Still Creeped out from Puppets? Check.

I don’t really watch scary shows. But what someone else finds scary and I what I find scary will differ. If it will keep me up at night I give it a wide birth. I tend to stay away from things that involve ghosts or spirits. Also in anime I have always found dolls to be super creepy (I blame Another). So it is really wise for me to watch a show that is full of puppets…

They really creep me out.

Hello nightmare my old friend

There is something about the dead eyes and how they walk in jerky movements. So this first episode of Karakuri Circus had enough to creep me out and I don’t even know if I’m supposed to be scared.

Sorry grandson you will be forever alone. But you’ll have a puppet room…

Apparently all men in Saiga house have a room like that ^^. That is a clear sign for a lady to make a run for it. “Sorry I don’t date men with a creepy puppet room. Bye.” (let’s play a game and see how many times I use the word creepy. How else do you describe puppets?)

Despite me rambling on about creepiness this is an interesting show. It has a lot of things going for it despite a super confusing first episode.

This may be where the manga readers get mad at me for not understanding something. I think the main problem is they are trying to make us care but we really have no set up to why we should care.

It starts out with a bunch of people getting killed. We don’t really know why. Then cut to a man in a bear suit trying to get people to go to the circus.

Okay so we’ve moved on from the murders I guess. I don’t know if these were in the future or the past of the show.

A young boy Masaru approaches the man in the bear suit and wonders if he will take him to the circus.

I mean… Kids don’t go up to strangers…

Now suddenly bear guy(Narumi) is trying to protect Masaru from a hoard of creepy puppets. Talk about getting yourself in too deep for a complete strange child.

My main problem is why is this guy suddenly facing death to save a boy? I mean we really don’t know anything about his character but that seems a bit intense to try and risk your life for this kid. I guess if I was ever in trouble I would want to meet him on the street.

Narumi finds out from the kid that he needs to get Shirogane. He has not clue where she is at but she is at a circus. Could be any circus.

This was information shared to him by his grandpa in the creepy puppet room. They are going to find this person and you would assume once that happens Narumi would go back to his life.

Nope.

At the end he is decided to help out this kid. Again, I don’t get his character or motivation. Honestly if he wasn’t in the first episode it would have made it a lot better. I know since he seems to be a main character he can’t just be cut. I really want to know what kind of life he has that he can just get up, drop everything,  and go to protect a stranger.

Who can just drop everything like that? I guess he dressed up as a bear for a living so there isn’t a career he’s missing out on. (I’m sorry if that is your occupation I don’t mean to say that what you do isn’t important.)

The things I ended up liking about this anime are… the creepy puppets haha. Oh irony.

The show started to pick up for me when Shirogane used the puppet Arlequin to fight off the men in black puppets.

The used of the strings and the fight were pretty interesting and honestly it was enough to make me stick around for episode two.

I’m hoping that this is just a case of trying to shove too much into one episode. Where they couldn’t properly set up any motivation for the side characters. You really don’t want the last five minutes to be the only good part of a first episode. I have a feeling they would lose a lot of watchers.

Thinking about nap time.

Dude you met this kid like five minutes ago… No touchy.

Because I want to care about the kid and the bear man but I really don’t. I do find the “magic” interesting and that is the only reason I will watch another episode.

This one is honestly closest to my drop list at this point but maybe things will get fleshed out in another episode.

And don’t worry that totally isn’t a puppet standing behind you in a dark room. Oh sleep…

 

Happy watching!