Anime Review: Your Forma

I’m always interested in a good detective series, and Your Forma promised that with a bit of a high-tech sci-fi twist. Plus, it involved androids, and with A.I. being my second favorite form of science fiction behind time travel, I felt it was worth giving this show a shot. Even though the premise of the show was right up my alley, could it deliver in the entertainment department?

Let’s Jam!

The Story

In order to survive a global pandemic of encephalitis, the world developed a technology called Your Forma. It is a device that is implanted into the brain; however, everything from sight, sound, and emotion is recorded. Enter Echika and her android partner Harold. These two are Cybernetic Investigators with Echika having a high aptitude for Brain Diving, or the act of connecting to another person’s Your Forma and reading their recorded memories in order to gain clues to solve crimes or to determine a suspect’s motive behind a crime they have committed.

Your Forma’s story is told across three different arcs. The first arc introduces us to our characters and establishes Echika as someone who isn’t too fond of androids (called Amicus in this show). Harold, on the other hand, is a special RF model of Amicus. The RF stands for Royal Family, as he was custom-made, along with two others, to serve exactly who his model initials imply. The first case believes that another RF model has gone rogue, and thus, Harold comes under suspicion. It is up to him to clear his name, and this is where the majority of the character development takes place between Harold and Echika.

Next, we have to track down a mysterious person named E who has been spreading propaganda around the internet and gaining a cult-like following. This cult is anti-Amicus, which leads to Amicus androids getting damaged or destroyed. Riots and attacks on the Cybernetic Investigators also occur as they believe that there are cover-ups and secrets not being told by the organization.

Lastly, the third arc dives into Harold’s past, which takes us to Russia. There, his partner Sozon was killed by someone who called himself the Nightmare of Petersberg. It is simply a case where Harold must face his past and find his killer, as after so many years of being dormant, the Nightmare has returned.

The show does end with, seemingly, the Nightmare case and the E case being fully unresolved, which leaves the doors wide open for a second season!

The Characters

Echika Hieda

Echika is the youngest cybercrime investigator in the world, and is held in high regard by her superiors and the organization for her impeccable Brain Diving skills. In the beginning, she is rather monotone and emotionless… mainly because she loathes being paired up with an Amicus… especially one like Harold; however, over time, she learns to place her trust in him, and they become more than just partners. Echika finds that she has gained a brand-new friend with him… even if he’s not completely capable of fully understanding human emotions. Even though her attitude has changed, she still speaks in a monotone fashion; however, she does exhibit more human nuances as the show goes on.

At first, she seemed as if she should have been the Amicus because she was so robotic. Always living by the code of her job, seeing the case through, and making the most logical decisions, but the more she grows as a character, the more she exhibits her flaws and shows that she’s not as perfect as everyone thinks that she is. In fact, during the Nightmare of Petersberg case, she makes a couple of huge judgment errors, which shows just how much she let her guard down thanks to her growing friendship with Harold. She is a pretty balanced character who received some decent development; however, it’s nothing new or revolutionary. If you’ve seen one “learning to trust your partner” story, then you know what to expect here with Echika.

Harold W. Lucraft

Our second main character is our Amicus Harold. Despite the fact that he is a higher-end and custom-made Amicus, he is still bound by the laws of robotics like any other Amicus. Despite that, he does have the ability to make autonomous decisions. He can think and act just like a human being, but despite that, the laws of robotics prevent him from taking action during an investigation… especially the law that prevents him from harming a human being. That very law plays into his past as he was forced to stand there and watch as the Nightmare of Petersberg killed his partner, Sozon, before his very eyes.

Despite the rocky relationship with Echika, Harold doesn’t truly do much try to improve it. I mean, he does, but it’s not blatant. Like, he doesn’t buy her roses, or spend long hours listening to her problems, etc. He gains her trust through his actions. Like, during the E case, going against the laws of robotics and using a gun to shoot a lock off a door so that he could pull her out of harm’s way and save her life. He does make it known that he wishes for a better working relationship with her, though. Harold acts like a hybrid between a robot and a human, which is exactly where I would have liked him to be in a story just like this. There are a few twists and turns with him along the way (especially in the final episode of the first season) that prop up his character and give him more layers; however, until you get to that point, he’s just a good, balanced character.

