天下制覇

Did someone set out to make the world's most generic and average action anime?

The first two episodes had an early English-locked pre-air. Actual broadcast begins on July 1st. I'll do episode 2 tomorrow.

Impressions:

Man, the writing for this show in the first half is dire. It's like it was adapted from a game with silent protagonists, which it was not. Time and time again, characters turn to the protagonists and say things like "As you know, you had that dream again last night," or "As you know, it's always been your dream to fight monsters." And then there's about a three to four minute long session where it just goes through literally every named character and they introduce themselves with their name and their power. I think back to Horizon's opening episode, organically showing off what every character could do, slickly and in a fun way, never once having to cut to a completely red background because art is just too damn hard so let's just punish people's retinas.

Which leads us to the other side. The action is just really, really mediocre, even ignoring the goofy CGI legged flower pots as monsters, although I'm sure I'll regret saying that when a couple other action shows that are primarily stills come out… on Thursday. No matter what you're looking for in an action show, be it slick choreography, over the top direction, or even just bad-ass super dramatic poses, this won't get you there, but kind of half-asses all of it. The whole thing is almost like "Generic Action Show #7124," without doing anything that would give it its own identity or character. It's not visceral or bloody. It's not visual popcorn. The characters are all thin cliches. The story is non-existent. Sure, obviously it's to advertise/sell the game, but why not just go… play the game?