Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere - Reviews

Animated by Studio Sunrise, which means immature action and fancy robots. Directed by some nobody who has made nothing but fan service trash. Based on light novels, which mean a very light story. Man, how hard is it to smell the fail in this one?

“Premise” is the word used for the basic idea of a show. It is used to describe the basic concept, the setting, the initial situation, as well as the main objective of the main characters. In this case, Horizon is a show with a premise about a hundred different things that appear at first to be hard science fiction, mystery, action, suspense, and has a cast of over thirty characters, most of which are warriors with superpowers. Meaning that one who reads the description of the story and looks at the character roster will immediately be given the impression this will be some super epic space opera concerning a war amongst super advanced civilizations which transcends dimensions. And so, he sits down to watch a most than amazing show. He watches one episode. Then the next. Then another. And he realizes the premise is one big pile of SHIT!

This is one of the worst cases of wasted potential I have seen in my whole life. The setting and the backdrop history are very detailed and intriguing, yet the actual plot is nothing but the usual aimless retarded goofball school comedy. I guess the producers thought it would make a generic fan service show to stand out by wrapping it with as much colorful ribbons as possible. Well besides filling you with expectations and an initial good impression, the result is still something you have seen before and you will definitely see again. Meaning, there is no serious reason to like this show.

The story is as I said just a poor excuse for nonsense. It doesn’t exist, despite the premise making it appear like it is an amazing super epic space adventure. It has something to do with alternative history and ghosts and eroge and magic and grabbing boobs. Don’t try to make any sense of it; it just doesn’t have any. Or if you force yourselves to find some, it is about a bunch of people blowing up their school, fighting the Pope, playing erogames, and grabbing boobs so they can resurrect a dead chick. My I.Q. is dropping just by writing that. You can also try to find some wiki which explains all the weird terminology used in the setting, such as the origin of the names, the source of magic, the goals of every organization, historical events that led to the floating islands, and a whole lot of stuff, enough to fill a hundred pages of analysis. Too bad they are nothing but fancy ribbons rolling around a huge pile of manure.

The cast is nothing but a huge number of eccentrically dressed cardboards. So many of them and they are all stock material you can find everywhere. Nobody is fleshed out, nobody stands out, nobody even seems to matter in the longrun. All the girls have these ridiculous round things that seem more like balloons rather than breasts. And those hairstyles, my God, how do they even manage to walk with hair three times their total body size? As for the guys, this is a world where you are forced to dress as bizarre as possible. Not that this manages to make anyone stand out in the crowd; they are all still cardboards. The main character in particular has the most annoying face and you just want to punch him two seconds after you stare at him. And what the hell are those threads hanging from his head supposed to be? I may not care about the characters but I definitely hate him.

The production values are good when it comes to background decoration. There is this futuristic land hovering in limbo, and there are these cool looking spaceships and uniforms. They look awesome and would make a fine sci-fi campaign. Too bad they are there only as nothing but decoration because the plot is as retarded as it gets. I mean the Xenosaga and Ar Tonelico videogames were heavy on terminology and fancy visuals but at least they did something with their setting. This one here is bullshit. As for the sound part, it is just forgettable jpop trash and lame squeaky voices you can again find everywhere.

What you basically have is yet another one of the hundreds of aimless stereotypical school comedies that come and go before you know it, with the difference it has an interesting premise that is NOT exploited in the least. I see nothing worth of anyone’s time; you can easily find several funnier, bolder, sexier, and above all MORE ORIGINAL AND WITH DEVELOPED PREMISE shows out there. There are of course those who still like this shit of a show just because it is over the top and has a fancy terminology. Basically the same thing as saying it is porn IN SPACE. Other that that, there is nothing to look for over this show’s HORIZON as everything plays out as random ideas IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE.

And as for all of you out there who are retards enough to think the story was THE MOST AMAZING THING you have ever watched in your lives, I offer you this picture so you can discuss ten hours about its depth, thought provoking themes, exceptional cinematics, and subliminal messages which trigger the superego to awaken the full potencial of a Homo Universalis.

I liked this anime. Horizon in the middle of nowhere or a.k.a. HITMON. I read couple other reviews from the other guys. I'll agree with the fact that some subtitle groups put out products of lesser quality.

Couple things I didn't piticularly liked about the anime was the dialogue it self, but considering this is based on the translations; point is null and invalid and substituded with a different reality. I can consider that the subtitle group did a good job capturing the slang with how they talked; I can't understand japanese, but I can definately recognize the slang of words, and the choice of words selected was good. This paragraph is here to point the difficulty in translating this anime. But a example against this fact was the epic 15 minute debate, which was commical. Episode 12 with the 5 minute "we are parelell so X" back and forth was kinda overkill but I watched it because it purposely emphisied the conversation.

