Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. If you were to ask me what I thought the worst anime of 2017 was I would say Eromanga Sensei, an ecchi series that doesn’t add anything new to the formula and is just going through a checklist. I will give the series credit, it knows who its audience is, knows what it is, and is focused on it’s intent and execution. But at the same time, you don’t feel any energy or passion from it as you would say Samurai Champloo. It just seems like everyone in production were just going through the motions and just wanted to get it done to get a paycheck. But a good runner-up for the worst anime of 2017 is Hand Shakers. If I were to sum up Hand Shakers in two words it would be, train wreck. Done by the studio GoHands (Project K and Princess Lover), the anime was created to celebrate Animate, the largest chain store company in Japan that sells anime, manga, and games. A nice thought but I don’t think this is what they had in mind when they saw the finished product. The anime was a complete failure that bombed in Japan as well as here in the states. So why is something like this better than something like Eromanga Sensei? Well, take my hand and I’ll show you. This is Hand Shakers.
Opening and Ending Theme
The opening for this anime is “One Hand Message” by OxT. If you read my top 11 anime openings of 2017 you would know that this song made the list and why not, it’s OxT, these guys always do great openings for anime. The song is catching, intense, and easily gets you excited for what your about to see.
The ending is “Yume Miru Ame” by Akino Arai. I didn’t care for this ending. The whole song just feels empty and is forgettable.
Episodes 1-4
So, the anime begins where right away you’ll see that the anime had a pretty big budget as the animation really stands out (well this is a GoHands anime and when it comes to their animation they really like to go all out). We then meet our main character Tazuna voiced by Soma Saito (Tatsumi from Akame ga Kill) a boy in school who is a tinker and likes to fix things but is quite the loner as he keeps to himself. He just got done fixing the mp3 of Lily the student council president (who’s boobs have a mind of their own. Seriously, those things don’t stop moving. Physics be damned). After school, he goes to the university to help out a professor but along the way he helps fix the engine of someone’s car and arrives late. When he arrives, he sees a girl hooked up to machines by a bed which reminds him of his sister who sadly passed away due to an illness. The lock on the room mysteriously opens and he goes into the room (why? For all we know she could be infected with something) where he grabs the hand of the girl in the bed who bears a resemblance to his sister and all of a sudden, a mysterious voice speaks to him calling him a Hand Shaker (well he is an adolescent boy so yeah, he is a hand shaker). He passes out and wakes back up where Professor Makihara comes in excited calling Tazuna the partner of Koyori the girl in the bed voiced by Sumire Morohoshi (Kyouka from Bungou Stray Dogs). He tells Tazuna never to let go of Koyori otherwise she’ll die and before Tazuna can ask any more questions Makihara disappears mysteriously and the two get attacked by obvious CGI chains. The two manage to escape and see that they’re being attacked by a guy named Break and his masochist partner Bind who uses chains to fight (you two must have an interesting night life). When Tazuna and Koyori get cornered, gears come out of nowhere to protect them and then they form to create a giant sword (a giant sword made out of gears? That’s gotta be one of the coolest and weirdest things I’ve ever seen) to end the episode.
Episode 2 picks up where episode 1 left off. Tazuna drives his gear sword through Break and beats him. They then return to the real world where Makihara is waiting and explains to Tazuna that he himself isn’t really sure what’s going on (great, so even the anime doesn’t know what the hell it’s doing. That’s not a good sign). All he knows for sure is that Tazuna is now involved in a battle where the last one standing gets to have their wish granted by God and Makihara is here trying to figure out why this is all happening (me too Makihara. Me too). Makihara does tell Tazuna that he can let go of Koyori but only for a short while as apparently Koyori needs to stay connected with Tazuna as that’s her source of energy. If they stay apart for too long she’ll vanish from this world. After hearing all of this, Makihara clears things up with Tazuna’s parents saying that Koyori is a foreign exchange student from Brazil and that she’ll be living with them for her stay. The parents are surprisingly okay with this, like really okay with this to the point where they don’t mind their son holding her hand constantly or even taking a bath with her (man these have got to be the most lenient parents of all time or they’re just really happy to see their son interacting with a girl). We see that Koyori really doesn’t know how to do the most basic of things such as eat, undress herself, or wash herself so Tazuna has to help her out but the good news is she’s a fast learner. The next day she goes to school with Tazuna where all the boys are ready to kill him and Lily is slightly jealous of them.
Episode 3 is a pretty chilled episode (until the last minutes but we’ll get to that in a minute). We spend a good chunk of the anime focusing on a woman named Chizuru who despite looking like a elementary student is actually a hard working adult and her subordinate Hayate. These two work for a food-chain restaurant company and are actually Hand Shakers themselves. After getting done at a meeting at Tazuna’s school, the four meet up and Chizuru invites Tazuna and Koyori to eat at one of their restaurants since she mistook them as a couple (I wonder where she got that idea?). They accept and the next day they go to their restaurant and enjoy themselves as Koyori finally gets to try different foods that she wasn’t allowed to try previously. After eating, Chizuru and Hayate fight them (first you treat them to a meal and then you fight them. Well give them credit, they’ve got manners). We get a pretty awkward shot fight scene as Chizuru and Hayate display excellent coordination with each other. It’s not just one of them fighting, both of them are fighting and watching each other’s back. Meanwhile, Tazuna seems to be the only one fighting for his side (start pulling your weight Koyori. Also, just out of curiosity, how much do you think the VA for Koyori is getting paid seeing as how she has no lines in this entire show so far outside of ‘hum’ to answer questions).
