Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyou

Do you understand what is comedy? Do you really value it? I am very sure you don't, not until you watch Dogs and Scissors. It is a series that will make you appreciate jokes, more than ever, because its pathetic, dreadful, and fan-service accompanied "comedic" plot will make you appreciate the math joke that you thought was stupid.

The plot is simple..you can read the summary anywhere, so I am not going to detail that. But yes, this is an extreme story of books..where you either write or die..you read or die. That was the opening sentence of the anime. Quite interesting right? Yeah, ... I wish it was like that. Not until you pass episode 2, when you will suddenly realize the deep, thoughtful ways of this anime, thoughtful ways of putting fan-service. This anime is a collection of "weird" otaku fetish: sadistic tsundere, extremely attached younger sister, voluptuous masochist, and most importantly, a complete harem of girls. Not to mention the "flat-chest" jokes, "those" dialogues....and whatever a loner otaku dreams to see.

At first it begins decently, guy loves books, he dies, and gets reincarnated as a dog to become the pet of his favorite author. And then starts the non-stop loop of "flat-chested" jokes, sadistic scissor scenes, younger sister pleading "Kazu-nii", girls appearing to satisfy harems and ends with hot-spring bath and beach scene near the ending of the anime. This anime, without a doubt, will satisfy if you're into "these" things.

Characters are simple. Protagonist is a straight-man (or dog) of the series, who gives commentary to every line spoken. He loves book more than anything. He is mostly in his dog form. The female lead (the scissor) is a 20 year old sadistic, flat-chested (where the jokes come from), tsundere and best-selling author, who although highly intelligent, limits her insults to "perverted dog" "ero dog" "idiot" and "mongrel"....yes, very intelligent insults she uses.

Side characters include overly-attached imouto; a bookstore girl the protagonist loves;her younger sister who likes to "play" with the protagonist; a voluptuous and masochistic book editor; a maid who is overly attached to her mistress; a "shining" idol who is supported by overly attached men in black; and the girl who is always apologizing...and for comic relief afro guy, muscle men and whatever the anime industry needs to create comedy.

Sound tracks are average. Opening song, you know those songs where the singer changes pitches as she sings..with hyperactive attitude? Ending is rather decent, after first ten seconds. And overall, very decent, low-average music.

Art. Average 2013 art. Animation is decent, the fight scenes are alright. It' just nothing to look forward to. And it's sad how every character must have colorful eyes and hair, certain types of figure and stereotypical appearance.

Overall, I began this anime because of how frequently it was recommended. This anime was made TO satisfy the audience, especially the guy stuck in his room 24/7. There are plot holes everywhere, non-sense characters and low average art and animation. It just takes pathetic on different level. I didn't enjoy it.

Recommended only if you're interested in "those" matters I mentioned, or just want to watch every anime of the season. Otherwise, just save your time on something better. Seriously, I cried realizing the depth anime reached these days.

An anime on Cruchyroll that looked to be interesting.

*Story* - First 2 Episodes got me kinda interested, and it fades away more and more... Randomness

*Art/Sound* - Art is ok. Meh on the ED. OP is decent. Although don't expect me to go out of my way to get the songs on my iPhone/iPod Music anytime soon.

*Characters* - Ugh... If it weren't for some of the character designs, I highly doubt these bland characters would have a chance in hell to stand out at all.
99% of they do gets repetitive BEYOND BELIEF!

And even the majority side characters have no importance or any level of ... , which even questions why they even deserve to be in the Opening Sequence of the show.

TBH, the ONLY character I was interested in was Sachi Moribe - The maid that was singing and is very loyal to her mistress. Anytime she was on the scene, I actually wanted to know more about her, which unfortunately never happens...
And even Natsuno I cared about a little. The never-ending running gag of her having small breasts gets on my nerves. Because it's supposed to be a comedy bit even though its a constant dart to her character for no apparent reason at all. (FYI, her voice actor deserves way better than this. Especially since she did Yoko from Gurren Lagann...)

