BlazBlue: Alter Memory

Adaptation of video games has always been a recurring trend in today’s anime industry. Each year, new anime series makes it to the market based on previous successes of its original material. There have been some successes but also failures in terms of achieving satisfactory results of adaptations. Where does BlazBlue: Alter Memory stand at on the satisfaction scale? If I had to judge this show on an overall scale of 100, it would be at 40. This is an anime series that shows exactly how not to adapt an anime series. It’s an example that made itself look like a joke that’s not even ... funny.

BlazBlue: Alter Memory is an anime series based off of the games, BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger and BlazBlue: Continuum Shift. As an adaptation expansion, one would expect deep character development and an intriguing plot right? Wrong. This show has none of that so don’t expect any well development of its story. What it does have though is a trail of poor writing made of its weakly developed characters, mediocre action, and overall an execution gone wrong.

The series is pretty straight forward at first with a main character named Ragna the Bloodedge. We literally know almost nothing about him besides the fact that he looks like some cool character based off a video game complete with the generic scarlet coat, white hair, and expressions of an indifferent man. We later find out that he is a wanted criminal with a large bounty placed on him. He is the prey and other characters in the series seeks his head to claim glory and prize. We also know for a fact that he is armed with a weapon known as the Azure Grimoirethe. As oddly as the name sounds, it does provide the guy what he needs to get by especially when he faces characters such as Jin Kisaragi.

For an opening episode, the show doesn’t make strong impression with its presentation. The way it sets the series up spells out many confusion especially for anime-only viewers. This includes the relations Ragna has with Noel Vermillion, a young girl and former lieutenant of the Novus Orbis Librarium. For whatever reason, Noel becomes his companion as a sorts although the latter mostly ignores her. There’s a complete lack of compatibility between them in terms of characteristics, relationship, and personality. To make matters worse, we also find out that Ragna’s reason for being hunted down relates to an organization that we barely have any keen knowledge of: NOL.

However, that’s not the end of the trail of disgrace this series continues to run on. Apparently, Ragna the Bloodedge also has a dark past for which he was involved with a young boy, girl, along with a fire. A lot of events later come together like a puzzle but none of the pieces fit. It’s a mess that is hardly fluid because it introduces too many events with characters in a story that just doesn’t make much sense. Speaking of characters, the series does have a wide diversity of them that comes in all shapes and sizes such as a squirrel girl, transmogrifying cat, bat familiars, and cyborgs. Although they fit well with a fantasy theme such as Blaz Blue, most of them hardly develops the story. From what I understand, there are various routes in the original games. However, this how only seems to focus on our main characters Ragna, Jin, and Noel. It destroys any meaning of development for our supporting characters as they seemingly gets pushed aside. The reason I can think of for this type of presentation might be because the show is only one cour with 12 episodes. Still, this is just a weak execution to construct the concept of this show.

The only hope I had for this show is perhaps some sort of world building considering the setting this show takes place in. The setting of BlazBlue is interesting with artistic visuals and a direction that might point to its development. In fact, sudden places in this world reflects its fantasy setting perfectly and something out of a video game, which exactly it is based off of. More so, most of the characters are designed to look like something crafted out of a game.

Unfortunately, that hope is dashed by stereotypical themes of this series’ style. Ever heard of the concept involving destroying a system to end the world? If so, then this show will definitely not leave you any decent memories for what’s to come. The characters that comes after Ragna for his head is about as cliched as you’ll see. Antagonists such as Hazama is decorated with stereotypical style such as his green hair (because it looks cool in for artistic purposes), his poker face smile, and sarcastic tone of voice. Stereotype might be a word that people dislike to hear but this show doesn’t avoid going down that road at all.

The series also attempts to add in episodes to calm down the mood and diverge even from its main story. Although it isn’t colored as an ecchi series because of minimal fan service, BlazBlue: Alter Memory still incorporates the usage of a typical onsen episode; and for a ludicrous reason too! The character relationships in this series is also unrealistic and hard to get attached to. Noel has some sort of odd attachment to Ragna that is never fully understood. Otherwise, there is one other character in the series that makes a short debut that shares some intimate moments with Ragna. Unfortunately, the way the series writes that off tries to present tragedy but ends up feeling liked a rushed sequence with almost no purpose. At some instances, the series also tries to bring out emotional values with these ‘tragedy’ scenes to the series but this is vaguely explored between our supporting characters. You won’t need tissues because tears will not be shed. Instead, you’ll likely be asking yourself questions with answers given that are completely rushed with mass info dumps. It is coordinated in the wrong way with its set up and in general lacks a structural set up.

