Spectral Force

I'm going through all the Idea Factory OVAs (all more or less promotional pieces for their visual novels and RPGs) and trying to make sense of them, without much success. What doesn't help, is that while the stories are generally meh, they also sometimes fall straight into incomprehensible – the first episode of Spectral Force is a great example. We start by seeing an angel(demon?) lady being fuckin' crucified and bleeding a lot of vividly pink raspberry sauce. Wow, edgy! Early Idea Factory generally seemed pretty fond of inserting random christian symbolism and over-the-top violence to this "Neverland" setting. How it ties into the story ... proper? Weeeeell... It doesn't, really.

Then we are treated to absolute visual clusterf***, with awful CGI, incomprehensible cuts and the anime generally ignoring its tiny runtime and taking its sweet time before getting to the point. The second episode finally focuses properly on the demon princess and her quest to defend what's left of her domain, but I can't say it made me super-interested in how the story continues in the RPGs. It's just all bland, disjoined and generic, with whatever nice stylistic choices that could've been ruined by hideous CGI environments and incredibly cheap 2D animation.

The first episode is actually pretty funny with how poorly constructed and cheesy it is, although the second one is mostly just boring. It's a decent "so bad it's good" kind of watch, but nothing more than that – if you're sober and respect your time, you should probably avoid it.

Story 3/10
So, from what I saw, the story seems to be that humans and demons are at war. It is now up to Hiro, a half-demon, half-human princess to put an end to the war.

Now, when you read the synopsis looks like a cool story right? Except that it is just poorly executed. I'm like ok so you got that story except that now you're confusing your audience 'cause you're putting these events that have close to nothing to do with the story.

Overall, it seemed like a great story and I was intrigued by it. I thought it was a cool concept, just really poorly ... executed.

Art 1/10
This has to be one of the worst animations I've ever seen, along with Superkids. In the second OVA, some scenes were improved, but it's still bad.

Character 3/10
There were some characters that seemed to be good, but like the story, I think the character development was poorly executed.

Enjoyment 2/10
It's just bad. I didn't enjoy the anime, but I was intrigued by the story that I kept going and it was not worth it.

Overall 2/10
Yeah, not worth your time. The animation is just awful. The story and characters were poorly executed. It's a shame 'cause the anime had potential, but everything is just really poorly executed. I would not recommend this.

Thanks for reading. Let me know your thoughts on this review and any feedback you may have for me. Until next time!

"there's something wrong here" mercenary.
"Why are you floating?" Hiro.
Story/Character: Spectral Force hints at large world building of a generic fantasy multi racial war. Watch Nanatsu no Taizai for proper art & story, or Shingeki no Bahamut for epic multi racial battles. But this story isn't as terrible as the synopsis. Here demons aren't typical villains. Demon lord Janus wanted to sacrifice himself by sealing some op excalibur (called "this" by the purple hero) with his body. By removing the op sword he hoped the world becomes peaceful.
Hiro is the half daughter who hates humans but somehow has human mercenaries serving her. She's left with her ... father's mess. Somehow both demons & humans like to attack her.
Shirou/Harry Potter, a tiny mercenary becomes important to the plot. Everyone has natural or funny dubs, but his is the most hilarious. [spoiler] He later becomes a manslave for a noble cause.
Besides the dry war conflicts. Dialogue among mercenaries, Hiro & other races can be funny. And the strained family relations is somewhat interesting among Hiro, her oneesan, Janus, brother who was banished by Janus, which includes power struggle for the demon clan heir after Janus.

Art: ok. There's a few short combat shots with smooth animation.
Sound: ED & osts are fine, maybe the best part of this (dub the 2nd best). There's even some epic pipe organ.

You can watch Spectral Force Chronicle Divergence for more about the world with better art, but less animation. It seems a remake with similar scenes, but more boring plot cards, dry with no osts & no English subs now. If you'd like something blander, then Chronicle Divergence is the answer.