The fight continues in episode 4 as Chizuru and Hayate start using shadow clones to feint Tazuna and Koyori to gain the upper hand but Tazuna is not one to be outsmarted (he’s smarter than the average MC). He lures them up to a castle where he’s able to point out the fakes from the real one and turns the fight around in his favor. He and Hayate have a one on one duel falling from the castle (that’s pretty cool) and Tazuna defeats Hayate without killing him. The next day Chizuru and Hayate apologize for the trouble they cause and decide to become their guardians since Makihara has proven to be an irresponsible adult and give Tazuna and Koyori the name Single Gear in order to hide their real identities.
Episodes 5-8
Nothing much happens in episode 5. Koyori gets separated from Tazuna but she gets found by Lily and her little brother Masaru (with Lily seemingly having a thing for her little brother. Bleuuh) who look after her until Tazuna shows up. As Tazuna looks for Koyori he runs into a strange man who seems to know Makihara and reveals that he too was once a Hand Shaker. He also questions Tazuna and makes him realize he’s fighting for nothing unlike the others who seem to have a goal and are fighting towards it. Tazuna runs away when he gets a call from Lily and gets reunited with Koyori where they find out Lily and Masaru are Hand Shakers as well. Of course, Tazuna doesn’t wanna fight his friend and Lily doesn’t wanna fight either so they try to back out of the duel together but can’t. Masaru takes this as a sign that Tazuna wants to fight so Lily and him begrudgingly start fighting using playing cards.
Throughout episode 6 it’s Tazuna and Koyori vs the incest siblings of Lily and Masaru (you know I’ve seen a lot of incest couples in my time but compare to the others, these two are so cringeworthy). In the fight, Masaru and Lily use cards. Lily uses tarot cards to enhance Masaru’s cards which are obviously a blatant rip-off of Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic of the Gathering (I really hope this show doesn’t get sued for gimmick infringement). We do get an inside look into Lily and Masaru’s home life during the fight. Lily’s dad was one of those parents who were never satisfied with the accomplishments of their child (the girl could have found the cure for cancer and even than he wouldn’t be impressed with her) and the mother was bipolar. The parents did seem to have some marriage trouble as it was hinted that the father was cheating (based on the flashbacks I can see that happening, he does seem like a douchebag). While Lily was the good child getting good grades in school and stuff, Masaru was seen as the troublemaker as he didn’t really care for school all that much. Returning to the fight, we see that Tazuna has trouble fighting until Koyori starts helping him read Masaru’s attacks since she knows how to play the game as well and can predict what Masaru will do next. Masaru soon runs out of cards and starts using Lily’s tarot cards (use the world arcana) but that doesn’t stop Tazuna from delivering a geared knuckle punch to Masaru’s face giving him the victory.
We get a relaxing episode in episode 7. We start off with Tazuna talking with Makihara about his past as a Hand Shaker. Makihara admits that he was a Hand Shaker but not anymore. His partner isn’t dead but through unexplained circumstances they broke up (she was most likely hogging his right hand). We also discover that Koyori was born as a Hand Shaker and before Tazuna she had a partner but not even Makihara knows who it is. Not wanting her to die, he put her to sleep until Tazuna touched her and she woke up again. After this, Tazuna and Koyori help out their class for the school festival. Koyori cooks the food after all the chefs get injured from training in the mountains and Tazuna provides the support. Thanks to their efforts their class comes in first place and they have a good time at the festival.
Nothing much to say about episode 8. Tazuna and Koyori are out shopping for clothes when all of a sudden they get attacked by the up and coming idol Kodama and her manager Hibiki. The two are the strongest opponents that Tazuna and Koyori have faced thus far and easily outmatch the two in every way possible. By a stroke of luck Tazuna manages to escape with Koyori but gets seriously injured which causes Koyori to cry (and when she cries my heart hurts) as this fight helps her realize how useless she is to Tazuna in a fight.
Episodes 9-12
In episode 9 Tazuna stupidly goes off to face Kodama and Hibiki again where once again he gets overpowered (it also doesn’t help that he’s injured and heavily medicated). When all seems lost, Koyori steps up to protect him and actually starts to talk (finally! The VA can earn her paycheck) and unlocks her weapon which is more gears (well they’ve worked in the past so why stop now?) which nullify Kodama and Hibiki’s attacks and they manage to beat them with ease. While this is all good for them it’s bad for Kodama and Hibiki. We find out that in the past the company that Kodama worked for wanted to change her up completely and she didn’t like that, so she left the company and Hibiki being her biggest fan went with her. Despite their best efforts Kodama still goes unrecognized thanks to her former idol company interfering with her gigs (when you leave an idol company under bad terms, you make a dangerous enemy). Kodama is all but ready to give up but Hibiki tells her not to give saying that he’ll always be her fan no matter what and this gives her the courage to make her dreams of being an idol come true relying on her own skills.
