Hikyou Tanken Fam & Ihrlie

Story:
Stereotypical classic JRPG nonsense. Heroes are on a quest to retrieve a set of magical items that a powerful villain is searching for as well. Beyond that are plot points that become disposed of quickly and by the end of the 2 hour run-time you're comfortable not knowing the ending to a few sub-plots. The narrative doesn't take itself very seriously with a plethora of jokes hackneyed throughout, and at the points it becomes somewhat serious it's still rather basic and doesn't try anything fancy. Straight forward, but not schlock. Thank goodness. All of this comes together to become a check-list of classic fantasy adventure ... tropes that get checked off one by one. That's alright, since I wasn't really asking for much more after 2 episodes in. It satisfied me enough and I found it pretty enjoyable, even if one episode ends with the characters ship-wrecked and the next episode starts with them in the middle of a desert.


Art:
I really enjoy the 90's rough sketch look of this anime but with that comes some other lazy animation decisions. For instance, the action is non-existent. It became very evident that after the first episode I wouldn't be witnessing a shred of combat. I believe there are roughly 3 sequences of actual hack-and-slash while the rest are the heroes surrounding by creatures (a very limited bestiary, by the way) and then the next scene the creatures are defeated. Again, not to bothersome. None of it really questioned my intelligence or made me feel like I missed out on anything. Rather, it's like a check-list similar to the tropes that needed to be knocked off in the story.

The setting is largely barren and uninspired. Deserts are easy to animated. Oceans are easy to animate. Destroyed locations are easy to animate because it's rubble. I would have appreciated some more, I don't know, 'definition' to the setting, but that would require another episode to elaborate on some certain aspects, such as "this swamp has X history and Y lore and so we must be careful." And then it turns into filler. More of a story critique, but how the art is handled can affect the story.


Sound:
The Soundtrack was actually pretty good, but after 4 episodes it's repeat songs that lose their effect. Unfortunate, as the directive approach towards the music was pretty fantastical and had adventure at it's core. Very cool, but wears thin quick.

Sound effects were forgettable and all stock stuff everyone has heard before. One creature repeated the same battle-cry over and over and it became less so intimidating and more-so irritating. I couldn't wait for it to die.


Character:
Sufficient. Ihrie was quite interesting but the narrative shifts its leads haflway in and she gets put on the backburner. A shame, but nothing could be done. The narrative introduces Lyle in the second episode who becomes the backbone of the stories progression, so it couldn't be helped that the original 2 characters get knocked back.

Everyone is stock. There's nothing all that interesting here. It's just basic but in the end gets the job done.


Enjoyment:
Content. It was neat. Had the run time been more than 4 episodes I can guarantee that my interest would have waned.


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It's some good 90s fun.
The english dub is serviceable, the animations are nice and I especially love the designs of the characters.
The artstyle is very reminiscent of the late 90s series like early Pokémon and especially Slayers given the fantasy setting.
The story is like a mash of every JRPG you've ever played so it's nothing unpredictable, although that isn't a bad thing, honestly it was a fun watch and the length of 4 episodes was the right choice.
I think it's a good show to put on when you don't want to pay too much attention and have a bit of light hearted fun.

Note: I watched this a few days prior to writing, so i may be a little hazy on a few details. And first review :D

I heard about this anime a long while back and in a fit of boredom and curiosity, i decided to take a look. Unfortunately the 2 hours i spent watching this could have been used to watch something more interesting.

The plot is fairly straight forward, the two main protagonists, Fam and Ihrie, are two female treasure hunters or "Ruin Explorers", on the quest to find the Ultimate Power

One of the main problems i had with this series is it's short length. ... At only 4 episodes (each around 30 minutes, so around 2 hours in total), i feel that the story could have been much more interesting and memorable if they had more time to flesh out the characters and show us some more scenes of actual ruin exploring, which is surprisingly lacking in the second half of the series. It also doesn't help that the story is incredibly generic, the art style is nothing to write home about either. Just typical mid 90s anime style that is similar to Slayers.

The supporting cast is rather forgettable, and i found the antagonist to be very generic. The final battle is pretty forgettable and the ending is very bland.

The music, is unfortunately no different. The J-Pop intro didn't leave an impression on me at all and the rest of the soundtrack is...like i have been saying a lot in this review, generic and forgettable.

But one thing i can say is that Ihrie and Fam are fairly likeable protagonists that actually have weaknesses, something which i appreciate immensely and we should have seen more of them doing actual ruin exploring.

Overall, rather forgettable. But i can see some people possibly enjoying this more than i did. Fans of 90s anime and fantasy might get a kick out of this.