The very first shot in High-Rise Invasion is of a pool of blood, and that is just the beginning. My first reaction was, “Oh, no. Is this just a mindless bloodbath with no real storyline?” After the first two episodes, it appeared to be so. But I have this one rule: Don’t give up on an anime series until you have seen five or six episodes. I have found many which take their time in setting up the basic plot and establishing characters.

Around episode 3, I found that High-Rise Invasion does have a plot, and a pretty good mystery to solve. But first you have to get through multiple killings and oceans of spurting blood.

The premise? Yuri is a high school girl who, like so many others, is taken into another realm where people are hunted by others in white masks. It really is more complicated than that, as we soon learn. All Yuri wants to do is to find her older brother, who is also somewhere in this nightmare, and to leave. Along the way she forms many unlikely alliances.

There are some interesting characters, such as Sniper Mask, but there are even more characters who are not in the least bit interesting. Then there is all that bloodletting getting in the way of the story. The story seems to be used just as an excuse to kill more characters in the most gruesome manner possible. Oh, and also endless panty shots. Just as I thought the series was getting interesting, a quick break so we can see more people slaughtered – and even more panty shots. Though for a while the series did grab my interest, I eventually found myself getting a bit weary of it all.

Despite these drawbacks, High-Rise Invasion comes fairly close to succeeding. Close, but still a bit off the mark. I am not interested in season 2.