*Enjoyment* - I find it to be offensively lazy, and offensively cliche', It feels like there's nothing that feels like I shouldn't forced myself to complete the series and dropped it earlier.

I even feel like I'm taking too much time on bothering to reviewing this. Especially this being my 1st Anime Review on this site.

*Overall* - All of the things I critisized about this anime would possibly acceptable, if it either:

A) Have long-lasting characters to latch on to even forgive whatever the storyline/plot was to be.
B) Had the comedy effective rather than deteriorating into stale, overdone jokes.
C) Had something that held an interest to balance out its own faults. That would maintain your attention on the show than doze off.

So at the end of the day, I'm not sugar-coating my criticism. If it gets to the point of a series where I don't give a flying dog crap about almost anything that's going on, Episode to Episode on in, then that's a big problem.
If you're looking for an anime that contains the similar genres as this, I'd prefer watching Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt.
Or if you're looking for a good comedy, watch The World God Only Knows on Crunchyroll.

Dog and Scissors had the opportunity to make something fairly interesting.... It had quite the unique plot, imagine if the dog could have occasionally turned human? see what I mean? Potential. Sadly he couldn't turn into a human and the anime exploded into a mass of small boob jokes and borderline bestiality/incest. The characters were actually DISGUSTING, they had overwhelming flaws which heavily outweighed the good making them static and truly just disturbing. Now not only does this anime have flaws with the characters but its plot? Just as bad. It starts off looking fairly promising, something fairly new to the harem industry but it ... quickly become repetitive and extremely boring. (no joke I would have rather watched Haruhi Suzumiya's endless eight twice in one day) So real quick back to the characters:

Kazuhito Harumi - the dog of the story. pretty much a bookworm forever alone, until he gets shot and turns into a dog of course. He is really the only (somewhat) enjoyable character in the entire anime, hit wit died at about episode 5 when he ran out of flat chest jokes; so from that point on he was pretty annoying.

Kirihime Natsuno- hated this bitch. The dog pp lover from hell, she is sadistic and just generally annoying and at the same time disturbing. You will also find out she's not a total bitch but also a worthless emo who happens to be a giant waste of space in the plot's extremely small living quarters

Madoka Harumi- dog's little sister; total bitch


Suzuna Hiiragi- Worst character in this anime and that is REALLY saying something also a weird-ass masochist

So yeah those are the characters, they don't compliment one another, they don't have any dramatic tension going on; nothing. They are just there, withering with the already dead plot. Oh yeah the plot! To say the least it's quite forgettable you won't remember it for very long, nor will you want to. It starts out with Harumi getting killed and reincarnated as a dog while trying to save Natsuno from a runaway gunman. Natsuno manages to find him in his dog form at a local pet shop and takes him home. From that point on in slowly introduces more terrible characters to make you hate the anime more like his sister and the weird masochist lady who's name has already (unsurprisingly) slipped my mind. Don't waste your time on this anime guys, it really is garbage sit back and watch something good; like Kill la Kill!

Seriously, I just don't even know what to say about this anime.

STORY (3):

So the story follows Harumi who protects Natsuno from the killer but in return he was killed and turned into a dog. So basically, this anime has a plethora of misunderstandings and wacky situations. I really thought that this anime is all about reading books but sadly this wasn't the case at all. This anime is all about random comedy. The comedy was not even funny. The story had potential to be awesome but on the 5th episode it starts to get repetitive and lost the essence of the entertainment.

ART & ANIMATION ... (4):

The art was nothing special because a lot of anime companies now have improved their art and animation style.

SOUND (4):

There is nothing memorable about the opening and ending song.

CHARACTER (1):

I feel ashamed to say that there is no character development in this anime. Even when it comes to Natsuno's & Harumi's relationship. Their love story just goes nowhere. The characters never do anything productive and they just get very annoying. Let's take a look at the characters.

Harumi Kazuhito:

He is just a bland character who just tugs along with Natsuno.