Action wise, the series is decent at best. The fast movements accompanied by its OST is tolerable in some sense. It portrays its game aesthetics in a way that gives off some purpose. Ragna is the type of guy that rushes into battle without thinking with his hotheaded attitude while wielding his ridiculous giant sword. As generic as this sounds, Ragna also holds some form of honor with his opponents as he doesn’t fight to kill or try to make a name for himself; if he hasn’t yet already anyways.

The artwork of BlazBlue seems fitting, at least for its world setting anyways. However, the characters looks generic. Ragna the Bloodedge looks exactly as he is with little development. Noel Vermillion has that appearance of a young girl dressed in a way like she is from school with her blue uniform complete with a beret. Other characters has some artistic values of diversity such as Rachel Alucard, the head of the vampire clan. Unfortunately, they stand out nothing more than blend designs. They are like cardboard box characters made from recycled material. Now only if the characters themselves can be more useful together the story together and hold things together like a box. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.

There’s nothing noteworthy about the soundtrack besides the OST during the fight scenes. Both the OP and ED songs have some tendency to keep itself together but nothing remarkable. While the voices of a few characters fits their roles well, all of them stands out as in odd mannerisms. Ragna’s deep voice also occasionally sounds arrogant while Noel’s tone can be annoying to listen to with her femininity. The main problem with most of the characters’ voices is the fact that most of them don’t have personalities. The dialogues spoken throughout the series also holds hardly any value and most of them come out as cheesy and inconsistent.

BlazBlue: Alter Memory is an adaptation that didn't just go wrong but self-destructed itself from the very beginning. It’s rushed, lacks characterization thanks to its cliched characters, has a damaged story that is beyond repair, and confusing execution. Some technical aspects of the series does save it from complete annihilation but this show is ultimately a case where you’ll need a lot of patience to get through. If somehow you make it through, there’s a likely case of disappointment. Thankfully, the series is only 12 episodes so it won’t take too long to get through. I just hope it won’t leave a painful memory that you’ll remember by.

This anime is based on the video games BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger and BlazBlue: Continuum Shift. Although I haven't played any of this games I'll still write this review about the anime. So if you have played the games you may have a different perspective about it.

Story 3/10:
Well to begin with the review i should tell you about the story. The first episode started with a fight. In this episode i couldn't found an explanation about whats was going on or why. And even after the first episode the only information i could found was about the main character and it was very short. Only ... after 6 or 7 episodes there was an explanation about the world in which the story was taking place. But even after the last episode the story leaved many plot holes. I don't know if playing the game could have give you some context about the characters or the world, but if you haven't play them you will end up with a lot of questions after the anime ends.

Art 5/10:
I didn't like the art so much. The character's designs where very plain. They didn't leave any kinda of impression in me. Not even the main character. Also the backgrounds looked really dull. Even the fights were not as intense as they could be.

Sound 6/10: (btw i watched it in JP wiht EN subs)
Well the sound wasn't bad but wasn't good either. I liked the opening, it was very cool. But the ending was very dull, and the art didn't help at all.
About the characters voices, they were good enough, although i found some of them annoying, like Hazama's voice. And the background music didn't match the environment. Not even the fights sound were loud or intense enough so it make them kinda dull.

Character 3/10:
The main problem i could find in every character is the lack of context and background information. From the main characters to the last of the supporting characters, they just keep appearing with out any kind of explanation about their role in the story. Also i couldn't see any grow in any of the character, nor in their personalities or in their powers. Only in the last 2 episodes you can see some changes. And i found one of the character very annoying, although i guess it was intended to be like that since he is the bad guy.

Enjoyment 3/10:
I didn't enjoy watching this anime. I got pissed with every episode because i couldn't understand what was going on in the story. Not even the fights were good enough to watch a full episode. But since i wanted an explanation about the full story i kept watching it.

The overall score for the anime should be a 4/10. I wouldn't stop you from watching it if you have played any of the games, because you may have a different experience with the anime, but I would't recommend it to anyone.

Story

First off BB: Alter Memory is based off the popular fighting game series BlazBlue. The series adapts the first two games in the series Calamity Trigger and Continuum Shift and crams it in a 12 episode anime! The story starts off with our main hero Ragna the Bloodegde fighting some creepy robot girl named Nu. Ragna gets stabbed by Nu and we're introduced to a gothic princess girl and her butler taking about the event that just took place and the outcome of the situtation. We then see more character that are introduced and we don't know anything about them only we can infer ... who they are. And those are the assumptions people can piece together. But long story short the story is a convoluted mess that newbies who never played the games would be confused as hell and the fans will be very disappointed.

