At our blog today, Andrew Osmond puts the focus on the series Kiznaiver, written by Mari Okada (director of Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms). Read about this in full at our site, or on below for a taster.
In the same way that Your Name will have viewers delving into the earlier films of Makoto Shinkai, and A Silent Voice draws attention to the work of Naoko Yamada and Kyoto Animation, so the release of Maquia will increase interest in the two-decade career of writer-director Mari Okada. We’ve posted an in-depth profile of Okada on this blog, while you can also read her life story in her own words. Now Anime Limited is releasing one of the last anime that Okada wrote before Maquia, though she didn’t direct it; it’s the 12-part TV series Kiznaiver.
Kiznaiver, it’s quite clear when you start watching it, isn’t from the same side of Okada’s oeuvre as Maquia. It’s no mother and child story; instead it’s an ensemble drama about a group of teenagers, male and female, and the strange situation they’re in. But, like Maquia and many of Okada’s other anime, Kiznaiver’s an enormously emotional drama; the sharing of emotions is what it’s all about. The title is a play on three words: kizu (wound), kizuna (bond) and the English “naïve.”
CONTINUE READING THIS HERE