Natsuno Kirihime:

I was pulled into this anime because of her. She sort of reminded me like Yozora from Haganai due to her voice and accent. By the way, Marina Inoue voiced Yozora & this character here. However, in this anime, her character never gets better. She just treats Harumi like crap by cutting his skin off. She has no character depth at all unlike Yozora from Haganai. Seriously, she broke my heart. I thought that maybe her character development starts to kick in, but in the end I was wrong.

Maxi Akizuki:

Seriously, what was all this "Shining, shining"? Everytime when she appears on screen, she always says "I'm shining, love me please, I love attention!". After that, one of her guards dragged her away. This infuriates me a lot.

The rest of the cast range from annoying to bland characters. I am not going to list down everyone of them. The more I list down, the more I go crazy.


CONCLUSION:

I just feel ashamed of myself for watching this anime. I thought that the anime might serve its purpose but sadly it didn't. This anime has no purpose. Normally, every anime has its goal and purpose in life. At least, this anime was not as boring as Amnesia. But I feel that this anime severely lacks in purpose, character development and a compelling story.

Such a waste of talent for Marina Inoue. She did very well in portraying the voice of Yozora.

For those of you who say that it is just comedy, I agree with your point. But that is just the start, and you need to develop your character to the point where the audience will get invested into them, and also the anime must serve its purpose well (i.e. compelling story) so that this will become a great comedy. But sadly, this anime never work on these items.

I just feel heartbroken by how this turns out. Such wasted potential.

I give this anime a 2/10.

This anime is so bad that i decided to make a review out of it. If you are a fanboy of this anime then i suggest that you don't read further.
A warning, I may explain how bad this anime is with a few warnings nothing big.

This anime starts of when the main character dies and turns into a dog. From the beginning that already sounds bad. This anime just has no story. The only resign why I watched it all the way was because I hoped that the story would at least get better, but it didn't. This dog man then lives with a girl ... because she could read his mind. That just doesn't make sense.
The story gets a 1/10 because it has no story.

Art and music is the only good point of the anime. The dog is so cute and there is very colorful characters. This is the only high point of the anime

The character development is so bad it almost made me cry. I watched all 12 episodes hoping, just hoping there would be some character development. There wasn't anything close except at the end were the girl wanted to marry the dog. The fact that she wanted to marry a animal is so disturbing.
Because of no character development I will give this anime 1/10

Overall the enjoyment is so bad because I find it so hard to enjoy this anime. I also find it so hard to believe someone used money to make this anime. This anime could have had potential.
I give the overall score a 2/10 it deserves a 1/10 but because of the art i gave it a extra point.

If you agree or disagree then let me know on my profile and leave a comment. I love hearing feedback.

Harumi Kazuhito isn’t your ordinary bookworm. His entire life revolves around books. I know that may sound like hyperbole, but oh no, I mean that with complete sincerity. I also mean it literally, but we’ll get to that. For now, Harumi is a high school boy who has dedicated his life to the pastime of reading. He basically chain-reads, buying up books by the handfuls, burning through them at supernatural speeds, and hoarding every volume he finishes. He even refused to live with his family, opting instead to live in an apartment by himself so he could go to ... school in an area where the books he wants are able to come out slightly quicker. One day, while he’s reading in a cafe, a crazed robber bursts in and begins to wave a shotgun around. He threatens a young woman who’s distractedly writing away in another seat, and Harumi gets up to defend her... Not because he’s generally a nice person, but because he can’t stand to see a fellow book-lover get hurt. Yes, that’s how his mind works... Or, how it DID work, until the robber blew it out of his skull.

Now freshly dead, Harumi decides he can’t cross over to the land of the dead yet... He has so many books he still wants to read, including the final book from his favorite author, Akiyama Shinobu. He manages to pull himself back to the land of the living with the strength of this passion... So, like I said, his life literally revolves around books... But through some mix-up, he’s reincarnated into the body of a dog. A miniature dachshund, to be exact, who’s kept in a small cage in a pet store even though he’s not for sale(this is never explained). He’s soon adopted by the girl he rescued, as the connection they share has given her the ability to hear his thoughts(at least I think that’s the reason?), and she takes him home... To murder him. Until he finds out she’s really Akiyama Shinobu, she finds out he’s a fan of her work, and she inexplicably becomes sexually attracted to him. And as it turns out, these are not going to be the only extreme oddities in his life going forward, as the world around him just gets weirder and weirder. Good god, let’s just get this turkey over with already.

