Riddle Story of Devil

maladjus Jul 20, 2014

4

Akuma no Riddle was very frustrating to watch because it's few potentially strong elements were at best used poorly and in other instances flat out thrown aside. And there was plenty else to just get on ones nerves. The story elements had potential; an all-girl classroom of assassins who compete with one another to graduate by being the first to assassinate one particular classmate within 48 hours or face expulsion, a mysterious man of riddles with an obsession for rolling his dice, a budding romance between two classmates. One would think this could lead to a lot of action, suspense, mystery and emotion, but if you are seeking that, look elsewhere. The female characters were far too similar to one another. The love story felt unbelievable, as in how could these two people have feelings for one another? And one of the main  characters consistently referring to herself in the third person gets very old very quickly. Each episode was quite predictable from beginning to end with the exception of the final episode which was unpredictable because it made no sense at all. And the underlying question of the mystery man and his riddles? The revelation of his motivations is altogether unsatisfying. The animation was fair, and perhaps stands out more given the weakness of the other show elements. The sound during the episodes was mostly forgettable. But in a sincere effort to end on a positive note, one element I did enjoy each episode was the closing credits. Each episode closes with a unique set; new imagery and new music (much of which was pretty good) and the images used, unlike the overall story, actually made sense and tied in well with the episode it closes out. I would recommend Akuma no Riddle only as a show to watch in contrast to many other animes to gain a better sense of what works and what doesn't work. I appreciate other shows more when I watch ones like this.

Hellsing1991 Jun 4, 2014

4.5

may contain minor spoilers! I was referred to this anime from DanganRonpa, an anime I greatly enjoyed.My inital response was that this anime will be alright, no high hopes after reading the summary, but my views got even lower after the first 5 episodes and it's all because of the main characters. My main dislike is that everyone is there to asassinate one girl, and she soon finds out they are trying to but she still tries to befriend them all and when one hands in the notice to asassinate she's shocked! It might just be me but with DanganRonpa the anime I was referred from, they had no choice and it was kill or be killed, with this it's 'they're going to try killing me, better believe them all and get into danger' she puts the main protagonist through hell when she decides to protect her, since she is so gullible.The protagonist, well my only quarell is that she is an amazing asassin, shown right from the beginning but then boom, change of heart. I would have preferred this anime to be more of a mystery such as guessing who the target is before time runs out or something, but overall I'm disappointed in it. I would recommend DanganRonpa over this anime in a heart beat, it keeps you guessing and it has more action.  Update - From the latest episode, I have to say I am dissapointed in this series, it had the potential to be equal to Dangan Ronpa but the ending was completely unsuited for an anime about assassins, I wouldn't avoid this anime, but I wish many things were changed to be better suited to the overall theme of this anime. Quite contradictional here but I am a sucker for the happy endings, but it does not suit the overall anime. In the end, after watching this series I will say I am indifferent about it, there are things I liked and things I didn't like, but the way it ended gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys anime with a happy ending. 

tollie01 Jan 26, 2020

4

First some items I need to adress. I'm Dutch to expect some spelling errors, if they are to annoying just message me and I'll fix it. My opinion may vary from others and this is fine. People are different so there is a good chance that I will not like what you love. Deal with it. I'm not telling you that you should hate it too, I'm telling you why I didn't like it. I'll try to keep swearing to a minimum but fail utterly on occasion. In general it is the more the anime pisses me off the more I swear so watch out for the low scored ones. Art: It's fine, not good but certainly not bad. Action was easy to follow and characters were easily identifyable. What more could you want? Sound: While I normally don't pay attention to the music it must be noted that they put in some actual effort here as each episode has its own ending credits song. Even the visuals change to reflect on the assassin that the episode focussed on. Characters: The main character is Tokaku. As the current heir of the Azuma clan she is feared by all as her clan is known for producing some of the deadlyest assassins ever known. She, however, wishes otherwise and not become an assassin. Haru is a young girl who has been targeted by assassins since her early childhood and lost pretty much everyone close to her. She hides her pain behind a bubbly, happy go lucky personality. She tries hard to befriend the people in her class eventhough she knows that they are there to kill her. Story. Tokaku is the last in a long line of extremely capable assassins. Her first mission is to set out and join class Black at the Myojo Academy. There her mission is to kill Haru before anyone else can. As she learns more about her target she comes to care for her and eventually changes sides to become her bodyguard. Rant. The concept of the anime is very simple: Class Black has 13 students, 12 of them are assassins or killers and one is the target. The one who gets her gets their greatest wish fullfilled, no matter how outlandish. What fails the anime is the execution of the story. There are 13 episodes but the 13th is basically a bonus episode that has very little to do with the overall arc. The main problem I had with the anime was the characters and the way the episodes were structured. As usual with ensemble casts they get introduced in just a number of epsiodes and things move straight on to the main plot. So, every episode starts with one of the assassins waking up, we getting the back story of the assassin, her sending her notice of intent to kill Haru and their actual attempt. Rince and repeat. The problem here is twofold. The first is that up to this point we know next to nothing about the assassin except for her public face. This means nothing as this is an obvious front and not her actual personality. So we get the bare minimal background information on who she actually is and what she wants in return for killing Haru. It boils down to roughly 5-10 minutes of a 20 minute episode per character. This is not nearly enough to make me care that she has siblings who live in poverty somewhere. I don't know her and I don't know her siblings since the anime just literally pulled them out of its ass. I. Do. Not. Care. The second issue is that we, as the audience, immediately know who the killer is right at the start of the episode. In other words: there is no tension for us about who the potential killer is. Haru is NOT an interesting character to follow. You learn early on that she has been targeted for attack since an early age and she got hurt a lot. Also everyone she knew and loved sacreficed themselves to save her. She has therefore made a vow to graduate from class Black and live het life. It is therefore to bad she has the survival instincts of a lemming that is stuck on a cliff but feels the need to go for a walk. Tokaku also has a back story and you will get many many many many many many many many many many hints to that effect. I lost count to the number if times I saw the clip of the trees rustling in the wind, the body on the ground, child Tokaku looking on and the shrine in the background. It was annoying, distracting and ultimately pointless.