Characters

The characters retain their personalities from the original source but their are convoluted in the relationship area and are just thrown out there just to make an appearance but disappears for the rest of the series. You will be asking questions like why are Noel and Ragna comrades?, how are Rachel and Ragna connected to each other? How Jin knows Tsubaki? Why is Litchi worried about Arakune? and many more. The characters in the series are unique and very interesting but the show throws away the opportunity to develop them and make the audience relate more to them.

Art & Animation

Before I get to the art I have to get the animation out of the way. Like Fairy Tail the series has some cheap animation but unlike FT it drag the series down some more. Every time there's a sword fight there's a lightning like light too cover up the lacking animation. Also who can forget the infamous ice brick Jin shot out in episode 1. But the only piece of high quality of animation is in episode 2 when Noel summons Bolverk. The art on the other hand isn't special but comes off as generic. There's nothing really distinctiful about the character designs.

Sound

The background music is mediocre and forgettable. Some of the tracks are reused from the games. Except when there fight scenes the music is fairly good but still forgettable. The opening shows more of how the series is on a cheap budget since it's all rehashed scenes from the episodes and the song is okay but not a remarkable one. Same goes for the ending. The voice acting is average but I'm not those people who treats the Japanese language like its a Holy language. Kanako Kando sounds a bit annoying as Noel and it did bother me at times in the series and I felt Kana Ueda didn't sound aristocratic and condescending as Rachel and sounded a bit bland. But the only stand out is Tetsuya Kakihara as Jin who retains his ability to voice the sociopathic Jin.

Enjoyment

The series can be enjoyable if you turned your brain off and watch only for the action which is decent. But from a critical point of view you would be irritated.

Conclusion

In the end Blazblue Alter Memory is just a huge disappointment and and confusing mess to fans and newcomers. Advice to newcomers just go buy the games and enjoy a more coherent and understandable story. The show is just mediocre at best. I only time I'll be rewatching this is if the original English voice cast comes back to voice the characters. If you want a better anime adaptation of a video game watch Persona 4 The Animation. It has better character development, animation, and story that even newcomers can understand.

Blazblue Alter Memory has amassed quite the negative reputation within the Blazblue community, which is to be expected for a game anime adaptation. There's a reason that Rewrite fans are bitter to this day and Tsukihime fans never got to see their beloved VN get adapted. Not every game can get an adaptation as…accepted (tolerated?) as Persona 4 or the Grisaia VNs. Plus, a lot of these adaptations are basically just tie-in promos for a new game first, and adaptation second. Given that the 3rd BB game, Chronophantasma was out around the time Alter Memory began airing, it's safe to say this Studio Hoods and ... teamKG adaptation was no different.

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.

I would like to provide some of my insights on this show, as a viewer who had not played any of the BlazBlue games. At the very least, I had watched a few gameplay videos of them on YouTube.

STORY: 3/10 Poor

In my opinion, this series is created with the sole assumption of: the viewers had already played the games before, and are very knowledgable about the plot. And if you happen to be like me who did not meet this requirement, then there’s a very high chance that even after finishing this series, you don’t even know what BlazBlue is.

That is how bad the ... story is. Tons of terminology were thrown around, yet there is hardly any explanations to them, not until the very end. But what’s the point of dumping info so late, when the viewer had already been so confused all along?

Perhaps some sort of narration would solve this issue, but there’s no such thing here.

If you haven’t played BlazBlue before, and for some reason have a sudden urge to confuse yourself, watch Alter Memory.

ART: 5/10 Mediocre

For an adaptation of an action-heavy fighting game, this series really undermined all the badassery of the original games. This could be due to the lack of budget from the animation studio, which is painfully obvious as you watch this series.

How so? Well… for starters, the OP of the show did not even have its own animation in the first 3 episodes, instead taking a few scenes from the first episode and putting them together. The ED is just a rotating wheel of static characters.

Fighting scenes are watered down that action fans will find them really unsatisfying. Early on, these scenes were so short that there were like, less than 3 clashes between both sides before the battle had ended. Battles lasted a bit longer in the end, but still pretty dull-looking when what supposed to be a super-awesome mega showdown between the world’s strongest had become some half-assed brawl at your local tavern.

You are better off playing the games or watching some gameplay videos of YouTube if you want a more entertaining battle.

Characters wise, they look okay (without comparing them to their game counterparts), as their designs are indeed rather unique, only that I often feel that Ragna is too thin. Sceneries are nothing spectacular, but fits the setting well. The entire show at least looks balanced with no awkward or out-of-place objects.

Okay characters, okay sceneries and very bad action scenes sum up the art section.

