With a new year, the time has come to
talk about what’s probably become my favorite overall media
franchise: The Kagerou Project, or KagePro for short. It’s a story
that begins – or seems to begin – on a hot summer day, concerning
a group of youngsters, tied together on multiple levels and embroiled
in strange and supernatural events.
KagePro started out as a series of
Vocaloid songs that tell stories or express characters and that have
(at least with their attendant videos) a number of interconnections
that mark them as being part of the same overarching universe. It’s
not exactly easy to put the overall story together from just the
songs, but each individual song has its own narrative, the song and
video being very much like a short film (a trait that, in my
admittedly limited experience, isn’t uncommon for Vocaloid songs).
However, there’s more than just the songs to help you put everything
together, and for that reason I want to look at the entire project,
and will be doing so over the next few Wednesday sessions
There’s also the fact that the story
isn’t even as straightforward as it may appear. KagePro features a
sprawling, multi-timeline plot where sometimes events may repeat…
but at other times, the same characters may be singing a different
tune. This means that all of the versions of the project do,
ultimately, tell different stories on their own rather than the same
story in different versions, which is fairly unique. Other
properties may feature some changes when they’re adapted because, you
know, sometimes the adaptation has needs that the original didn’t.
But when you look at most adapted media, they are generally at least
trying to tell the same story. The different bits of KagePro media
aren’t; the relationship between them is complex and they weave
together to tell a single, more complete story in many parts.
As you might have guessed from the
introduction, I would probably rate KagePro very highly… but that’s
more of a lifetime achievement award, and not something that I
necessarily feel belongs to any one component part, and thus I’ll try
to stay impartial and see the component pieces for what they are.
What’s more, it’s not over yet! KagePro material continues to be
released to this day, so I’ll be restricting myself to things that
are, overall, contained
There are three components I’ll be
reviewing conventionally. They are…
Light Novels: An 8-volume Light Novel
series, under the title Kagerou Daze. The Light Novels tell the
single most detailed story, as fits the fact that they have a lot of
text and stick in a single timeline. They do a ton of work showing
us the inner thoughts of the characters and teaching us more about
their histories.
Manga: A 13-volume Manga series, also
titled Kagerou Daze. The Manga probably gives the strongest and most
whole picture of the mega-story that extends outside any one media
entry in the Kagerou Project. They’re the only narrative (as opposed
to the songs) where we really see and address multiple timelines, and
the Manga ultimately provides many revelations that help tie the
project’s parts together.
Anime: A 12-episode Anime, titled
Mekakucity Actors. Of the three large narrative pieces, Actors is
probably the most individually flawed, but it also affords some
unique opportunities, taking advantage of the strengths of visual
media and the fact that Shaft is the studio that handled it. It’s
also the version that, as of right now, I would consider to be the
“End”, or at least the conclusion to the main project story as we
know it.
I’ll also take at least one episode, so
to speak, to talk about the Songs. I won’t be reviewing them
conventionally, because it kind of seems like a fool’s errand to do
so, but there’s so much character and clever visual storytelling
wrapped up in the various PVs that I do want to spend some time
analyzing the KagePro songs and PVs on their own and as the heart of
the otherwise vast project. It’s going to be a hell of a journey, so
I hope you join me for it.
For now, I’d like to cover some of the
general concepts that run throughout KagePro and bear mentioning,
such as the major characters and the basic version of the
supernatural rules of their setting.
The story follows, for the most part,
the group known as the Mekakushi Dan. Most of the characters have a
special, magical ability. Each ability is unique, but they have the
common thread that the user’s eyes turn red when the ability is
active. It’s also common for ability-users to not really understand
how to control their powers. It’s not entirely clear at first how
they gained these powers, but each of the ability-users did have
something akin to a near-death experience. The truth is that by
facing certain death under the exact right (or wrong, depending on
how you look at it) conditions, they were drawn into an alternate
dimension, and were only able to return by gaining their ability –
others drawn in may remain trapped in that realm, which is referred
to as the “Heat Haze” or “Kagerou Daze” depending on what
media (and translation) you ask. “Kagerou”, by the way, refers
to the phenomenon of inferior mirage, the best known form of mirage
that results from, well, heat haze, shimmering and unreal. I’ll be
using Heat Haze or “the Haze” throughout my reviews and analysis
to not get things confused with the title of the Light Novels and
Manga.
