Evil or Live

Alt title: Lixiang Jinqu

TV (12 eps)
2017 - 2018
Fall 2017
2.697 out of 5 from 1,758 votes
Rank #17,270
Evil or Live

In this modern society, a new kind of "illness" is striking young boys and girls; loneliness, disbelief, and outrage push this generation to get more or more attached to the Internet and technologies. The experts called these symptoms "Net Addiction." To prevent that, a certain Rehabilitation Facility has been set up to "Lead the young man back to the right path". Enrolled to treat his addiction, Hibiki had no idea that this Rehabilitation Facility is nothing more than a prison. In this place where escaping is not permitted, how will Hibiki challenge despair in this hell?

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Standing on the Edge of Despair

Episode 1

Standing on the Edge of Despair

Between Cruelty and Kindness

Episode 2

Between Cruelty and Kindness

Short-Sighted Justice

Episode 3

Short-Sighted Justice

Walking a Thorny Path

Episode 4

Walking a Thorny Path

Their Parting of the Ways

Episode 5

Their Parting of the Ways

Further Into Darkness

Episode 6

Further Into Darkness

A Decision at Rock Bottom

Episode 7

A Decision at Rock Bottom

Budding

Episode 8

Budding

Evil Descending

Episode 9

Evil Descending

Secrets to Be Hidden

Episode 10

Secrets to Be Hidden

The Icy Wall of Despair

Episode 11

The Icy Wall of Despair

Evil or Live

Episode 12

Evil or Live

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Reviews

Beanow
1

Let me drop a review of this before anyone wastes another second on this piece of Dong Yi. There is absolutely nothing good to get out of this show. Nothing. So move along now. Get on with your life. Still here are you? Let me elaborate on my choice of all 1's then. Story The writing may be the part of this anime I have the biggest problem with. If the underwhelming premise didn't tip you off, let me assure you these were 3 episodes of cringe. It tries to do psychological grim shits-all-messed-up, but the setting and the dialog are simply not credible enough to feel anything but insulted. It tries to do comedy, but I had more fun doing my taxes. It tries to do plot twists, multiple times per episode, but they basically created their own spoilers. Sometimes you will hear one characters' thoughts telling you all about their evil plan, then 2 minutes later there's a "confrontation" where some dialog plays out this evil plan you already knew about. Other times you get a scene where you as the viewer can see the twist, but then are forced to watch the main character as he finds out too and gives you some stupid dialog spelling out the problem with that. Animation Before attempting to watch this I might have claimed that a decent psychological anime can get away with weird and low quality animation. Evil or Live deserves an honerable mention in the hall of shame to show that any genre, requires a base level of passable animation to be fun to watch. Aside from this being line art filled in with single flat colors, stuttering about at not enough frames per second, the corner cutting is beyond blatantly aweful. Wow psychological scene, add black bars and a grain filter. Making detailed vomit is hard! We'll just make it white. Details are hard. Skip that. Animating 20 minutes worth is hard! We'll add an intro to shave off some time. If you're not annoyed by at least a few of these after 2 episodes, then... you should learn to value yourself more. Sound Oh right there was sound. I think. The only memorable sound I heard thus far was the annoyingly whiney main character. Although the insultingly bad writing finally did it for me, the reason I considered dropping this anime after EP1 was that god awful whining of the main character. OP and ED perfectly mediocre. Sound effects or BGM? Forget it. Everything sounds the same regardless of environment. Whether it's in your face, imagined or over someone's headphones. Perhaps the audio guy got a headacke after recording the main character's lines and couldn't be bothered to do the rest. Characters So, we are set in a large complex with by the looks of it thousands of people in it. How is it that in 3 episodes there's not a single likeable, hateable or relatable character introduced yet? We have, placeholder guards, placeholder students, wtf headmaster, muscleheads, unambitious master mind, plot device 1, plot device 2, the crush you don't want a crush on, and the main character who can't get anything done. Did I forget anyone? Probably... The terrible storytelling just blows any potential these characters might have had. Overall All in all I believe this a great anime as punishments for losing a bet, reference material in the hall of shame or for a "top 10 least enjoyable ways to destroy brain cells" video on youtube.