SOUND: 7/10 Good

This could well be Alter Memory’s best section. We have an all-star cast of seiyuus, in which I believe did their job well enough to keep me going. Yuuichi Nakamura’s my personal favorite here as he made Hazama the most vibrant character in the series.

The background music is pretty good, especially the ones used during the fight scenes, which are composed of blood-pumping rock music.

The same cannot be said to the sound effects, which often times, doesn’t sound right, most notably explosions, which doesn’t really sound like explosions.

CHARACTERS: 4/10 Bad

We have a bunch of potentially likable characters in Alter Memory, but the story did not do them justice, leaving them as empty husks until the very end, where we hardly get to know any of their personalities. It’s hard to get attached to these characters solely by watching this show. The only character that left me some impression is Hazama, as annoying as his laugh is, at least he’s distinctive.

ENJOYMENT: 4/10 Bad

Funny as it seems, I always find myself returning to every Wednesday to watch this show. I can’t really say it’s enjoyable with all the confusion going along, but at the same time, perhaps curiosity had gotten the best of me back then. But then, was I satisfied? Hell no.

OVERALL: 4/10 Bad

The only reason I chose to watch this is because I at least knew what BlazBlue is, and is curious on how an anime adaptation will turn out. Unfortunately the low quality adaptation really undermined this popular fighting series, that perhaps it would be wise to skip past this one, and watch something else.

Anime made of a video game called blazblue. As a fan of the series i was able to enjoy this show for what it is but if you aren't familiar with blazblue universe this maybe isn't the best place to start. Most of the characters backgrounds won't be told and you are just assumed to know who they are and why they are doing it. However BlazBlue: Alter Memory gives it's viewer great fighting scenes and good music. Sometimes the animation is sub-par but mostly it's good. So at the end recommending this anime is hard, because it almost requires it's viewer to know the ... plot in advance to even try to understand what is happening and why. However for me it was enjoyable ride and a good watch

When you watch any adaptation from books, light novels, comics, video games, visual novels, whatever media, you expect to find a nice story. It could be original but taking the elements of the source, it could be faithful to their primary source or just take the basic elements but don't try to explain them clearly. Blazblue Alter Memory is one of those cases where it is a wasted potential and it is used to hype the fans of the game and let them know that they took this franchise just to exploit and grab some money. I am pretty dissapointed to the point that I ... even drop it. Something I usually don't do but HECK! this one cross the line.


STORY = 1

What can I say? It is just pure dialog. To explain how I felt with the story is simple. It's just pure talking and some action between it. They don't try to make a story, they just talk about it. Then someone gets angry and then fight. It becomes dull and pretty stupid. Nothing else to add.

ART = 7

The art looks pretty good. Not that awesome but it is ok. The brightness used it's ok. But nothing to fancy. It stands with today's anime standards.

Sound = 4

The voice actors felt pretty flat. They just talk. They don't try to pull the character to it's potential and they just say what the script contains and it keeps on and on. That's a sad point because looking at the people they hired we can see that Sugita Tomokazu (Gintama, Haruhi, Kanon, Hachimitsu to Clover) at least could give to the character more emotion but meh. Also there is no distinctive OST.The opening is acceptable and it's good also the ending. Nothing more.

Character = 1

They are flat, incosistent and pale.They are just there to say that there is a story. But we can see an emo that wants revenge, another emo that hates the emo protagonist, a clumsy blonde. a pseudo-vampire girl, a bad guy that yells for everything, a geek-hikkikomori-girl, a loli, a boy that looks somehow like a girl (even he has a girl's voice) and many other anime stereotypes which they are not likeable. They don't progress at all.

Enjoyment = 2

Since episode 1 I dislike it. But I give it a 2 just because some battles where nice but they could not make the show stand. The characters suck. If you ask me this show doesn't have plot. Anything else is just pure meh. But without a story and good characters anything else is pure garbage and it's just decoration. The last complain that I have is that they can't even use fan service right and when you can't do that correctly you know you have made an obnoxious, putrefied, filthy creation that shouldn't be known for the rest of the existance.

OVERALL = 1

Don't watch it. It's an insult to video game-anime adaptations, an insult to their fans because it will make the game look bad and an insult to everyone that wants to entertain but they don't even try to.

Well thanks for reading. Sorry if I had grammar issues but English isn't my first language. Take care in everything that you do.

Wasted potential is this anime in a nutshell. It had the ability to become a fantastic anime with a decent plot, but a rushed story-line and a lack of background ruin everything it could've been.