The Mekakushi Dan initially consists of
Tsubomi Kido, Shuuya Kano, Kousuke Seto, Marry (or Marie, depending
on the localization) Kozakura. This group of kids (teens, but
still…) live on their own, while trying to understand their
abilities and the nature of the Kagerou Daze. Kido can turn herself
and other objects and persons invisible, Kano can create an illusion
of someone else over himself basically taking their form, Seto can
read minds, and Marry has the power to temporarily paralyze someone
with a stare… because her eye ability comes not from the Haze but
rather from being the granddaughter of a Medusa-like entity, the
Haze’s creator, Azami. The former three were brought together as
foster siblings, along with their big sister Ayano but thanks to
events surrounding Ayano (typically her death, but not so on
literally every route), they left home and have been on the trail of
their mystery ever since.
On the other hand, we have the Kisaragi
siblings. Sister Momo is a high schooler pop idol, who doesn’t
realize she has an eye ability that draws the attention of everyone
subjected to it towards Momo. Unknown and uncontrolled it got her
where she is, but it’s also kind of ruining her life. The Mekakushi
Dan want to make contact with her, and can help her work that out.
The brother, Shintaro, is a sour NEET. He doesn’t have any eye
ability (or does he?), and has locked himself in his room since his
best – and pretty much only – friend died a few years back. In
most routes, this friend was Ayano. Shintaro is helped/plagued by
Ene, a blue haired girl who seems to only exist in the digital realm
(mostly in Shintaro’s digital devices) and just loves to tease and
harass him. What he doesn’t realize is that Ene is actually an
alternate form of Takane Enomoto, who he knew in his life outside,
and returned from the Haze essentially as Ene.
Our third and last cluster of
characters starts with a pair of out-of-town folks: Hibiya and
Hiyori. They’re from the countryside but are visiting the big city
on summer break, and are significantly younger than the other
characters. Hibiya has a crush on Hiyori and was pretty excited to
be invited along, but they end up staying with Konoha. Konoha is
strange, laconic older teen boy who Hiyori of course finds dreamy.
They don’t start seemingly connected to the plot, but Konoha is
actually an ability user (sort of – he’s more the ability itself,
returned to life instead of its user, Haruka Kokonose, a friend of
Shintaro and Ene) with super strength and indestructibility. Hibiya
and Hiyori, however, get drawn into the Haze. Their time there is
the subject of the song that granted the project its overarching
title: Kagerou Days. From their perspective, they experience August
14th and 15th over and over for ten years, one
of them dying just after noon on the 15th and starting the
cycle over. The Heat Haze can be hellish like that. Eventually at
least one of the two emerges, in possession of the ability to
remotely view objects and people. Which one, and the fate of the
other, depends on the route you’re following.
Did I mention that KagePro has a HUGE
ensemble cast?
There are no less than eleven
characters recognized on some level, at some point, and in some
routes as members of the Mekakushi Dan, as well as a number of others
who aren’t part of the group but are still critical to the story,
like Azami or Haruka. This is, honestly, one of the best things
about KagePro, because the characters are all amazingly well done,
and benefit immensely from the distributed nature of the
storytelling. Regarding the songs, each one typically focuses on
displaying the emotions and struggles of one or two characters.
“Kagerou Days” is about Hibiya and Hiyori’s experience in the
Heat Haze. “Lost Time Memory” touches a little on everyone in
its PV, but is essentially about Shintaro. “Kisaragi Attention”
is all about Momo, with cameos at most from anyone else, while
“Otsukimi Recital” deals with both Momo and Hibiya, essentially
being Hibiya’s troubles at that point in the route as seen through
the eyes of Momo trying to help him through. Each episode of
Mekakucity Actors also zeroes in on a particular character or arc,
following its subject closely and developing the chosen character.
Each volume of the Light Novel has a particular focal character as
well, who will be largely or entirely the point of view and whose
backstory will be delved into in that volume. The Manga is more
fluid, but still spends loads of time on character development.