Studio Gonzo may have some acclaimed titles under their belt, what with the Fullmetal Panic franchise and arguably Linkin Park’s best music video having been produced by them, but when you tally their output together, the bad far outweighs the good. They’ve put out some visual wonders like Gankutsuou, but they’ve also let out some real clunkers like Gantz, and while Dog and Scissors, may not be THAT far down the ladder, it’s pretty close to the bottom. The animation is stiff and cheap in a way that’s honestly hard not to notice. They’re clearly able to save a lot of money with the fact that the central character, living in the body of a dog, is able to speak telepathically, without the burden of having to animate lip flaps, so all they have to do is repeat animation cycles when he’s on screen... Be it slight movements in his fur, or wagging the tuft of hair on his head... But this advantage becomes stale very fast, as it’s just a variation on the talking heads that make up the rest of the cast.

And speaking of the cast, I’ll be honest, the character designs look pretty good. If you’re just looking at still images, the series actually looks really crisp and pleasing to the eye. A few of the designs look a bit cliched, and they all look a bit standard, but they’re all pleasant to look at. Harumi makes for an adorable little doggy(which makes up for how intentionally bland he looks as a human), and maybe this is a matter of personal taste, but I love the design of his chop-happy new owner Natsuno. She’s like a grown-up version of Ai Enma who walks around dressed up like an extra from the Matrix movies, and I dig it, she looks really cool. I also really like the afro guy who runs the pet store. not only does his apron feature a clever Jojo’s bizarre Adventure easter egg, he just looks like he’d be a really chill dude to hang out with. The backgrounds are also immaculately detailed, with shelves full of diverse looking books giving our characters’ collections their own sense of personality, and each character’s living space is detailed enough to add a new dimension to their personalities, especially in the case of Natsuno.

Of course, that doesn’t excuse the animation. Despite what the premise may have suggested, there’s action in this series, but considering how well it moves, you may as well just read the damn light novels. The only thing that looks like it had any real money put into it was the opening, which is fast moving, full of visual effects, and actually manages to translate the characters’ awkward movements into some really fun dance cycles. You’ve probably seen an anime where characters imitate dogs or cats by moving their half-clenched fists in a certain way to resemble paws, haven’t you? This opening features nearly the entire cast doing step-dances that heavily incorporate that kind of movement, and it’s so adorable you just can’t help but smile when seeing it. They also have doggy ears and tails, and as a possible result of the video’s fast pace, it’s disquietingly easy to not notice this the first time watching it. This video has no right to be as fun as it is, but at least it was SOMETHING to look forward to.

Of course, it probably helps that the song was also really catchy. It’s by Inu Musume Club, and it’s called “Wan Wan Wan Wan N_1,” and that may sound like gibberish at first glance, but there’s a really popular Japanese pun behind it. Wan is the Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound a dog makes, which any American would call Woof or Bark. Wan also sounds like One, hence why the title begins with barking and ends with an obvious abbreviation for Number One. This actually isn’t even the only opening theme to employ this pun, hell, it’s not even the best one, as Working!!! actually did it much better, but leaving that aside, it’s a funny little footnote. The ending theme is almost as delightful as it’s op counterpart, with Natsuno flying a scissors-inspired private jet, her rival’s black-suited bodyguards expressionlessly dancing in tandem, and generally just a bunch of creative and funny imagery gets paired to a slightly more low-key but still catchy song with the bizarre name Lemonade scandal.