Rascal
1

*spoiler free review* So you want to make an anime?  Hey there, sport! I see you're just itchin to make yourself your very own anime! Well luckily it's 2018, and you, yes you, have the power to make your very own. You've had no experience? Don't worry! We've built you a perfect model called Evil or Live that will help you succeed at making the perfect anime. Like any good anime, yours should start with its foundation, the story. Stories are tough, and hard to come up with, so first tie a few words to a dart board and write down whatever you hit. Tyrrany, Bullying, BDSM, Backstories, Fanservice, Internet, Prison, parody? Throw parody away, because this is a serious anime. The rest sound like fuckin gold to me! Be sure to throw those in at random places in your script to make your viewer alienated, as well as constructing themes that absolutely no one can relate to. The actual narrative is the tough part. But I'll let you in on a little secret since it's your first time, buckaroo: just find a barnyard, sit under a random animal and write down whatever comes to mind! Be sure to use your keywords and make the dialogue cringey as possible. Now you have your beautiful story! Shoddily scrap that thing together and make sure to not resolve anything by the end and completely disregard any continuity. But slow down there sport, no anime story is complete without cool relatable deep insufferable characters. Keep 'em edgy and gross, give them annoying voices and a grand total of zero character growth until the very end. The MC should be base level. Start him out as a Wimp and then randomly become an edgy anti hero for no reason and contribute anything to the actual story or world. Add as many inconsequential characters as possible so that you can say you have a "diverse cast." Now wait a minute, you say. Isn't an anime supposed to have animation?! Well of course, you dimwitted asshole, but that's optional! A good anime will have some degree of animation. What's that? Your budget is only 93¢? Don't worry! There are plenty of free open source programs to choose from, and your animation skills don't need to be up to par to make a successful anime. Now that you have your knockoff bootleg adobe flash crack copy from your korean cousin up and running on your now smoking computer, it's time to get those techniques down. Always observe physics in a dreamlike environment, and make the movements of the characters and objects as unrealistic as possible. A floating rock makes no sense? Screw that, this is your art. And no one can tell you how things work in YOUR world! It's going to be bland without a soundtrack, so since there are thousands of sfx to download, choose only 3 and sprinkle them out through the whole show. Once you're done, you can pick up some extra ctrl, c, and v keys from your local department store. Doesn't matter if the theme songs don't fit the anime, remember: this is art. It doesn't have to make sense. Wait, it's not done yet! How are you going to get people to stick with your anime, if you don't have Fanservice? that's right, put the boobs in there and add those butts. Doesn't matter if its actually attractive or makes sense in the story, it's fanservice and you've just GOTTA have it. And that's it, export that in movie maker at a low framerate, run that thing under a shitty film grain filter and you've just created your very first anime! I hope you're proud of yourself. It's like a wise man once said: With a bunch of bullshit - and a little bdsm, you can make your dreams come true!

SilverFlame
5

Here's the thing. All other reviews are bashing the shit out of this anime like there was no tomorrow and most of it comes out of disappointment rather than fair judging. What is disappointing with this anime is simply that it is mediocre. On each scale (no eyecatching anime, no thrilling sound and no impressive character development, except for the leading role). Very very very rarely do i make review, but this time i'll try and do this anime more justice, than what the other reviews are doing it. Story So the concept is simple. Too much internet is bad and now there is a re-educational program (prison) to convert these internet addicts back to normal. Your guardians or parents can sign you up for this without your consent. BOOM now you're in. Turns out, this "school" stays true the this purpose, HOWEVER, their way of executing this is through punishment and exhaustive and rigid training. From here on out it is a matter of how the author wants the story to go. Every single choice in the story makes sense when you look at the show afterwards. Too much sense. Sure there are many plot twists, but you kinda expect them. *early spoiler* Confused teenager gets offered to fuck his school crush and he accepts... wouldn't you too? Experience the principals of the school and he succumbs... surprise surprise who wouldn't?  My point is that the story progresses but it never catches or intrigues you like Full Metal Alchemist or Rainbow: N R S does. But the story never goes batshit crazy or confusing like Pupa or FLCL, so it lands on a 5. Not impressive, but not horrible. Animation Same idea. Not "a garden of words" details, but also not Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann or Kill la Kill. Once again a 5. Sound The VA's are doing a solid work to make the characters sound "true", where Evil or Live goes up in flames is on the syncronising process. Both for the VA's and the regi sounds. Far too many times are they off key and you notice it and it bothers you. 3. Characters Many of the characters become temporary, like present in one or two episodes and then we never see them again. However, the ones we do see gets satisfying background stories (given that it is 12 episodes). Be it Shian, Shin, Hibiki or Shiori, they're all justifiable, but not thorough and i'll explain shortly. This is why it gets 5. They're not flat characters, but you don't sympathise or hate the character much either. What went wrong? A lot of the things going wrong lies in the technical aspect. The story was fastpaced, the social order switched far too often and the structure seems forced... It was done it 12 episodes. Most of the time, anime fail because of budget or bad production teams and this reflects on the quality of the anime. Evil or Live would've fitted better as a 25 episode anime. Giving more time to indulge in the tragedies, the lies, the psychological plays and make everything more thorough (most noticably in the reasons why the main role makes the choices he does and why the school seems so simple if they have a thousand student). Evil or Live is brittle, short, fast and for all the wrong reasons. 25 episodes would change all of this, making the concept stronger, more support for the empathic characters and make the anime more believable. I wouldn't recommend this anime to anyone, but i will never call this anime the worst of the worst, on any points. It just becomes one of the many.

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