Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra

Armed Librarians: The Book of Bantorra has had a very strong divide among opinions this past season. I have seen many people praise this show in the anime blogosphere, while forum activists on big sites such as ANN criticize it to death. I’m sure there are many people in the middle who just don’t know what to think or are uncertain to try it. I hope that my review will clear some of that uncertainty away.

Story

Now here is something original. After a person dies, their memories turn into a stone tablet called a "book" that leaves their body to be ... collected. When someone comes along and touches that person’s book, they can see vivid imagery of their past as if they were really there to witness it. These are very special books and must be kept safe at all costs, and that is what the Bantorra Library serves to do. A group of people known as the Armed Librarians guard these books with their lives using psychic powers.

This story is NOT linear with a one-track mind. Instead, it branches off into many intricate subplots. You will see the Armed Librarians tracking down stolen books, recruiting new members, having personal quarrels and drama, going on adventurous missions, and each character pursuing their own personal and hidden agenda. They also fight their common enemy known as the Sindeki Kyoudan, an enigmatic religious group that manipulates people against the library for its own reasons. There is much discussion about heaven and what it means to be a “true man” to enter such a place.

After a while, the story does not seem to have a clear focus. It hops around to many different issues, never staying on a single one for too long. Criticism has been heavily placed on this area because the story can get confusing fast. Often times you might be mislead to believe that main story will be about this or that particular thing. I actually like that, but it is required of you to pay close attention to the events to appreciate how they all come together near the end.

The last thing I will say about the story is that I love its unpredictability. This anime makes you think. Nothing is straightforward, and there seems to be a plot-twist within every subplot..and that’s a LOT of plot-twists. The story, so full of secrets, character betrayals, and philosophical questions, will take you for an entertaining ride.

Characters

There are 30+ characters listed under this anime, and you’re introduced to a whole lot at once. The characters shine just as magnificently as the story does; they each have very detailed backgrounds and different motives. It is not really clear on which people are the bad guys and the good guys. It is also not clear on which character is the main one that we should be focusing on. Everyone gets the same amount of attention.

I give much praise to the characters because a handful of them are refreshing and have strong personality. I had my doubts about how well they would turn out to be, but they took me by surprise. The characters are very dynamic, meaning that they change and develop internally. As the show steadily progresses, you’re constantly being introduced to someone new and exciting.

The character section on this page does a good job in describing each character and their psychic ability, so I recommend reading those if you want to know the specifics.

Animation

One of the first things I hear people say when they start watching this is that the characters look unappealing, and the CGI looks very out of place.

Either you love the character designs or you don’t. They appear more on the dark-outlined, shadowy side without much shine, but it's best if you take a look for yourself. Some of the female characters look a bit masculine also. Despite all this, I thought that the designs were okay.

If you are patient enough to get to the best fighting scenes in this anime, you won’t be disappointed. High production values were saved for these moments, and the CGI gets put to good use.

Sound

This is where your personal taste really comes in. I found the OST to be fantastic. As a fan of Ali Project, I liked the first OP theme called “Datengoku Sensen.” The background music is also enjoyable and consists of many low-key orchestral sounds that suit the suspenseful atmosphere.

Overall

Armed Librarians is an entertaining, action-packed anime that uses its large, developed cast to its advantage. The story may seem rather confusing and directionless at times, but it all pays off towards the end. I recommend this anime.

When it comes to settings of fictional pieces, Armed Librarians: the Book of Bantorra has certainly an interesting one: deceased people who turn into books, and librarians that keep those stored in the huge library of Bantorra. Although it has an intriguing story to show, its narrative is lackluster, never really knowing on what it wants to focus on. Don't get the wrong impression, it has some good story arcs alongside some endearing characters.

The anime focusses on the books as well as the armed librarians, people with psychic powers, tasked with retrieving and maintaining the huge archives. As it will, it is not that simple: ... an organisation by the name of Sindeki Kyoudan thwarts the librarians because of opposing ideologies. The integrants of said organisation strive becoming the best and most valuable books by achieving maximum happiness, what basically boils down to doing whatever one pleases, including homicide. In essence, armed librarians exist to counter said party.

The whole anime is divided is several small arcs, ranging from background stories of the main cast, to people affected by the divide between the two powers. An example would be the "Meat", who are mindless humans turned into bombs. It shows audiences the various powers, the effects of books on the population, as well as exposing the reason of the library including some of the characters. However, when taking a closer look to the structure of the narrative, in addition to some of the arcs provided, it is quite messy.

First of all, some of the plots introduced are carefully executed, just to be resolved in a matter of episodes with arguably weak conclusions that do not live up to the quality of the build-up episode(s). Other problem is the sparse introduction of plot lines, just to be left aside to suddenly pop up again much later. A non linear narrative is not an issue on its own, yet when done with little to no coherence, it just leaves confusion in the viewer on the reason of such approach. Finally, the conclusion of the series is rather underwhelming, where it simply culminates into a cluster of battles with a rather poor explanation on the existence and reasons of some of the mysteries surrounding the lore of that world.

As for the characters of Armed Librarians, it is as a whole rather generic and uninteresting to the exception of a few, despite having a large cast of characters. The cast can be easily described by their personalities: the one blinded in self justice, a strict person, the incredibly person, a battle hungry killing machine, a lady-killer, you name it. The main problem is that most characters are either left unexplored or are too one-dimensional to feel any interest in them.

Naturally, there are some exceptions; for instance there is long hair Enrique whose struggle with his destiny as a "Meat" has interesting consequences to his character, as well as providing development as a person. Volken is another example, although it offers interesting points to the main plot, as a character he is wasted. Then there is the strongest librarian of all, the killing machine Hamyuts Meseta, who receives some fleshing out explaining her nature, albeit being a bit uninspired; but hey, it can be very entertaining watching a woman kick ass as she does, and that with a simple sling.

The animation was overall well executed with fluent battle scenes in addition to some great backgrounds. Character designs are not too generic providing a nice change to the usual ones, although in some occasions some discrepancies could be found when viewed from different angles. As for the soundtrack used, it is as whole matching with the anime, yet not outstanding. The same could be said about the voice actors, although in some cases they managed to convey ones personality in a great manner.

Armed Librarians: the Book of Bantorra was overall an enjoyable watch, with intriguing small arcs, where sadly the structure of the narrative as well as the somewhat aimlessly story were the main reasons for a lesser experience. It offered some interesting characters, alongside a nice setting. Although personally it is not a great anime, it surely is entertaining enough, and thus recommended to anyone with some spare time, and not swayed by the messy narrative.

Thank you reading.

I've decided to drop The Book of Bantorra after watching five episodes. I had to force myself to watch 5 episodes.
Story. What story? Where? Oh yeah. There are some books which are actually remnants of dead people's lives. Kuroshitsuji? Tsubasa Chronicle (not the main story, of course)? I just had a problem with seeing why these books are so important that there exists an elite class within the society that protects them from some funky organization with an idiotic name and random beasts roaming around the library itself. Maybe there's some enlightement after the 5th episode, but I really don't care. Why am I not ... curious enough to find out?
There is not a single thing by which this anime stands out. It doesn't even suck enough for me to be curious about how much more it can suck. The art is ok. The characters are a bit less than ok, but not too bad. Mirepoc, Volken and Matt seemed fairly interesting, but not enough.
As you probably noticed, the two words I would use to describe this anime is "not enough".