Not a whole lot happens in episode 10. Tazuna and Koyori take up part-time jobs at Chizuru and Hayate’s company restaurant and earn some money. After that they go on somewhat of a date with Makihara where they run into that mysterious guy Tazuna met in episode 5 named Nagaoka and he has a Koyori lookalike with him (does this one stay quiet for 8 episodes too? Because we’ve only got 2 episodes left).
Episode 11 gives us backstory into Makihara’s past. In the past he and Nagaoka were Hand Shakers as well as partners (*laughs* I don’t know why but that’s just funny) working with their sensei Akutagawa and his wife who was also a Hand Shaker. Their goal was to collect data on the other world as well as discover the secrets of Hand Shakers. Akutagawa strongly believed that this discovery would benefit humanity and when his wife gave birth to twin girls Koyori and Mayumi who were born Hand Shakers his belief only grew stronger (and that’s when everything came crashing down hard like a ton of bricks). Because Koyori and Mayumi were born Hand Shakers if they stopped holding hands they would disappear, and it didn’t help that they were constantly being attacked by other Hand Shakers (it’s no exaggeration when I say that their life was basically a curse). Akutagawa soon came to see their powers as a curse for them so he went a little mad and started killing Hand Shakers left and right in the hopes of getting closer to meeting God and saving his daughters from this fate (a good motivation, too bad he went crazy and started to scare his daughters). After killing one more Hand Shaker, Akutagawa and his wife gained the right to face God and just disappeared. What happened to them is unclear. After a month they were declared dead and at the funeral Koyori and Mayumi fell into a coma but survived. Nagaoka decides to continue the work of his mentor and says he’s going to kill God (and I’m amazed lightning didn’t strike him right then and there). He takes Mayumi and servers his connection with Makihara which stops them from being Hand Shakers (I have no idea how that’s possible. According to Makihara their emotional bond got destroyed and thus they stopped being Hand Shakers. In a way it’s like soul wavelengths in Soul Eater only stupider and makes little to no sense). Anyway, returning to the present, we find out that Nagaoka used hypnotic suggestions and drugs to wake up Mayumi and she’s now become his puppet in his tool for revenge against God and he’s prepared to kill Koyori in order to make that dream come true so he gives them the option of backing down now and just putting Koyori back to sleep. Tazuna and Koyori refuse to back down and they enter the other world to fight where Nagaoka and Mayumi have taken over the place with their powers.
In the first half of the final episode, Tazuna and Koyori take on Nagaoka and Mayumi (in what I have to admit is the best fight in the anime but given what I’ve seen so far that’s not saying much). We see that Mayumi’s power takes a toll on her body and if she uses it way too much she’ll die so Nagaoka tries to take them out as quickly as possible by overpowering them but gets overpowered himself. Just when he’s at their mercy (finish him), Mayumi shows up to protect him where Tazuna and Koyori re-awaken her real personality giving her back her emotions and Nagaoka loses his will to fight conceding defeat for the time being. We also find out that he has a serious illness and doesn’t have much time to live which is why he left Makihara. He and Mayumi take their leave, but he vows to return before he dies. After that, the anime pretty much just wraps up with a shot of everyone in the anime (and Tazuna and Koyori not kissing which obviously is what we all wanted to see).
Final Thoughts
Oh my goodness, this was a train wreck. I will say the soundtrack is good and the animation can look impressive at times, but everything else is a disaster. The characters are bland and uninteresting, the story is all over the place, the character’s have little to no motivation, the CGI feels out of place, and the fight scenes aren’t all that exciting and have terrible camera work. This whole anime is like watching Frank Miller slowly spiral into insanity and never come back from it. So, you’re probably wondering if this is such a train wreck, why do I think it’s better than Eromanga Sensei? Well like I said earlier, there was no passion or energy behind Eromanga Sensei. However, Hand Shakers did have passion and energy behind it. I don’t know what went wrong in production, but I can tell that this series had a lot of people working on it who were passionate and energetic about the project. Seriously, that animation is very impressive and detailed. They were trying to create something new and believed that it could work but unfortunately it didn’t. Whether the failure came due to time, money, changes in production, or the story in general, there’s no denying that GoHands were passionate and energetic about this series and I can’t help but admire and respect that. Even if the end result is a train wreck.
Final Score
The final score for Hand Shakers is a 4/10. Despite all the disappoints, it’s not downright awful or does anything to get me mad. If anything, I’m sad that the idea didn’t work out and that the passion and energy of everyone working on it wasn’t enough to pull it from the brink. If you liked it cool, but I think I’ll stick with K and hope that their next project for 2019 is a hit. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
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