The title of this series is, unquestionably, very cool. It's intriguing. I would even argue that the idea the anime is named after is also very cool. Dusk Maiden has some provocative and attractive imagery, and the atmosphere is pretty distinct, but it loves to ruin it with thoughtless use of what I'm going to call "anime nonsense" to rope in a more casual audience. I was initially inspired by some of its concepts, but ultimately Dusk Maiden durdles with them for 12 episodes to poor effect, telling a weak story amid a sea of potential. In much the same way that people can't see Yuuko the ghost, the creators of this anime seem to be totally blind to the compelling elements around them, satisfied with the staggering adequacy of their work. The overwhelming positivity of these reviews is kind of shocking to me.
The good? Dusk maiden has a cool art direction. It may technically be a "high school anime", but the setting is unusually ominous, and its abandoned appearance is fairly unsettling. It isn't my favorite artstyle, but it's cohesive, and there are some pretty striking shots. The general premise is also pretty strong, even if they don't do their best to showcase it. It starts off kind of aloof, but develops into something that has me asking a lot of questions and making a lot of guesses, in a good way. I'm also just a big fan of somewhat overt metaphors in anime, especially physical manifestations of a character's emotional or mental ideas. It's an avenue that opens up some fun ways to tell a story, and I'm always happy to see it.
Now, I'm well aware that this sounds crazy, but for a 12 episode series Dusk Maiden has way too much filler. The creators confuse plot and character development with seeing characters do silly little things, and you're left with a plot that doesn't actually go anywhere for a long time. Now, don't get me wrong, it all comes down to the kind of story you want to tell; if Dusk Maiden were a slice of life series, I wouldn't have the same critique. But it's not, and I say that pretty confidently for two reasons: 1) it clearly has a story it's focused on instead, and 2) it's just not good at the slice of life content, there's no way that's the point. That said, the first episode has a great structure and is the only filler-ish episode I thought was executed well. When the plot finally does start up, the show assumes all the filler made you care about the characters, but that's just not how it works; the filler doesn't have the emotional depth to develop those feelings on its own, and there wasn't a lot to care about before the filler started. Now, for clarity, most episodes have tiny bits of information that will be relevant later--the "filler" is padding within the episode, not the episode as a whole. That's kind of worse, though. All in all, there are maybe four or five episodes worth of content total. The OVA, if you're wondering, is filler.
So that's not great, but can you still salvage some value from the filler? The answer: eh. If you're desperate for fanservice, this series loves to give the ghost excuses to disrobe, and the the protagonist follows the lucky pervert trope, accidentally grabbing the ghost's boobs all the time. When the filler isn't fanservice, it's one of two jokes: 1) the main character freaking out because of fanservice, or 2) the ghost is a quirky prankster. I wouldn't call this series funny because the humor is generally pretty weak, and I wouldn't call it sexy because the fanservice is transparent and eye-roll-inducing.
Don't get your hopes up, though--once the filler is over, they don't do their own themes justice. The show needs a little more self-awareness, a little more sense carved into the plot, something to ground this strange world to ours. Dusk Maiden does an okay job with its setup-and-reveal style of mystery, where early details that resemble unassuming anime tropes are later explained through the plot. But it's sort of a weird effect, since it starts you off with the uninteresting part. Sure, that's a weird choice, but the worst thing about Dusk Maiden is that it squanders its premise; such a small amount of its interesting concept is explored that you can only be left with disappointment. This is not to say that the show is obtuse, because it's quite the opposite; Dusk Maiden revels in overexplaining its incredibly simple plot. Hell, it spends an entire "story-focused" episode on what amounts to like one minute's-worth of new information. Watching Dusk Maiden is like experiencing a bizarre form of sleep paralysis; you just have to sit there and watch great ideas stagnate. Imagine giving someone a ride in your luxury sports car, but instead of letting them explore any of its luxury features, you keep pointing out basic features that every other car also has. Dusk Maiden's many inspired concepts are staring you down, but the director keeps shoving played-out anime tropes in your face. Again, there are about 4 episodes-worth of an interesting story in there, and they do prod at some compelling ideas, they just don't do anything great with them.
Lack of character development isn't the only problem; they're also pretty uninspired to begin with. You tell me, though, which genre does this sound like? An unremarkable guy with very little personality gets put into a situation where he is surrounded by group of pretty girls (and only girls) that are all romantically interested in him for no good reason. Surprise, it's a harem anime! The girls also fail the Bechdel test pretty hard, and the majority of the show is either the ghost behaving lewdly and flirting with the main character, or the side characters being jealous and wishing their bodies were different to attract a guy. There isn't much that makes them feel like people, let alone different from the side characters in every generic anime ever. The one exception is Yuuko, the ghost. She is the reason this anime exists, and is the only one with an actual story to tell. I don't love her character, but it was easily the best in the series.
Speaking of the romance aspect, would you like to know a big pet peeve of mine that Dusk Maiden suffers from? When a show spends no time developing a romance, but then they want the romantic payoff to happen, so they outsource all the missing character development to something quick and easy like evocative imagery or a loaded phrase. The romance had incredible potential because of the premise, and they seemed to be aware of this when building up the plot. Unfortunately, like I said earlier, the creators seem totally blind to what makes their own plot compelling, and it leaves the series feeling like a weird cash-grab. Why else would they abandon their own ideas for regurgitated content from other profitable anime? The other option is that they genuinely didn't understand their own story, which I find hard to believe. The plot is so weakly justified on a romantic level that it leaves the character motivations as a whole feeling unrelatable.
So yeah. Some cool ideas left by the wayside in favor of boring anime nonsense. Are the 12 episodes worth a watch for what little interesting story there is hidden away in there? No, not really. It is entirely adequate, but I wouldn't say "good", and I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone.