Because of this, and because the
characters are largely the common ground through the various routes,
ALL the characters end up developed and interesting despite their
numbers. They’re extremely well written, essentially regardless of
the media you’re looking about – even in Mekakucity Actors, which
aside from any qualitative issues that I’ll address in its own review
doesn’t have the luxury of revealing the inner workings of the
characters except through their spoken words and actions, these
people really are the high point. They’re interesting and engaging
people who you want to see, read, hear, or otherwise learn more
about, and even when they’re unpleasant (and some of them can be
jerks sometimes) they have a basic humanity to them that makes them
easy to relate to and essentially likable, which is not a trivial
matter. When I dig into more KagePro media, it almost feels like
visiting friends. A hyperbole, perhaps, but even if you say so this
is still one of the best casts I’ve ever encountered, the sort that
feels real, that you might wish were real… and that’s the greatest,
strongest bit of foundation that KagePro is built on. I’ll try to
dig deeper into the characters when I get to the actual media
About the story, rather than the cast
and setup, I can’t say that much because of how it differs across
routes. Not every fact is universally true, and the differences
between the individual works in the Kagerou Project do overall
snowball. What I can talk about is one last character… the villain
of KagePro, simply known as the Snake of Clearing Eyes.
You see, technically, the abilities
used by the various characters are entities. These “Snakes”
(they do appear in snake form now and again) are fragments of Azami,
an ageless being who possessed all these powers. She created the
Heat Haze to act as a paradise, a space outside of time where she
could live with her human husband (who would otherwise grow old and
die) forever, but tragedy struck as she prepared to enter, and the
Haze was also corrupted into its current form, fulfilling Azami’s
wish only very badly. The characters with abilities received Snakes
to act as surrogate lives, allowing them to exist once again in the
outside world… a number that includes Marry, who was the first
individual drawn in and released that way. Releasing Marry from the
Haze, though, cost Azami the core “Queen” Snake, and the power to
control the process, so her poorly-designed wishes continue to
operate.
Why did this all go to hell? The
architect of the tragedies surrounding Azami and the modern
characters is one of her own Snakes, the Snake of Clearing Eyes.
Clearing Eyes… has multiple motivations given, all of which might
be valid, but the most basic is that it exists to grant wishes, and
can only exist with a consciousness and will of its own while working
towards that goal. So, in order to preserve itself, Clearing Eyes
wants a wish that can always be granted but never will be. In the
most basic route, the wish Clearing Eyes finds is the wish of Ayano’s
father, to bring his wife back from the dead. Such could only be
achieved if all the other snakes were brought into the world of the
living and then combined into Marry, who as a full medusa like Azami
could revive the dead. When that method becomes impossible, what
remains is that with less than full power, Marry could rewind time to
a point where the wish was able to be granted. All the Snake of
Clearing Eyes has to do is torment the poor girl, slaughter her
friends, and cause her to reject the ‘ending’ she’s presented once
she has enough snake power, and they’re back at square one… with,
seemingly, only Clearing Eyes able to remember that they’ve been
through here before.
And then the Snake of Clearing Eyes
sets it all up again, repeating every tragedy so there’s a constant
process that never reaches completion. And Clearing Eyes clearly
loves every minute of its cruelties.
So, no matter the route, the Snake of
Clearing Eyes is coming. Its goal is to bring forth the snakes,
murder their bearers when the time is right, and force Marry to reset
everything once again. While Ayano’s dad is seemingly the most
common host of Clearing Eyes, it takes different tactics on different
routes. In any case, the Snake of Clearing Eyes awaits the Mekakushi
Dan as they delve deeper into the secrets of the eye abilities and
the events of their past.
This also gives us our main conflict in
KagePro as we know it: The Snake of Clearing Eyes has to have its
agency removed somehow, and it has to be when Marry’s friends aren’t
all dead and broken, causing her to try again. As long as the story
continues, barreling towards tragedy, the Snake of Clearing Eyes is
winning. We can tell it over and over, with differences large and
small, but we only escape if the heroes manage not only to take down
their villain, but also to take away his control of the story, and
change the tune away from the tragic.
With that, the stage is set. Bring it
on, Kagerou Daze!