Story:

compared to many animes that are slow paced, this anime seems fast; it's a perfect speed IMHO. This isn't the anime you play in the background while multi-tasking, which is about 9/10 of all the anime I watch >_>... I tried working while watching this anime today, I didn't even get a glimpse of what is going on -- at this point it's only purpose was background noice; I rewatched couple episodes after I finished some work.

The development of the plot was fluid and was easy to follow -- if you are paying attension. The plot started with intruduction, added more variations and causes, and finished with the epic tale of witts and talking. Pretty solid foundation for a story, beginning/middle/end. and notice my phrase of "epic tale" as said in another review to put the show down.

Animation:

First thing that comes to mind: All the male sub characters look identical, and of course who ever heard of female sub characters? The animation exceeded expectations of what anime of 2011 should have. The crew went beyond and added details when the screen was bare with little action. the first 10 seconds of episode 13, you have 6 clearly definable qualities between 3 sceens. when you look in the background on the third sceen you can see the very fine details on the background where they could easily blured the image and you wouldn't know they saved 4 hours of their life... now I'm not saying that they didn't use any bluring at all, because they used alot of it where it would take the focus away from the mail point, they added details where you wouldn't lose focus on the main point.

Sound:

It's good, I don't know. avg? not going to effect overall score.

Characters:

too many characters? I don't think so, they didn't cram them all into 1 episode. There wasn't a need for character development when they are pretty straight forward, there was couple flash backs and explainations when needed to explain a character's character so you could have empethy. The main character reminds me of ozzy or male main character from pandora hearts, in the sense of the warped self history; and you can see it in the last episodes of HITMON where he'd disapear if he ever becomes unhappy. There wasn't anything left unturned or unanswered at the end of the season; all the loose ends are tied for the most part. I'll give this a 9 for the fact they didn't over complicate or leave any largly unturned stones.

Overall:

I liked this anime for the straight forward plot, simular to how in demon king daimao (ichiban ushiro no daimaou) straight from the near beginning you can understand how things unfold. Now, skipping an episode or not paying attension to some parts of one can cause confusion down the line, as there was little filler in the show; there is 15 second blurts of echi or w/e too keep the show on edge and the commedy wasn't too bad either. Lots of sexual jokes and comments, but c'mon is this new? I round down on scores above avg.

Definitely in the Middle of Nowhere! A Show goes from Sour to Terrible!

Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon happens to be one of the worst shows that I have ever seen. I mean, what is it suppose to be about anyways? Action? Romance? Scifi? Fantasy? It doesn't make any sense at all. And last time I check, reliving history is a big fat no-no. I mean we're suppose to study history so we can learn from our mistake, not make a befuddled mess by reliving the same age again and again which would destroy the entire timeline let alone the entire universe. And last time I checked, Shoving everyone around the world in one small country definitely would present a lot of problems and much more that they bargain for.

Let's interrogate the characters in the show. Last time I checked and I realized, there are too many characters all cramped in a 13-episode show and on top of that the female student uniforms are undoubtedly, sexually provocative. Furthermore, robots don't have a soul to be placed in the first place. Lastly, no one wants to look up to a main protagonist who is a pervert and a moron.

This is one of the shows where you shoot it and chop it down to many tiny pieces just like a jalopy with wings. In other words, Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon is a junk show that should be scrapped. I would rather retreat back to video games than watch that embarrassment and it's pathetic sequel.

Allright. It's been a while since I've done something like this so bear with me as I try to find my way again.I did quite a lot of them in the past on a different website which you can find here: http://legendsofsatura.net/index.php/forum125/6-reviewing-guild.html

....They probably aren't very good though but please do stop by if you have the time and inclination. Originally the site was for writers, mostly original but also fanfiction.

Also I'm Dutch so there will be spelling errors. If you find them annoying give me a shout and I'll try to fix them.

Oh, I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum but there will be some. Usually the worse I rate an anime the more spoilers this will contain. You have been warned

So, you have probably already read what the animation is about in the discription given by Anime-Planet, which is the same as on the box. I will therefore try not go into the story that much unless I'm ranting about something (spoilers).

Well, consider me surprised. After the first few episodes I was convinced that this anime was based off a game but I just found out that it was based on a series of light novels. The game was developed later and more or less follows the storyline of the anime.