I wish I could tell you more about the music, but unfortunately, I barely noticed it at all during the show. I guess that means it was doing it’s job? I can’t remember ever hating the music... At least not as much as generally everything else... And I can vaguely recall tapping my foot to a few fun-sounding tunes. This is normally where I’d be looking up each individual track online, but I can only find one, by the name of Mieta Kibo, and god help me, it sounds absolutely divine. I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise, as it’s credited to one Akito Matsuda, who Wikipedia says WAS in charge of the music of the series, but since there’s only one track available online, I’d have to rewatch the show to hear it’s ost... And I’d rather stick a thumb-tack through my eyelid. Thankfully, he’s done the soundtracks to a lot of other recent anime, and now that I’m hearing some of it, I suddenly REALLY want to watch Sound Euphorium. His composition, as I’ve heard, was the one and only interesting thing about Glasslip, so Dog and Scissors’ music was probably just as solid.

The English dub is... Well, it’s weird, but hey, this is a weird show. It’s a mix of bizarrely enthusiastic standouts and adequate, okay performances, with thankfully no real duds to speak of. At the very worst, some of the casting choices are standard, just the actors we know coming and doing their thing, catching an easy paycheck off of a role that they were suited for. Chief among these is Blake Shepard, who I’m normally not a huge fan of, playing the lead role of Harumi, and while his delivery skews the line between hammy and wooden whenever his character is excited, he manages to nail it whenever he’s supposed to sound serious or sarcastic. And then on the other end of the spectrum you have Jessica Calvello, an actor who... Well, if you assign her to one of your characters, you’re pretty much bringing out the big guns, because putting her in any role but the lead is fucking overkill. Luckily, she’s playing one half of the titular pair here, and her penchant for hitting a wide range within one single character adds a level of insanity that makes Natsuno far more tolerable than her disturbingly subtle Japanese portrayal.

There are other actors, of course, and I’d like to bring up Luci Christian as a highlight because she put an absurd amount of effort into a suicidal self-blaming character... And the adaptive script is really good at localizing the dialogue without straying too far from the original intent, although it does fuck up once towards the end and make i sound like someone's responding to Harumi's thought-comments... But I really want to skip right to the second half of this review, because I have a lot to say about the writing and meat of this anime, and none of it is pleasant. So let me just say that the dub is good, and I’d highly recommend it over the sub, because the sub just sounds too grounded, which makes a lot of it’s more problematic elements harder to stomach. The dub gives it more of a wacky and bizarre personality, allowing you to mentally remove it from the harsher implications of a lot of it’s so-called jokes. Then again maybe that’s just me being dumb American and not appreciating the Japanese language or whatever. If you’re going to watch this, I recommend doing it in English.

Right, now that that’s over with, I’ve been holding this in for far too long. If I haven’t already given this away, Dog and Scissors is bad. Like, it’s really, really bad. It’s not funny bad... It’s not interesting bad... It’s the kind of bad that I only place among the worst of the worst, which, for me, is a list that not even School Days has been able to crack. I actually hesitated to write this review, and even thought about stopping a few times, because I honestly don’t think a review is necessary. This is the kind of show where you can immediately tell whether or not it’s worth watching... Yeah, it’s ironic that an anime revolving around books would be so easy to judge from a glance at the cover. In fact, here’s all you really need to know to get a feel for the series: A woman adopts a puppy because she wants to kill it, and then spares it because she wants to have sex with it. I know that’s not entirely fair, and it’s taking the scenario out of context, but it’s not inaccurate, either. That literally happens, and further details don’t do much to improve things.

Everything about this series... Well, aside from the music, dub and art... Is either stupid, confusing or awful. There is not one redeeming quality outside of those few production efforts. I could do an entire Inconvenient Questions post about each individual episode, but I won’t, because watching this show twice in my life was twice too many times, and I cancelled IQ for a good reason. Thus, I’m only going to focus on my biggest problems with this series. For starters, I failed to mention until now what the biggest connection between Natsuno and Harumi is. He can’t talk, being a dog, but she can hear his thoughts. This might not bother you, but it bugs the hell out of me... His thoughts aren’t treated like thoughts, but like regular conversation. She hears him as though he’s speaking. That’s not how thinking works. You never stop thinking. And yeah, you could SAY that she can only hear thoughts he sends to her, but this also isn’t true, because the only reason they met is because his thoughts, from elsewhere in the city, were distracting her, and she tracked him down.

