Hand Shakers

Hand Shakers (ハンドシェイカー, Handosheikā) is a Japanese action anime television series produced by GoHands with collaboration of production company Frontier Works and publisher Kadokawa. It aired from January 10 to March 28, 2017. The story follows a mechanically inclined student named Tazuna Takatsuki who, alongside his partner, Koyori Akutagawa, joins a battle royale against several others for a chance to get a wish granted by God.

Why You Shouldn't Shake Its Hand

 * 1) First off, that title, sounds weird when said aloud and kind of telegraphs what kind of show you will be watching.
 * 2) It is a blatant rip-off of the Fate series and pretty much every battle royale anime series like Future Diary, only without any real creativity in it at all and way too much style with no substance.
 * 3) None of the characters are likable or interesting, they all are so full of tropes that they feel like rip-offs of the worst traits of much better anime characters. Also, these gimmicks are in the entire show.
 * 4) Tazuna is so obsessed with technology that not only does he fix stuff at random points, but he also talks about interactions in the form of gears meshing together, and that's every bit as pretentious as it sounds.
 * 5) Koyori doesn't talk at all for most of the series and seems completely disinterested the entire time. Also, she has to hold Tazuna's hand or else she'll die, which is a stupid thing to even think about.
 * 6) Kodama constantly says quotes from other people to sound philosophical, or as Mother's Basement would say, "She does it 9 fucking times in 1 fucking episode!". Shockingly, she's probably the best-developed character of the bunch as she eventually drops that.
 * 7) Lily is a stereotypical attractive class rep who's only there for fanservice as they pretty much make her breasts bounce whenever they can. What's worse is that she has a romantic attraction to her brother WHO IS 12 YEARS OLD! Not only that, but it's incestuous.
 * 8) Speaking of characters, THEY NEVER SHUT UP. They constantly feel the need to comment on absolutely everything, drastically decreasing the tension and making the show even more difficult to follow.
 * 9) Very awkward animation with the environment rendered entirely in 3d with real-life locations that are very detailed, only the 2d anime characters clash with this horribly and there's no sense that this is a real-world or that they're interacting with it.
 * 10) Speaking of the environments, the lighting is also super awkward as it pretty much just has bright beams of light everywhere that are very distracting and annoying.
 * 11) Despite the detail in the environments, you'll see a lot of flaws like architecture that doesn't fit, copy-pasted portions, and the fact that a fish-eye lens is constantly used to make it pretty disorienting.
 * 12) THE CAMERA. This is one of the worst parts of the show as it moves around constantly during fight scenes and even during a lot of everyday scenes. This might sound somewhat interesting, but don't expect anything on the level of the aforementioned Fate series, because the characters don't move nearly as fast as the camera, making them look very choppy and not fluid at all, and the constant camera movement could even be quite nauseating and headache-inducing for some.
 * 13) There are also moving 3d objects that the characters interact with, only these objects don't look real at all and clash with them because the character animation isn't nearly fast enough. These can even make the show impossible to stream as due to the number of particle effects and fast-moving 3d objects, it could cause the animation to glitch out.
 * 14) The rules of the Ziggurat (the world they go to when they fight) are very stupid. When someone's defeated, they only lose their hand shaker powers and get a papercut or bruise. Also, that world is completely devoid of any other life, meaning there are no consequences for losing.
 * 15) The story is so boilerplate and unoriginal that it's nauseating. The show even tries to be emotional at times but forgets one major thing: character development. In the end, it makes the scenes lose all their potential emotional weight.
 * 16) The show is only 12 episodes, yet they still put in the filler, like an episode where Koyori and Tazuna get part-time jobs and one where they have to save a school festival from a disaster. Those types of storylines are done to death in and out of anime and only serve to pad out the runtime of this show.
 * 17) Product placement: Lily and Masaru use the Japanese card game Precious Memories for their weapons and there's even a point where they distract Koyori by having her play a card game even though she will die if she's not holding Tazuna's hand.
 * 18) In case the incestuous relationship mentioned above wasn't bad enough, there's also a pedophilic relationship between Professor Nagaoka and Koyori's sister, Mayumi.
 * 19) A completely non-existent ending in the finale that shows Tazuna and Koyori getting ready to fight another hand shaker. This may have very well been sequel bait.
 * 20) Despite the overwhelmingly negative reviews from fans and critics alike, this show somehow got a sequel, W'z, which is stupid and impossible to pronounce the name (not to mention the show didn't improve on any of the negative parts of this show).

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Some actually kind of cool visuals in the Ziggurat, like the classical Japanese-style paintings of Koi fish, moving and going into the environment.
 * 2) The 2d animation is pretty decent when the camera isn't moving too much.
 * 3) Likewise, the character designs are beautiful.
 * 4) The ideas for its animation and fight scenes were pretty cool, even if they were poorly executed.
 * 5) An interesting soundtrack with plenty of actually catchy tunes, even if they're often used incorrectly.