‘Make My Day’ Review: An Great Sci-fi Story Brought Down by Subpar Animation

A couple of months ago, Netflix announced they would shut down their animation division. Several amazing shows went away with it, but at least Netflix still knows that animation is quite an excellent medium for telling all kinds of stories and that sometimes it can do it in ways that live-action can only imagine. Netflix still produces animation through third-party studios, and Make My Day, a new CGI science fiction anime, is just one of them. Can this new CGI effort break the curse of CGI anime stiffness?

Make My Day is a science fiction anime based on an original story by Yasuo Ohtagaki, an anime writer and illustrator who has worked on big franchises such as Mobile Suit Gundam. So, it is to be expected that he has what it takes to bring a science fiction world to life. The 8-episode series tells the story of Jim, a young artist working as a prison guard on the planet Coldfoot, the source of an energy resource that has become the new solution for humanity’s energy problem. However, as the company digs deeper into the planet, they might find something they didn’t want to.

Science fiction is genuinely one of the best genres for telling stories. The genre is flexible enough to serve as a window to talk about issues that affect us very much in today’s real world. It can also extrapolate and speculate about the future and what is coming for us. Science fiction stories inspire natural scientists to achieve what seems impossible, and they can also prepare humanity to receive some of the most significant changes that are around the corner. The genre can do all of this while being cool and entertaining.

That last bit, the entertainment factor, is one of Make My Day’s biggest strengths, which is surprising because many of the most surface-level elements of the show are so generic. Let’s look at the title, for example, Make My Day. It doesn’t give you anything about the world, the plot, or the characters, it is just a common-use expression, and as the story progresses, it might be taken as an ironic title, but it certainly isn’t a good one. The show is filled with elements like this, but they still manage to work as a whole, and for at least three hours, the display can make you stick to your seat.

The entertainment factor arises from the strength of the characters, which are all very well drawn. For example, Jim, our main protagonist, is defined very early in the show. By using tiny moments of characterization, Jim becomes a full-fledged character, and you can see him changing throughout the strange situation he is in. It is so satisfying to see characters that are easy to understand and easy to follow. Recently, it seems writers are more commonly thinking that a mysterious character with hidden intentions equals a compelling character, and they are often wrong.

The story, in general, is the series’ most significant asset. The pacing is excellent, and every new episode adds more information and pushes the characters a bit more toward the end goal. As you watch, it is clear that the author has taken influence from other famous stories of isolation and monsters going around killing stuff, like The Thing. However, because the characters and their situations are unique enough and feel accurate enough, it doesn’t matter how closely the story feels like an homage to those other stories. It still manages to be its own thing.

So the show has an excellent story filled with great characters; that alone is a weird find, but it is enough to make the show something science fiction fans need to watch. However, when it comes to the presentation, Make My Day stumbles quite a bit. The show uses controversial CGI techniques for the creation of the characters. Big-budget movies such as Dragon Ball Super: Superhero, and The First Slam Dunk, have already broken the formula for good CGI anime, but a TV series with fewer resources, such as Make My Day, is, sadly, still stuck in the past.

This is a shame because, in several parts, the show proves that 2D animation is still the way to go if you want to add detail and fluidity of movement to your characters and world. Everything feels so stiff regarding movement; it really makes each action sequence or normal everyday stuff feel weird. It also makes the characters quite expressionless. Characters’ expressions are fundamental to transmitting emotion and understanding, but the presentation suffers because the animation lacks so many details. When the character of Jim draws his own art, you wish that was the look of the show.

In the end, Make My Day overcomes being a low-budget CGI effort thanks to the strong writing, a simple plot, well-drawn characters, and great world-building. It makes for a short but exciting watch and makes you only hope that Netflix dares to bring more original stories like this to the realm of animation, but maybe in 2D this time. 3D is still on a frontier that requires just too much budget for an anime show to be able to realize its full vision on screen using this tool.

SCORE: 7/10