Why am I surprised? Because the beginning really felt like a game based anime. With little to no explenation given you are thrown into the story with a massive amount of characters filling your screen and you are supposed to know what the fuck is going on.

Allright, back up a bit and I'll tell you what I gleaned about the story. Simply put the world has gone to Hell (as usual). Humanity packed their shit back together and found some history books. Based on these books they play through history in an effort to rebuild the lost human society that gave them the power to reach the stars.

Does this come back in the anime? Not really. It is the canvas upon which the real story is pasted. The story of Horizon. Confused much? You should be as in the first few episodes you learn that Horizon is dead. Has been for 10 years when she was run over by a carriage.

So how can she be the main character? Oh, did I forget to mention that she was actually saved by transferring her soul into an automated doll? And that her emotions were ripped away from her to be used in the creation of the Mortal Sin Armamants? Don't worry about it as the anime also fails to mention it until much later into the series.

The anime fails on many levels really. It creates a huge world with complex societies, back grounds and rules. There are many, many characters who each get an appearance and play a role in the anime and all of this is literally thrown in your face starting from the opening credits.

I mention the world in this case as for once it is important. Normally the world the characters live in is not or barely explained and that is because it is rarely needed. World gone to shit, people struggle to survive. That is it and little else is needed for the viewer to understand what is going on.

This is most definitely NOT the case here. Yes the world has gone to shit but people maintained a technological level far higher than we have today. The city state Musashi, where most of the story takes place, is a flying ship. There are giant mecha, magic, etc. and everything is decided by the Testament.

So what is the Testament? I said so earlier in the review that the Testament is a book that contains the history of humanity. Currently they are at 1648 AD so everyone plays out their assigned roles as if that is the actual date. With mecha's and technology centuries ahead of what we have today.

I got this from Wikipedia, not the anime. Think about that. I had to rely on Wikipedia to figure out what the fuck was going on.

Anyway, back to our emotionless main character Horizon. Tori is our other main character and he was an old friend of Horizon. Upon learning that she has returned he plans to declare his love for her and restore her by reclaiming the Mortal Sin Armaments that were scattered across the globe so that he may give her back her emotions.

Is he any good? Well, no. Look up the word flaky in a dictionary and you will find a referral to Tori. Flaky does not begin to describe him. I totally lost it after a few episodes where Horizon was captured and ordered to kill herself. Tori rallied his troups and it was decided that 3 fights would be fought and the side who won 2 would decide Horizons' fate.

After 2 fights it was a 1-1 tie so the next fight would decide if Horizon would live or die. It was a debate battle and Tori opted to go first and decided to plea against saving Horizon. Yes, you read that right: The woman he loved and would do anything to save and he pleaded for her death.

Of course this is all a ruse and let me explain this point a bit. With Tori taking his stance against Horizon, his opponent must argue for saving Horizon. The plan is that the other side will give all the reasons they need to save her and Tori has to simply stand there and do nothing. Which he does. During most of the debate he just stands there and does nothing while his opponent gives all the reasons why Horizon must be saved.

Absolutely briljant tactic but still an epic fail. I can see it as no other way than Tori throwing the fight as, I say again, HE SAID NOTHING OF INTEREST DURING THE DEBATE!!!!! His stance was pro kill Horizon and he failed completely yet it was still ruled a tie in the end! So we got a 4th fight that was even more moronic and took up more time before Tori and company set to save Horizon.

In my book the bitch was already dead after fight 3 and I was blissfully endjoying the end credits before I realized that shit was still happening.

Fine.... So was it all bad? Surprisingly no. The animation was simply amazing and character design was all over the place. There was a naked incubus, 2 girls with wings, boob girl (named so because that is the literally the first part that you get to see of her), and many other out there characters.

The anime also made me laugh a number of times. Do not ask me how they did it but they managed it and that is a feat in and of itself considering the rage-gasms I had from time to time.

Just starting to watch the first anime, I got annoyed and couldn't take it anymore.  It was filled with so many cliches/fanservice annoyances it was more than I could take.  There were many severely frog faced malformed characters.  Women looked like text book Japanacliche cast offs with oversized bouncy breasts, tiny faces, huge eyes, and a giant mass of hair.  One character was such a cliched insulting stereotype of India it was painful to see and he used food as weapons which looked so tacky.  Another character looked like a naked variation of a satyr and was such a bad tasting joke, it just didn't even seem to belong.  I do not know if a tacky, cliched, crapfest, stereotype ridiculous comedy partly ripped off from Hetalia was what they were aiming for or not, but that is what I saw all signs pointing toward.