Review: Kuzu no Honkai

By:

Published:

15/01/2018

Updated on: 22/03/2020

Kuzu no Honkai intro

Kuzu no Honkai is a seinen anime about Hanabi and Mugi. They are a couple but they only share time with each other because they both have the same pain. Being in love with people they cannot be with. The troubles of unrequited love and the struggle. Replacing this love with other people who you have no feelings for. What do you do to fill the void you have in your life. Is it feeling wanted, being with someone or just the warmth of another person. This anime is realistic in terms of what happens in life.

Character Hanabi

The first character i want to talk about in Kuzu no Honkai is Hanabi. Hanabi is our female main character she is in love with her childhood friend and neighbor Kanai. But while she loves him Kanai doesn’t love her back. She knows she can not be with him. This results in her starting relationship with Mugi. She may come across as numb for anyone except Kanai but later in the anime you see she is not numb but just in turmoil. For her to move on she needs to declare her love and be rejected to move on.

Character Mugi

Mugi is the second person from Kuzu no Honkai and our second main character. Mugi is in love with Minagawa Akane better known as Miss Akane. But he knows he can not be with Akane just as Hanabi can not be with Kanai. Mugi is less complex than Hanabi he just wants Akane in his loves and he will go trough everything to get to her and is not ready to move on before he had some sort of relationship with her.

kuzu no honkai characters

kuzu no honkai characters | Reviews

Characters Akana, Kanai, Ebato

These characters also play a big role in Kuzu no Honkai anime less so than Hanabi and Mugi. Akane and Kanai are in direct contact with each other. While Ecchan (Ebato) is a friend of Hanabi she plays a bigger role than you might first think she might. These characters get a greater story later in the anime. Akane and Kanai get a story of their own.

 

Beginning.

The first Episode of Kuzu no Honkai starts off pretty tame till the 15 minute mark than it starts to take off in a direction you might not expect from the first episode. This is where you see that this anime might have a very dark story behind the romance cover. In the coming episodes you discover more about why Hanabi and Mugi do this and to what extent you learn way more about the real characters and the turmoil they go trough. As we get to the middle of the anime the story gets darker and darker and the characters get in trouble. The characters Akane and Kanai get their own stories.

kiss scene

kiss scene

Middle

Now we get the middle part of the anime. The middle part of the anime is where the story starts really messing with your mind. You know that Akane turned down Kanai because she said We don’t know each other good enough. but behind his back she has sex with a lot of man she doesn’t know and acting like a s**t.  Kanai is very calm and keeps chasing Akane to get in a relationship with her which he succeeds with in the end. You have found out that Ecchan wants more than just be a friend of Hanabi and has sex with her. You also notice Hanabi is struggling more and more with herself. Akane is also pushing all her buttons and making her upset.

But behind all this every time you see a R+ rated scene you hear the characters thoughts. Nothing they do is filling the void they have. They got no reason to do this but it numbs their feelings even if it’s only for a short time. But there is no love and the love for Kanai in Hanabi’s case is not going away. The same for Mugi whatever he does his love for Akane does not go away.

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Ending

Before the end set  lot of stuff happens. Hanabi made up  her mind to confess and asks Mugi to also confess. Hanabi ends up confessing and gets turned down completely. Mugi in the end doesn’t got the guts to do so. But has sex with Akane but you can see in the scene Akane has no interest in Mugi at all. Akane in the ends up with Kanai. The last episode takes a turn that some people might not like. It’s not your happily ever after anime. But i think the ending realy fits with the anime.

The Opening and Ending

The opening and ending of Kuzu no Honkai are a bit of a double-edged sword for me. While it’s really uplifting and upbeat it’s in contrast with the anime this throws you a bit for a loop for the first time. But the nice thing about this is the ending is just the same as the opening it is very upbeat with just a few slow-moving parts. I like both the ending and opening just because of the contrast.

Conclusion

I really liked this Kuzu no Honkai for many reasons. The story is realistic and the characters are very relate-able even if you have not gone trough something like this they still feel like real things that could happen. All characters play a good role expect two side characters who don’t have enough impact in my opinion to really be mentioned. While there are a lot of sex scenes let that not withhold you from giving this anime a try. The scenes where sex happens are much more than just that. The animations are very smooth and work well with the art style. I would recommend this to anyone who like complex anime or just seinen. Still if this is not your sort of anime i would highly recommend you at least give it a try.

I rate this anime a solid 9/10 Because it deserves this in my opinion and it’s also my favorite anime of 2017. My score is way higher than MAL gives it with a 7.6/10.

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11 comments


  1. It was enjoyable to watch and read. 9 or 10 is a good score, animation ost is really good like you said

    One thing that bugged me is too much time was given to characters I didnt really care, I didnt care about the Yuri plot. I was really hoping for more of a battle between Akane and Hannabi, I was hoping to have some sort of love triangle appearing, I found the ending felt “rushed” maybe that manga was going to be stopped and it had to be wrapped up.

  2. Watched the anime, and I can honestly say this is one of my all time favorite romance shows of all time. I would even go as far as say its my top 5. Why? Personally I think you’re only able to truly appreciate this show as long as you have a deep understanding of the characters and to be able to sympathize them at an extremely deep level. Athough a lot of people didn’t like the ending in the anime because the “heroins” didn’t get together. For me.. it was one of the most beautiful endings ive ever witnessed in my entire life of watching anime. The message of seeking true love has moved me so much to the point where I was glad the heroins didn’t get together. So far my top 2 favorite series are domestic girlfriend (manga version) and this. Anyways, I truly recommend this anime if you have a lot of experience in love yourself, otherwise if you don’t have experience you might not enjoy it as much as I did.

  3. It isn’t bad by any means, But I find people tend to ignore the lower ratings as if 5 and 6 don’t exist just because it’s good, If you can name a seinen a good bit better and then a seinen better then that it doesn’t deserve the 9/10.
    Thats putting it in masterclass territory along with the almost greats if not the absolute greats.
    It shouldn’t be put at that high of a standard, It was good, And 7/10 or if you really wanna stretch it 8/10 is good enough for the series. And thats a substantial feat, It’s worth everyone’s time at those ratings, But it’s only a must watch for seinen fans.
    Thats my input on it anyhow.
    Only issue with the review is the verdict.

  4. Great review, though I do not agree with our rating (I would give it a 7.3/10). Your review was spot on. Great explanation of the Anime as well.

    • Thank you. I can see why you would not agree.But the thing about it is. it’s a good Seinen Korean webtoons and reviewsIt’s been long time since someone gave us a seinen that was relatable, realistic and even made the sex scenes so profound but fading in the background because the dialogue was so much more interesting.

  5. Amazing review, though I’m not into the Seinen genre :c

    • It’s a good Seinen.

  6. 5