Bigga

Out of the plethora of side characters in the show, Bigga is the only one of importance worth diving into. She is known as a bio-hacker. She either can create or use her connections to get her hands on cartridges that can plug into a person’s neck outlet to override or enhance their Your Forma. She was pretty instrumental during the E arc, and while her role was a bit reduced during the Nightmare of Petersberg arc, she does lend a hand at some of its most crucial moments.

As for her personality, it’s nothing to write home about. She’s just your typical high-spirited chibi-looking character with a little bit of childishness mixed in. Even though she is a bio-hacker, you don’t really see her doing much hacking, come to think of it. Most of the cartridges she supplied Echika with came from her connections. I think she only produced a cartridge once that we’ve seen. In a sense, that kind of makes her a third-wheel-type character; however, she did have enough of an impact to just barely relegate her away from that label. Plus, she ends up getting a new job in the third arc that, honestly, kind of surprised me as I never pegged her as someone to fulfill a role like that.

Art, Animation, and Sound

Hmm… reflecting on things, I can’t really say that the animation was something you could write home about. The most memorable bits of animation were the trippy intro we got whenever Echika used a Brain Dive on someone. While it looked nice, the novelty wore off when Geno Studio decided to save on their budget and reuse the same CG Brain Dive intro every single time… complete with the generic take on cyber acoustics to try and set the “OMG WE’RE HACKING” mood.

In some instances, the animation seemed a bit messed up. There was a car chase during the first arc in the woods. The cars ended up crashing; however, the scene literally skips from an overhead view of the crash to the car being parked outside of a small cabin with Echika and Harold giving chase. Instead of showing how they managed to get their cars running, or even how the suspect escaped, it was an instant time skip. It was quite jarring and stuck out like a sore thumb. I don’t recall any other moments where that happened, too, which makes it all the more auspicious.

The character designs were pretty well done for Echika and Harold; however, that’s where everything stopped. The rest of the cast, from Bigga to every supporting character along the way, kind of just blended into the background. A couple of them, like Sozon’s mother, stood out, but the rest might as well have been painted the same color as the walls so that they could completely blend into the background. As I said, with the exception maybe of less than a handful of them, I probably wouldn’t be able to name them if you showed me a photo… and I just finished watching the show 15 minutes before getting to this point in my written review.

The soundtrack wasn’t anything to write home about either. With the exception of the weird “WE’RE HACKING” ambiance whenever Echika did a Brain Dive, or the kind of catchy opening and endings, the rest just felt rather flat and forgettable. Then again, in a detective-style show like this, you don’t truly need music to distract you as you are meant to focus and pay attention to things to try and piece things together, along with our main characters.

Overall Thoughts

Your Forma was a pretty decent watch. It has a unique premise that, at first, sounded like Minority Report; however, it’s vastly different than that. I did enjoy the chemistry between Echika and Harold, and their natural growth was rather refreshing to experience. I did like how neither of the characters didn’t have thick plot armor either. They made mistakes, they had errors in judgment, and they weren’t perfect in every case. That gave both of them a lot of human and real-world qualities. Keeping characters like that grounded in a setting where you would expect that aspect to be null and void was a smart move that I enjoyed very much.

The cases themselves were interesting. There were some nice twists and turns along the way; however, if I had to offer a critique, there wasn’t much of that “chess match” feeling with them. Sure, the cases were enjoyable, but they didn’t truly do much to give a sense of deep drama. Everything felt a bit on the mild side, where the only true sense of impact was felt during the E case when a cat died. Even when Echika was in danger and Harold violated the laws of robotics to save her, it didn’t feel like a suspenseful or heroic moment. It just felt as if it was there. I’m not sure if that was due to the writing, the direction, or something else, but from beginning to end, the series lacked that type of punch that made you want to watch it.

I never found myself begging to see the next episode, but I didn’t find myself bored or turned off by anything I saw. In the end, this was just a good, solid detective show with a bit of a unique twist that anyone in the genre will probably enjoy. It did enough to set itself apart and be considered a slightly above average show, but even when they put the main characters in positions of danger, I never truly feared for them for felt that there would be a drastic show-altering moment. I feel that it played things a bit too safely and, for that, it landed itself in the “enjoyable, but probably won’t win many awards” category.

Overall Score: 3.5 / 5