Beyond the Boundary, or as it is called in Japan, Kyokai no Kanata, is the third series this year to be created by the studio Kyoto Animation, or better known as KyoAni. The series focuses primarily on Mirai Kuriyama, a Spirit World Warrior who manipulates her blood to kill a type of creature called youmu, and Akihito Kanbara, an immortal half-human half-youmu hybrid. It was new territory for KyoAni, being the first seemingly dark fantasy series they’ve created. It was even one of our picks for the Fall season. Does Beyond the Boundary live up to the hype, or is it one series too many for KyoAni this year?
Good – Breathtaking Animation
By far the strongest thing Beyond the Boundary has going for it is its visuals. This is mostly put to effect in the series’ fight scenes, which are all an awesome assault on the eyes. An excellent example of the detail in the animation is Mirai’s blood sword, which is often shown to not be a solid weapon from how it bends and stretches during fights to how the blood inside the sword will swirl around when Mirai is standing still.
Good – The Perv Bros
Beyond the Boundary has a lot of comedy mixed in, to various results, but the one comedy bit that always made me at least chuckle was the interactions between Akihito and Hiroomi Nase, a fellow member of the Literary Club Akihito is part of and another Spirit World Warrior. You see, the two of them are pervs who proudly declare their respective fetishes, glasses for Akihito and a sister complex for Hiroomi. This leads to the two of them getting into a few funny situations. Another thing I like is the running gag of Hiroomi trying to warm his hands under Akihito’s armpits, much to the chagrin of Akihito.
Mixed – Blatant Filler
This will need a bit of explaining. You see, episode 6 did nothing aside from one little sequence at the start of the episode to continue the plot from the previous episodes, and the episodes after did not reference this episode at all either. In other words, episode 6 was a waste from a storytelling stand point and could have been removed without affecting the plot in any way. Which is really bad for a show with only 12 episodes. On the flip side, the episode itself was extremely funny and entertaining, so it deserves being watched despite doing nothing for the plot.
Bad – Inconsistent Tone
This show unfortunately suffers from identity issues. It doesn’t know if it wants to be a dramatic action series or a comedic action series, and as such there is constant tone whiplash as the show tries to force in comedy into clearly dramatic episodes and drama into clearly comedic episodes.
Bad – Poorly Developed Characters
I’ll be blunt, there are no characters I actually like. Sure I enjoyed the perv bro antics of Akihito and Hiroomi, but that was pretty much an exception to this. Akihito and Mirai are the only two major characters that get any form of development, and even then I ultimately don’t care for either of them, which makes the various scenes in the second half of the show that were clearly meant to be emotional and heartstring pulling fall flat for me. On top of that, there is a string of episodes where Akihito is briefly subjected to Flanderization as his character becomes all about his glasses fetish, as he spends his entire speaking time in these episodes gushing about glasses and bespectacled beauties and nothing more.
Bad – Convoluted and Poorly Handled Plot
On top of the badly developed characters, after about the fourth episode the plot becomes a jumbled mess that increases in complexity as it goes. Add in the fact that Mirai gains new powers that are never explained, an exposition dump episode that contradicts the behavior of some characters earlier in the series, and an ending that doesn’t actually end anything and in fact returns things to the status quo, and you have a mess of a plot.
Bad – Loose Ends Galore
Finally, the rotten cherry on top is that there are just way too many plot threads and loose ends left undone by the end of the final episode. Many characters don’t have their motivations explained, specific details never come to light. Hell I still don’t really know what the goal of the main human villain was. On top of that, the last episode actually added even more loose ends by introducing character details that required further development and a deus ex machina last 2 minutes.
Final Thoughts
In the end, Beyond the Boundary fails to live up to the hype. It started out strong and could have been something special, but the story and characters end up a mess and the ending is a confusing non-ending. All it really has going for it is the animation and the perv bromance. Ultimately, Beyond the Boundary will go down as one of the most disappointing anime series I have ever watched.