Right there, it’s established that not only can she hear his thoughts without his consent or knowledge, but that there’s a long range, and she can’t shut it out, but there are possibly thousands of instances in the series that directly contradict this. Why does she ask him questions? Why does she ever think he’s lying about something? You can hear his thoughts! He shouldn’t be able to lie to you! Why do you each read a book at the same time, when you should just be able to hear him reading it? Did his thoughts distracting you from writing just stop? Did that problem go away the second you decided to not murder him? If you were able to track him down to the pet store he was being kept in(like a parrot), why do you EVER have to look for him in order to find him? I’m sorry, I really am, but this entire premise is so frustratingly inconsistent that I honestly found it distracting throughout the series. Even comedies... No, especially comedies... Have to take themselves seriously to enough of a degree that they pay attention to fucking detail.

Oh, and speaking of comedy, have you noticed how small Natsuno’s breasts are? Good, because I just spoiled at least 60% of this show’s comedy. The other 40% is largely made up of BDSM and animal cruelty. I don’t like speaking in absolutes, but I have to say this: In anime, jokes about a character’s bust size are never, ever funny. I’m not saying that because such humor is sexist, or mean-spirited... although they are both of those things... I’m saying it because that is THE most overused joke in anime history. Characters bringing up cup sizes happens more often than tsunderes over-reacting to misunderstandings, and that’s saying something. The only time I can ever remember a boob-size joke being funny was in Yamada’s first time, when Yamada was imagining what her best friend’s life must be like with big boobs, getting all jealous, but then we get a glimpse of said friend having to apply lotion to herself because of how much the damn things chafe. See, that was a clever subversion of expectations, and it;’s an example of how hard a boob-size joke has to work to even be kind of funny.

Dog and Scissors relies heavily on this idea, but it doesn’t put anywhere near that level of effort into it. Despite the fact that he’s not into real live women, Harumi is constantly berating Natsuno on her bust, and even when he isn’t, she’s constantly seen obsessing over it. It gets to the point where I was seriously wondering why Natsuno didn’t just get a damn boob job already. Yeah, I know I shouldn’t promote a shallow image of beauty, and people look fine just as they are, but plastic surgery can help people who have confidence issues relating to their appearances. Natsuno’s a grown woman, she makes her own decisions, she lives independently off of her success, and she clearly has Seto Kaiba levels of disposable income lying around, so why doesn’t she just get some work done? oh, right, because that would take away the one lazy-ass joke that this series keeps on dragging out of the dumpster to try and amuse us, to the point that even a dead horse would tell them to stop beating a dead horse.

And speaking of Natsuno, try to wrap your head around this; She’s twenty years old, hasn’t written anything since she was 19, and is implied to have a bibliography that would make Stephen King jealous. She’s written a ton of novels spanning all types of genres, and at least six of her books are thick enough to contain at least a few thousand pages each. By the time she was 19. Not only is she considered one of the three top best-selling authors(the words “In Japan” is never attached to this, so it’s fair to say they mean worldwide), but the other two, who we meet in this series, are also young ladies of a similar age. Hell, her most vocal rival spends most of her time as a pop idol! Did any thought go into any of this? Even her threats to kill Harumi don’t add up to anything, as all she ever does is cut off portions of his fur, which grow back in less than five seconds... And yet he still acts terrified of her, every single time she attacks him. Hey, dumbass, she may say she’s going to cut off one of your ears, but I think you’re gonna be fine.

And honestly, even it’s focus on books and reading was completely shallow. All dog and Scissors knows is that reading and writing are things. Possibly fun things. Possibly lucrative things. It knows they exist, it knows they’re important to people, but it has no deeper understanding of any of it. Not only do we never find out anything about Natsuno’s books outside of their titles and a seven deadly sins gimmick, we don’t even technically know if they’re fiction or non. Hiromi is extremely pretentious, being that he loves to read, he deifies books, he defends books from critics, he judges people(even his own damn murderer) on whether or not they’re readers, and get this; He has no defined taste. This moron would probably get his jollies off reading the ingredients on a packet of McDonalds ketchup. This series knows as much about books as Adam Sandler knows about video games. We never find out what literature means to anybody, but it wears it on it’s sleeve.

