Japanese Title: Hand Shakers

 

Similar: Kiddy Grade

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Watched in: Japanese & English

Genre: Supernatural Action

Length: 12 episodes, 1 OVA

 

Positives:

• None that I can imagine.

Negatives:

• The CG. That awful, awful
• Camera won’t keep still.
• Meaningless action.
• Predictable in every way.
• The music loops.
• The whole handholding gimmick.
• Amounts to nothing.

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Jesus. Christ. Welcome to CG hell.

Hand Shakers doesn’t even try to ease you into its septic tank; it shoves you in with the opening scene, where a kid ties a girl in bondage with the worst CG chains as he demands more power of her (by stomping on her crotch), unleashing more hideous chains across the duel arena. Maybe if they spent less time on the boob physics and more on the animation, it wouldn’t haunt the audience for life. One scene, that’s all it takes to know you are in for some grade-A slop.

In the world of Hand Shakers, designated couples can summon powers known as Nimrods by holding hands to duel other such ‘Hand Shakers’ in the alternate plane, Ziggurat. The couple that defeats all others will earn a meeting with God to have a single wish granted.

Where these powers come from exactly, how they work, why God would have this absurd tournament, or how these people got chosen, aren’t questions for which you should be seeking answers. Hand Shakers will give you nothing. Its true desire is to shove that CG down your throat until you’re gagging out of every orifice.

People think Berserk 2016’s CG is bad – it is – but it has nothing on Hand Shakers. Why do these CG-heavy shows treat the camera like a dog toy, throwing it about everywhere as though angles, shot composition, and timing don’t matter? Hand Shakers’ camera cannot seem to keep still. Just because you don’t have to redraw characters when changing angles, does not mean you have to swing the camera around like a drunk. One early scene has Protagonist Kid talking to some girl in class and out of nowhere, the camera circles around the pair (now in full CG) in a sweeping motion as if to suggest something grand is happening. You want to know what they’re talking about? How much he concentrates when tinkering with electronics. Woah, easy there! There’s no need to leap out of your seat with excitement. I know this camera just blew your mind, but keep it in your pants, please.

When filming the action of meaningless nonsense, the camera is jittery, flying all over the place with no rhyme or reason. The artist’s graphics card also needs an upgrade to hit more than 15FPS. Hand Shakers looks even better with the random use of fish eye lens and this screen filter that darkens the bottom of every shot. Is the ground supposed to be darker? Who cares!

The greatest, the crowning glory of this eyesore graces our eyes in episode six. Now, those chains looked bad, Protagonist Kid’s cogs (yes, his power is controlling cogs) are eye cancer made manifest, and characters changing to CG on the fly is as jarring as pickles in a sealed glass container, yet none of these come close to episode six. In this episode, Protagonist Kid and his dead-loli partner fight against the Children’s Card Game Kid and his big sister (she wants to bang that shota dingle-dangle – what a shocker). Card Kid’s power is summoning monsters from his TCG. When he summoned that Flame Emperor Dragon, I pissed myself with laughter. My expectations were already at the bottom of the cliff – I couldn’t go any lower, and then Hand Shakers proved me wrong. My expectations were now falling towards Earth’s core.

All the ugliness could be tolerable if the story and characters were good. No. None of this anime is good. The entire gimmick is that the main couple must hold hands for everything – the girl will die for some reason if he lets go. Could you be any lamer? I swear this is the author’s fetish, expressed by self-inserting into this nonsense. It’s the only explanation for this handholding obsession. Oh, you know those powers called Nimrods? Nimrod is an archaic insult, meaning idiot. Fitting.

Hand Shakers is also predictable. See two people together – one male, one female – in an episode? They will be the next opponents. (Do try to act surprised when they reveal themselves.)

None of the dialogue says anything throughout this story and the characters are equally empty, no more so than the loli girl Protagonist Kid enjoys going to the bathroom with (“The rules say we must hold hands at all times, so you must let me watch you tinkle!”). She has no personality. Like with all characters in this rubbish trope, this is by design because it makes her “mysterious” and “deep.” When she does show emotion later on, it makes no difference.

Remember the ‘never let go’ rule? Well, it doesn’t matter, for he does let go several times to no consequence. In one instance, he’s so distracted by a conveyer system at a restaurant that he doesn’t realise she’s gone, somehow vanished in an open area with few people around. The writer was too lazy to include a crowd to add some believability to this shallow conflict.

So, like every aspect of Hand Shakers, it all amounts to nothing in the end.

Art – Very Low

Ugly CG permeates every scene. The camera swings about wildly because it can. Fish eye lens. Shading filters. More boob physics than any other animation. Jittery camera. Some imagery is nice, but the list of artistic problems never ends in Hand Shakers.

Sound – Very Low

Was this truly successful enough to warrant localisation? No actor could make this script sound good. I swear to you that each track loops the same twenty seconds of music.

Story – Very Low

People who gain power by holding hands as a couple fight each other to gain a wish from God. Hand Shakers is a predictable mess that results in nothing.

Overall Quality – Very Low

Recommendation: Avoid it. Hand Shakers is only for those with a morbid curiosity of the worst CG anime can offer. Not even ‘so bad it’s good.’

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Awards: (hover over each award to see descriptions; click award for more recipients)

Positive: None

Negative: