Okay so I watched all of Neo Yokio and my thoughts are as follows: It's okay.
If you're looking for an okay parody of anime and pop culture with some decent moments and music it's worth at least a look
If you're looking for a serious hardcore anime with deep character arcs, methodized storytelling, stylistic action, and a unique art style you better look elsewhere.
The animation is shit. Right off the bat. Egoraptor coulda done a better job if you paid him with a half eaten subway sandwich. I've made smoother powerpoint animations. The fact that this type of product made it off the show floor kills me. It shows we're really in a time where you can release a half assed product with no heart or soul and still make mad money and I hate it.
Animation quality aside there's some interesting sequences like fighting a demon skull inside an art painting or a race through an underwater city but there's very few ideas that will wow you. But there isn't much to expect from a 6 episode show.
The voice acting, despite the cast being STACKED, is awful and poorly mixed. A friend of mine pointed out it sounded like the characters performed in different studios. Which wouldn't be an issue but the mixing like I said is noticeably bad and murky. The droning of Jaden Smith from episode to episode is grating. He speaks like he tweets but I really think someone as weird as he is would have some life in his voice role, but he's monotone throughout every scene and can really drag the show down. Other voice cast have some excellent performances like Susan Sarandon and The Kid Mero but sadly not everyone brought their A-Game.
But fans of TFS's early works know that bad mixing can be excused if the dialogue was any good. Unfortunately it's not. While there were some clever quips and memes and funny current references the lines are straight forward from everyone. Nobody has really standout quotes and everyone, sans Kaz's highly NY AF friend, Lexy, really sounds the same.
The story isn't deep. It's an aristocratic infight and internal struggle story from a naive young boy who starts realizing other parts of the world exist outside his rich playboy life. The story is workable and doesn't have plotholes at the very least.
My favorite part that initially was a gripe was the story world itself. It's just presented to you as is. Not much explaining is given to the various elements like mecha-butlers, casual magic users, underwater cities and the show doesn't make a big deal out of them either. I'm actually a fan of the "the world's just here deal with it yo" approach. It makes me curious of potential parts in the world without bashing me over the skull with a pamphlette to learn about it. None of the elements really disappear but they're underutilized in the story.
My final pro to the series was its musical cues. It knew the right music for most scenes. Melancholy, upbeat, frantic, or dark. I liked the Jazz during the Skull fight scene that reminded me of Bebop. Since the series was written by someone in music I'm glad that it didn't suffer in his pet project.
Overall: The series is passable and barely at that. If you look too much into it you'll see everything that it is not. So do yourself a favor if you're gonna watch it and take it as it is. A small passion project anime parody. You'll be happier that way.
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