And if any of you are holding out hope that the plot and mystery aspect might have something to offer, don’t. Harumi’s killer is found and dealt with so early that it can’t even be considered a spoiler. It turns out that after killing him, the killer had time to rob him before running away, and has been hiding in the second apartment that Harumi’s been keeping secret from his family AND his landlady. Chew on that for a moment. They find him, they chase him down, and it turns out he’s got Natsuno’s six thickest books hiding in his coat(even though they’d definitely be weighing him down and banging into his body while he was running), and he uses them as weapons in the worst anime fight scene since Master of Martial Hearts. She beats him, and gives Harumi the choice to either kill or spare him, all while I’m screaming “Neither! Call the fucking cops!” Oh, and we never meet his parents, we hear nothing of any funeral, he has no drive to get his life back, and we meet his sister, but... Hoboy. Had to dip into the incest shit, didn’t you? Bottom of the barrel wasn’t low enough?

Dog and Scissors is available on both DVD and Bluray from Sentai Filmworks, and it’s available both in dubbed and undubbed formats. The manga and light novel are not available stateside.

I’m not gonna lie, guys, this was a tough one to get through. The only reason I even bothered is because I’ve been on hiatus for a few months, and I needed something especially bad to rage on. Thus, I figured, why not an anime where one of the biggest running jokes is the main character commenting about shit not making sense, while completely missing the bigger picture each time? Like I said before, the artwork and character designs are good, the music is serviceable and the opening and closing themes are awesome, but these are really the only things it has going for it, and they’re the only qualities that pull it up from a possible 0 score, and I haven’t even scratched the surface of what’s wrong with it. It falls apart if you give it even one seconds worth of thought, which is why I have to wonder if the people who enjoy and defend it checked their brains at the door, or at birth. I don’t condone threatening violence against dogs with a pair of scissors, but this is one tail that definitely should have been cut short. I give Dog & Scissors a 1/10.

Dog and Scissors is an anime as the title states, it is anime about a dog living with a woman with penchant for scissors. It is anime that I believe the creators were interested in simply trolling the audience more than anything. It wasn’t a marketing push, it wasn’t fan service, it was simply unabated trolling.

Story
Your initial impressions of this anime would be, so this is going to be a serious anime but then you quickly see how it becomes weird, pointless, stupid and ridiculous. Honestly, besides the first episode the rest become nonsensical and ridiculous, there is no story, it is nothing more than ... a bunch of plot holes grouped together to make each episode.

Art
You really think that the creators who created an anime to simply troll the audience would bother with art? Think again, nothing remarkable, not that anything could have been created to be remarkable with the premise of the story as horrible as this.

Sound
Other than to say there was indeed sound, nothing remarkable or good. In fact the sound made it worse. Don’t think it would have been such a bad anime if it was a silent one.

Characters
I hate them all. I really do. They all suck.

Enjoyment
I enjoyed when I stopped watching it.

Overall
10/10 for trolling
0/10 of being anything remotely watchable.

I was really hoping this would be something that would click with me, but just like the last time I tried to watch it when it was new in 2013, it just doesn't.

The female-on-male violence felt like animal abuse at first until I realized that you are meant to insert as the dog. So the dog is us submissives, metaphorically. That's fine, but this anime just doesn't work. It's described as a "nonsense comedy mystery" and it does try to be those things, but it's not good at any of them. The nonsense is not particularly interesting, it's not really funny, and it's mystery is ... just a series of vignettes in the shape of a mystery that are progressively less focused than the one the preceded it- finding the killer from the restaurant, finding the slasher / who is targeting Akiyama Shinobu, and and that's it.

