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May 27, 2021
No spoilers past episode 1
No matter how good a director is, they will never be able to save weak characters in a weak story with awkward animation. This 4 episode anime was marketed as “the same director as FMAB.” However, in both cases, the director is not responsible for the story, the characters, or the script. Having a good director can greatly benefit a production, but does not translate to being able to enjoy Eden because one enjoyed FMAB.
Everything is rushed which should be expected when everything is condensed into 4 episodes, 21-22 minutes in length, yet somehow, the beginning manages to
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feel painfully drawn out. There is very little time spent on any characterization, let alone character development. Similarly, the plot does not develop much and is very simply laid out as “this is the conflict, this is how they try to deal with it, this is the solution,” However, more problematic than the pacing, the viewer is not provided the richness in characters or plot to motivate any emotional investment in either.
The characters, there is zero development and very little characterization: only enough details necessary to demonstrate the characters have different personalities. The main character is a slight exception to this, as she gets a large portion of the screen time. However, even she feels underdeveloped, simplistic. and undeserving of any emotional investment from the viewer.
The story is essentially about two robots who find a human child in a robot dominated world where belief in the existence of humans is outlawed. Naturally, there are more humans than this single child, and there is a group of robots living as exiles for having such beliefs. Although this has potential, it doesn’t go anywhere interesting from there. There seems to be attempts at comedy, albeit aimed at the <10 year old demographic. Example: a robot spins around making a weird sound in reaction to something unexpected or referring to a baby pooping as being ‘[wasteful of their recharging.]” The story attempts a message but nothing novel, just the traditional, “hubris of humans not taking care of the planet” and presented with none of the subtlety which makes Ghibli films so powerful. It appears more as though the writers were just trying to check-off a box on their list of things they wanted to incorporate.
Finally, the art is pretty horrific. Although this can be subjective, vibrant, colors, high resolution and a high frame rate are not the formula for a good anime if everything else is bad. This is a perfect example of bad CGI. A mix of 2D and 3D background textures can make the entire environment feel awkward. The characters are three dimensional, but the shadows have very sharp cut offs which make things feel more of a traditional 2d cel-shaded design. The awkwardness of the animation of the faces of the characters convey little emotion and often undermine any emotion attempting to be created in a scene. Fortunately, the large number of faceless robots minimizes the impact this could have otherwise caused. Putting everything together creates a very jarring mashup of visuals similar to ex-arm or the 2016-17 Berserk adaptation.
As for the positive aspects of the show: the soundtrack was above average, it had a somewhat interesting premise, the background art was intermittently normal if you are able to ignore it clashing with the foreground.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Jun 24, 2020
SPOILER FREE
One of the most unique and intriguing features is the realism they try to embrace in the show. It shows the everyday lives of early 11th century Europe, the cultures of the time, and actual historic events. Unfortunately, this makes all of the unrealistic elements that much more jarring. For example, a guy throws an axe beheading multiple people without deviating course in the slightest. Also, a man throwing rocks the size of watermelons half of a kilometer gives it a battle shounen vibe breaking the realism they’ve attempted to construct. Getting rid of some of the physically impossible scenes
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and toning down the "OP MC"-ness of Thorfinn could have gone a long way.
This also is a problem with the art style. Although some of the scenes are beautiful, many of the CGI aspects stick out like a sore thumb, especially when they are in the same shot as 2D cel-shaded characters. A random object with depth which looks like it’s in a room with completely different lighting clashes harshly with the otherwise minimalist cel shaded characters and more traditionally animated backgrounds. The first episode has CGI hail falling on boats floating on CGI water (which was its own problem) that makes a Mary Poppins-esque visual contrast against the characters. Fortunately, this gradually, albeit only slightly, improved as the series progressed, and it wasn't so obnoxious that it took away too much from the anime. Even though it was the very first thing to annoy me in this anime, in the end, it's only a minor nuisance.
However, by far the biggest disruptor to the realism was the characters e.g. their motivations, their actions, their interactions with others. The nonsensical actions taken by the characters completely discomposes the authenticity they try to construct. When it is trying to go into an exploration of the nature of war or revenge, the characters have to act in a way in which a normal person would act. When you can’t make characters actions believable it’s hard to explore revenge as a motive or much less care about them. If this was a shounen, it might have gotten away with this as this is pretty widespread in shounen anime, but even the actions of the characters in Naruto were not as decoupled from realistic human behavior as in Vinland Saga (at least in one particular character’s case).
Similarly, people do not have massive personality shifts (essentially from one hyperbole to the opposite hyperbole). Outlooks and ideas may change, but when a completely new person is created, it just does not feel believable. *If* it were to be believable, the background of that character and their relationship to others needs to be flushed out to the point of believing it.
One of the other issues Vinland Saga runs into is the spoiler of knowing European history. Future seasons of the show have already been spoiled to an extent if you know which Danish kings ruled at which times.
Perhaps the most frustrating element was what it didn't do. It didn't make me particularly care about what was happening and even less about the people involved. Every time it felt like it wanted to be deep, it stayed not only away from the deep end, but they essentially stayed out of the pool entirely; yet the very serious atmosphere during these scenes came across as ostentatious, as if the producers and writers saw themselves as being the next Hegel or Kant for merely having mentioned the idea of what makes a death meaningful, the nature of a deity/deities, or what it truly means to love.
Despite these criticisms, it did a lot of things well. As poor as the visuals can be at times, the visuals were also a strength at other times, especially in the non-battle scenes and landscape shots. They pull off the Viking atmosphere very well. Some small slice of life moments capture the 11th century Europe feel without becoming a distraction from the story really brought the setting to life. The fighting scenes capture the brutality of the battles of the time without ever feeling like it’s resorting to shock gore. Even though this was largely a negative review, it was far from horrible, but I expected a lot more from a show which, going into watching it, felt like it had been made to specifically cater to my interests. I've heard things improve from here, so I am cautiously optimistic.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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May 5, 2018
Spoiler Free:
Devils’ line has several well executed elements - a terrific story, a solid romance, well animated, full of great dialogue without sacrificing action, SOME good characters, but there is one aspect which brings others down with it: the female lead, Tsukasa.
The story is phenomenal. There are multiple compelling sub-plots woven into the romance seamlessly making the anime appear as a single, multi-faceted story. The dark atmosphere is perfectly captured visually and through the voice acting. The pacing is fast which amplifies the drama, but perhaps at the cost of characterization. Also, in the first few episodes, the story felt
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a bit rushed. Devils’ line can hold its own on the story alone, even without the romantic component. The romantic aspect is good with respect to everything except for Tsukasa.
This is the entirety of what the audience knows about the female lead: She is in college; she takes good notes; she lives alone; she seems to be uninterested in guys; one of the classes she is in is a history class. She’s quiet. That is everything – we don’t know her hobbies, passions, family, after college plans, or anything about her personality other than being relatively reserved. That’s it. She seems to be made as generically as possible so female audience members can self-insert. However, if there is one thing Yuri On Ice should have taught the anime industry, it is you do not need a generic, female protagonist devoid of personality in a heterosexual relationship to create a romance appealing to a heterosexual female audience and becoming a massive financial success. The other characters were made quite well, and their personalities are portrayed in a “show don’t tell” way.
This anime could easily be 8 or 9/10 if only for slightly more character building of Tsukasa. Some have compared the story to Twilight, which I believe is unfair, as it is superior in many ways. However, they share one commonality outside of being a vampire romance, an uninteresting, underdeveloped female lead.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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