Anime: Koroshiya-1 The Animation Episode 0

Holy s*! I was flabbergasted from the first second to the end.

A loser "loses" it and starts killing people.

A storyline that had already been exploited under certain variants (Falling Down comes to mind pretty quickly), Koroshiya totally succeeds in delivering it again with Shiroishi, the main character around which the whole OVA is built.

A lot of emphasis is put on Shiroishi's "past" and how he got so delusional, and the loser/gore/sex/s-m combination (NOT for the faint of heart!) is exploited to the fullest. In my opinion, the total lack of censorship works amazingly well in making a believable, sadly pitiful character to whom a lot of people may identify. Who hasn't dreamed about having a revenge on those who bullied us when we were kids? The difference here being this guy's doing it for real (!), and denying it at the same time. Totally insane, and totally awesome.

What makes this OVA work so well is the pacing of the story, as well as its construction. You get a lot of information at times you don't even suspect, and the switches to Shiroishi's delusional states are incredibly well built up to the climax... and while this is not defined as a classic hentai, be warned that Shiroishi is also a sad pervert excited by things that may give you nightmares. Ugh.

An awesome soundtrack also drives the whole thing with high-paced heart beats, digitalized screams and industrial/heavy metal/techno beats well suited for the numerous adrenalin rushes and extremely violent scenes. To own for sure!

The only downside of this OVA is the crappy, cheap animation and character design that reminded me of Ping Pong Club turned uglier. While some may argue it fits the style of the story (bloody op and ed credits did the job pretty well though), I was so annoyed by the first few minutes that I would have stopped watching if it had not been for the strange opening sequence.

Final words: be mentally prepared!

I usually don't write reviews here, but since no-one had reviewed this yet and I felt that it deserved a little more attention I will give it a try.

Animation
The animation of the characters is pretty cheap and even ugly at times, probably because of a low budget, but it kind of fits the anime and other than that I like the style. And stylish it is, often very dark with pitch black shadows and the rest in monocolour, using only different tones of red, blue or another colour. There is also many closeups and strange camera-angles.
Character design is pretty okay, though sometimes people look really strange because of bad animation. Despite that, I liked the animation.

Sound
Now, THIS is something I really like about this anime, the music! You won't get to hear any of the typical cheesy music that you find in most anime. Instead we have some kind of electronic/industrial/metal music, pretty heavy at times, that fits the anime perfect. Maybe it will drive some of you as insane as Ichi himself, but I found myself watching the whole 7 minutes of ending credits, just because of the music. Maybe it is not as good to others as it is to me, I don't know, but it sure fits the mood.
As for the japanese voice actors, I think they did a good job, no complaints there.

Story
To begin with, this is not a complete story, and I really suggest you watch the live-action movie before watching this. Maybe reading the manga will do, I haven't read it so I cant comment on that. All I know is that if I hadn't seen the movie, I wouldn't have found this anime as interesting as I did now.
You will get to see a little more of the time before the movie, how Ichi became the killer he is. Just don't expect too much, since it really doesn't add that much to the story.

Value
I usually do not rewatch anything, ever, so I can't comment on the rewatch value. But I have a feeling I will be watching this one again some time, maybe after reading the manga, it's just 45 minutes long after all.

Enjoyment
As you may have understood, I enjoyed watching this, mostly because of the animation style and music. I don't know why others have given this such a low rating, but I guess that means this is not an anime for everyone. So I can't promise you will like it, but give it a try.