Kirihime herself is exactly my type, but mentally she's immature compared a similar looking adult beauty like Sakurako from Beautiful Bones or Yuuko the witch from xxxHolic. Hell, I feel more M energy listening to Yuuko talking normally to Watanuki that I do from most of this anime's "punishment" scenes, most of which involve the dog being shaved in a flash or off camera, or maybe running from a thrown blade. Not much to be excited about at all, unless you want to be stabbed. Most of the punishments are for calling Kirihime flat, which is as stale as they get as an excuse for violence. I can overlook this, but when an anime fails to excite me, grating cliches like this become tiring. 1/3 of all Slayers OVA dialogue is Lina Inverse's supposed lack of bust, yet Slayers anime are so good on the whole it doesn't get grating, while here it does, with "flat-chest" seeming to come out of MC's mouth every 5 seconds. All of the characters are basically gimmicks, who never deviate far from their stock dialogue- Maxi-sama is always shining, Hami is always threatening to kill herself with a fountain pen- at least Suzuna has varied dialogue for her one-note masochism, a gimmick that somehow makes her feel even more obsessed with pain and humiliation than Darkness from Konosuba - Darkness at least knows how to draw limits. That said, Suzuna was probably the next best character after Kirihime, since the Mistress / Slave play is at least the most gratifying S/M-themed content in this anime.

It's hard to care about anything when the characters are just so flat; the character artwork is pretty nice, eg. the killer maid; so it's a shame the anime is just kinda painful and cringey. Eg. the recurring joke characters, from which humor is supposed to derive from their appearance I guess - afro man, the cat-girl landlady, the muscle bros- "lol so random, amirite?") For example, that third author, that maid's mistress: ok, let's just keep cameo-ing this girl none of the characters have met in person and we the audience know nothing about. Am I supposed to care about this girl?

I do wonder if watching this at a different time of day or in a different state of mind would have changed anything. It's possible the dub might have at least given me better mileage and I might have squeezed more enjoyment from this anime if Kirihime's lines went straight to my brain instead being mediated through text. But I think this is a result of me being disappointed that I couldn't like an anime that is offering a dominant waifu. But, bear in mind, one dominant waifu, two if you can count a yandere imouto- while Princess Resurrection, to its credit at least, has three dominant waifus.

If you want to see an anime that involves a relationship between a dog and his mistress that's less painful, see Kennel Tokorozawa, which was self-aware enough to have hired a prominent comedian in the role of the dog. And at least Kennel Tokorozawa had the decency to be a 45 minute OVA. As for dominant waifus, there are better anime out there for that.

i don't know what this show's intentions where or if it was biased of a visual novel or manga but all i can say is the fact that it felt like it had no real direction at first. the concept of a kid dying and being reincarnated into a dog that only one women can hear is an interesting idea. however it is the rest that becomes an issue.

our main is a teen boy who loves books. after we are introduced to our main we find out that he loves a specific author who comes into play as a main character later. our main (we ... will call him andy) is killed in a coffee shop robbery after attempting to defend a women at gunpoint. we find out that this women is the author the he loves and after andy is reincarnated into the dog she is the only one who can hear his voice. no reason is given for her being able to hear him but i guess it was easier to do then having to use emotion to show how he feels i guess.

we also find that this author girl is a detective, a dominatrices, a compulsive liar apon other things.

this show seems to be different and it does have some things that it does really well but the problem is it's lack of reasons to exist. i could recommend a shit-ton of better shows with very simmaler feelings to this one. this show does not really deliver on what i had hoped it would. and it was also responsible for me breaking up with one of my girlfriends so shit. 4/10

This is a no spoiler but everything you need to know to want to stay away from the anime review.

What you get right from the start
1. Book loving kid dies
2. Kid is reincarnated as his favorite authors dog
3. Author is certifiable and probably not fit for human society.
4. Author decides to either marry dog, or kill him and hope for a better reincarnation.
5. The Dog kink is on the low end of things.
6. It gets worse and worse as the anime goes.
7. I can't tell if you it's funny or not, as I was too busy trying not to shrivel into nothingness ... from watching as much of it as I did.


Oh on the plus side, the art is really well done, so was the voice acting. Boy it would have been nice if those resources were put into an anime that didn't leave you feeling unclean.