only goes 1 direction for Katsuhira though, since he is completely oblivious to the pain of others as well. I do not want to spoil too much here since this is something that you should watch for yourself, but the Kizna mark keeps strengthening over time, starting to link way more than just their sense of pain, slowly breaking them. Also needed to be mentioned, Noriko seems to have some connection to Katsuhira, who seems overly emotional and caring when it comes to her, despite it being her fault that they're all in this situation. This often enrages Raikiri of course.
Really, it's an anime mainly focused on drama. It does not exactly present any grand philosophical questions, but rather just shows the character development of the people. That said, there are some problems with the characters themselves. Katsuhira comes off as strangely sympathetic, and I get the feeling that the show was actually going for the opposite of that so they could redempt him in the final episodes. Same goes for Noriko, who acts like a bitch for the most part but for some reason you instantly like. The revelations in the final episodes of course confirm those feelings. Other characters on the other hand fail though. Both Tenga and Raikiri come off as unintentionally annoying, especially in the red-head's case (:P). Actually let me persist on that.
The red-head female lead is F@CKING AWFUL. She cannot make up her mind, is overly judgmental of businesses she has no place sticking her nose into and basically subtly bullies the protagonist into romancing her, while enforcing her standards on him. While Noriko acts like a bitch and oppressively, you know that deep down she's just a tortured soul, captain B!TCH over here constantly ACTS like a victim just to grab people's attention, while pretending to be the leading force that cares about the rest of the group. You know, as I write this I am reminded of Lori from The Walking Dead. Yeah, THAT bad. My favourite being when she's throwing a tantrum because Katsuhira hugged Noriko after a mental breakdown, wishes for him to hug her as well and the rest of the group practically bullies Katsuhira into complying despite he himself having absolutely no desire for that whatsoever. And when he does it THE B!TCH STARTS COMPLAINING AGAIN. Aaaargh! "Hey Rick, I want you to kill Shane. Oh my god! Why did you kill Shane? You're a monster!" You hypocritical, manipulative, drama-queen B!TCH! And they're trying to show her as SYMPATHETIC.
CONTINUATION:
Ok so what you read above was the original review when 11 episodes were released. The review was taken down because I hadn't received the complete anime experience or something (I think the mods around here take down reviews based on Darts games), so here are all the important details from the last episode, obviously spoilers:
-.............Aaaaaand I got nothing. The final scene with Nori sitting atop the half-raised bridge and saying she "doesn't understand" was both expected and anti-climatic, but overall not that bad, so the last episode pretty much didn't change my opinion whatsoever. Kudos for making her smile at the end of the episode but that's it.
Pros:
-Wonderful character development.
-Surprisingly none of the Trigger trademark bullsh!t minus a bit of pretentiousness.
-Hell! They even avoided mechas!
-Very well animated.
-Katsuhira's voice acting.
-The anime is often very depressing.
-The feels you get for Noriko near the end.
Cons:
-The feelings you develop for characters are often the exact opposites of the intended.
-Good f@cking god Raikiri is annoying.
-Masochist guy has no purpose whatsoever. Shame because he's actually pretty good.
-So apparently a whole bunch of people including teachers agreed to kidnapping and surgery.
-The moral message of the show fails. Wow! Being bound BY SURGERY will not bring happiness?! I couldn't have guessed that!
-I mean, have you even seen Human Centipede?!