Perhaps the most telling sign that things would go wrong is the 12-episode count. Most visual novels and RPGs run for dozens of hours, so cutting them down to 12-25 episode or 4.5-9 hour packages requires a deft hand and a deep understanding of the source material. The first two Blazblue games shouldn't have this issue. Assuming you use a guide to help get all the endings needed for the true ending, Blazblue Calamity Trigger can take about 10-11 hours at a decent pace, with the sequel, Continuum Shift, taking around as long. However, the final update release of CS, Continuum Shift Extend, comes with a tweaked and condensed retelling of most of the relevant information of CT's story, cutting everything down to around 4 hours. As such, adapting a 14-ish hour package into 2-cours wouldn't be too bad. Hell, even 12-14 episodes wouldn't be too astronomically terrible, assuming you're willing to fuck over certain characters' screen time and delete a few subplots entirely like the show did.
Unfortunately, that's the least of this anime's woes when compared to its abysmal time management and character handling. For some reason, Hitomi Mieno's series composition and the scripts that she and other writers drafted up allotted for 2 & ½ episodes for Calamity Trigger, almost as if they were given completed copies of the game and told only to adapt Ragna's story and like one other story before turning to the true ending. You'd think that would mean the other 9 & ½ episodes would be spent on Continuum Shift, a game that needs its own cour if you're being frugal with time. Unfortunately, as if the 12 episode mandate the producers probably agreed to and slapped the team down with wasn't bad enough, apparently we needed episode 5 to be a fucking onsen episode and episode 8 to be an anime-original episode focusing on exactly one relationship. Sure, there are some relationships in these games that could benefit from some expansion, but why in the name of all that is holy is the filler content as long as the first game's screen time and why did they cut the 9 & ½ episodes of actual CS content down to 7 & ½?! Hell, given all the changes they made to characters like Noel and Makoto which mandated several new scenes, we actually have even less content from both games being adapted. Episode 1 alone gives you an idea of just how catastrophically awful the pacing is in practice, as you’re inundated with cobbled together scenes that constantly have no connective tissue or flow together in the most arbitrary way possible in ways that make it feel like a mediocre trailer. A series with a cast and lore as convoluted and stuffed as Blazblue really needs all the time it can get to present all its information in a digestible manner for newcomers, and the anime winds up doing the exact fucking opposite!
It's not like they had a good grasp of the characters until arguably the final ⅓, either! It feels like they wanted to amplify how much of an abrasive ass Ragna was in the original Calamity Trigger and the early part of Continuum Shift while introducing weird tsundere-like elements, removing much of the chemistry and life that made him fun, and removing what little bits of positivity he had. As such, he comes across as far more of an edgelord for ⅔ of the show’s runtime. They do in fact embellish one particular relationship and scene with him quite well in the latter half of the show, but it’s not enough. The balance between his more caring side and all of his more grumpy and volatile and unpleasant sides was thrown too far out of whack, making him go from an insanely fun protagonist to someone far less likable. It’s not like they don’t try to preserve at least the straight-man qualities he has when interacting with the weirdos around him, but the pacing and presentation only make that feel as flaccid as his gruff edgelord moments. Other characters tend to feel like shells of their former selves as well, at least when they even have actual screen time cuz naturally some characters who had their own marginally relevant arcs like Litchi and Carl had to be gutted. Oddly enough, it feels like Mieno also wanted to make Makoto Nanaya more relevant without having to adapt her (optional) story given that as a newcomer in CS, the character basically disappeared in the 2nd half of the game. Unfortunately, the results feel rather tasteless, and other major characters like Jin “serial slasher smiler” Kisaragi and Noel Vermillion hardly get to show off some of their more memorable qualities in favor of flanderized gimmicks and questionable decision-making, respectively.
Speaking of Noel, she probably has it about as bad as Ragna early on with how much of a fucking dipshit she is regarding Ragna in a bunch of anime-only scenes. Yeah, of the 2 & ½ episodes spent on Calamity Trigger, a not insignificant chunk of time was spent on pointless rewrites that only serve to make the viewer ask why she keeps persisting on trying to get to know the gruff SSS-class wanted criminal dickhead protagonist on slight. Then you remember that they probably wanted to expand on the relationship the two barely had in Continuum Shift so that when Ragna has to help her after kicking her to the curb, it can be that extra bit more compelling. Honestly, even aside from how many times the writers tried to awkwardly embellish character relationships instead of letting anything breathe, the presentation of the cast feels so wooden and everyone’s quirks had to be removed. Barring the main antagonist, Terumi, the cast has been sanded down to a bunch of nothingburgers with none of the chemistry, style, or charm that elevated them beyond that in the games. Naturally, some of these cuts, including the removal of much of what made the first game’s antagonist Nu-13 so compelling, make sense given they had to adapt 2 games into 12 episodes. However, it doesn’t feel like they had a remotely good grasp on how to really preserve the identity of the series and its cast until arguably the last ⅓ of the series.
Too bad the production values stayed dire throughout, and only got worse as time went on. The anime preserves none of the style of flair that each character's moveset provides them in the 2D anime fighters, instead reducing fights down to generic shounen explosion crash-fests that sometimes contain terrible CG and characters being reduced to lines being slapped together. Even the artwork is notoriously inconsistent, with melted or jagged facial expressions being quite common for this already overly glossed anime art style. Perhaps it’s a minor blessing that most fights are unreasonably short given how poor the animation is for most of them. Hell, this is one of the few anime where the lip-synching can feel more noticeably off than usual from time to time. Admittedly, there are some neat backgrounds for the underexplored setting of Kagutsuchi, and there are a couple of decent cuts to count on one hand. However, it's obvious that neither Studio Hoods nor director Hideki Tachibana are exactly action powerhouses. Neither is teamKG for the record when you consider how that studio only did 4 projects in its lifetime if you include the BBAM Specials, and 2 of them were short VN OVAs. It honestly feels like this project was probably only given to these teams and this director due to some of the promo material and artwork having boobs.
Fuckin producers, man.
The only real highlight of Alter Memory is the music composed by Arte Refact. Each character’s theme from the games gets its own remix, including more jazzy piano versions for characters like Hazama. Plus, characters such as Lambda who didn’t even have a unique battle theme get a track to call their own. It certainly would have been neat for the games’ OSTs to have been incorporated alongside these new tracks, but it’s still cool that the team went the extra mile. The OP, “BLUE BLAZE” by Faylan is a straightforward fun rock song and the ED, “REINCARNATION BLUE” by Aira Yuuki, is a pleasant, calm pop bop to serve as a palate cleanser after each excruciating episode. The episode 12 ED, “synonym” by Faylan is a solid ballad piece to conclude the series as well, and at this point it’s become readily apparent that there isn’t a whole lot to say about BBAM’s music. It’s just solid, straightforward music.
If only the show itself could afford to be more straightforward. It can’t be understated just how many strange decisions were made that borked this adaptation beyond repair. If the show was double its length, that would automatically solve most of the show’s pacing and priority issues, though who knows if the characters would have still been adapted terribly or not. As things stand, Alter Memory’s a rushed, bloated nightmare that’s maddening for fans and almost indigestible for newcomers. The show’s mostly abysmal presentation only worsens matters, as you can’t even turn your brain off and enjoy it as an action romp with how poorly animated it is. Blazblue Alter Memory needed a lot more time and forethought in order to capture any of what made the games so compelling. Even as supplemental material, this show’s not worth the watch. Just listen to the OST and dub clips, and play the games instead if you were ever interested in giving this utter waste a shot.