[Story - 4/10] The anime disappoints right off the bat by failing to inform the watcher why the hell the main character is destroying all the shit he is. All we know that he's the main character and he's supposed to be the good guy, but it never tells us why. Furthermore, it never goes into depth about what powers people have, and where they originate from. The prime fields are ... another example out of the dozens of random stuff that are in this anime. You have to have either read the plot summaries on the wiki page or have actually played the game to understand any of this. A similar comparison would be Danganronpa, which aired earlier this year. Despite both games coming from a video game background, Dangan actually manages to explain what's going on in the anime. Granted, Blazblue is a much more complicated world, but at least one episode spent on explaining everything would've been nice.

[Art - 7/10] It's actually pretty nice, but there's a large lack of diversity in the characters, and nothing outstanding.

[Sound - 6/10] The OP and ED are alright I guess, but each of the character's voices sound waaay off from what they should be (Jin sounds like a 15 year old girl sometimes).

[Character - 4/10] As far as I know, none of the characters are explained at all, and thus it's hard to base any changes throughout the anime on what they were in the beginning. Why does Jin want to kill his brother? Why does Ragna hate Noel's face despite her looking like his long lost sister?? None of these things are explained well, and it hurts the anime as a whole.

[Enjoyment - 6/10] Despite this harsh criticism, I still watched the anime to it's completion. However. If you truly want to enjoy the anime, I highly recommend reading the wiki page and spoiling it a bit, otherwise you won't understand a thing.

Overall the anime isn't terrible on it's own, but coupled with the lack of information about the world they're in, as well as the backgrounds of all the characters, it loses out on many of the animes that came out this season. However, if you ever have time to burn, try this anime out, but be ready to be confused as hell unless you read the wiki.

An anime that comes from a game, very easy to say it like that. BllazBlue is for my opnion very good , as I became an addict off it now.
As for the story, the first episode is hard too understand, as it just begins in a random lava thing, as the guy named Ragna the bloodedge gets killed and so on, It gets many off us confused.
What I did notice is that it mostly goes around the game Continuum Shift (The only game I als o own) Some parts, Ragna sudden gets somewhere only by walking, and than fights someone is very confusing either.
The anime ... is something you full need to concentrate on watching or else you will be completely lost but for people who dropped it for 3 episodes I can certian say watch more, as the story devolepment it gets better and some parts finally make more sense..
What is too bad about it , is that they do not start at the beginning, now I do not know about it either from any games. But how it would help more too understand the storyline, than start in the middle.

As characters, are very good, they each have there own painfull memories and grudges again one another.

But if you are a BlazBlue fan, just watch it till the end and say than how you liked it. As for no idea what it is, first search up information.

I hope I could help people and convincing too watch it anyway.
(My appology for my grammer,)

This Anime is a video game adaptation and i get that it makes more sense if youve played the games. But that is not an excuse for poor story writing shit character development. Character relationships no one can understand. It flat out garbage i had to force myself to watch the end of it. To be honest i feel like it could have been a good anime if you know they actually started from the beginning or explained anything lol dont bother watching its a waste of time! Also i very rarely say that about any anime but this was real bad!

If I had to sum up this anime, it'd be good supplemental material, not so good on it's own.

BlazBlue as a series draws it's strength from it's infinite possibilities and multiple timelines. However, this anime doesn't really take note of that and feels more of a rush to get the main story beats crammed into 12 episodes. A lot of the characters who aren't the main four or so probably feel like strange one-offs to anyone who's going into this anime without knowing anything about this series.

Personally, I've played this series, so I understand the intricacies of the plot outside of this anime. However, I ... think this anime works if you've at least played the first 2 games and would like to see additional material/additional tellings of it. Without the full scope of every detail you'd get in the games, the anime feels hollow in comparison and is just a bad introduction to anyone who's heard of the series, but isn't sure if they want to play the games or not.

For anyone who's interested in this anime, it'd be best to play the first two games and then watch it. Watching this alone will more than likely cause confusion rather than interest.

"I am the white void. I am the cold steel. I am the just sword. With blade in one hand shall I reap the sins of this world and cleanse it in the fires of destruction. I am mercury1980. The end has come to this game adaptation."

Too bad I did this review since it finished aired in the end of 2013. I'm late to the party. Speaking of which, I am going to review "Blazeblue: Alter Memory" a video game adaptation by the name BlazBlue. I guess you all have heard the reviews saying that the game adaptation "Blazblue: Alter Memory" is a train wreck. ... Let's not beat around the bush here, anime is crap.

Before I say what this anime is, I haven't played the Blazblue game. This is a critique on the anime itself.

The anime was directed by Hideki Tachibana who so far never directed any good anime. He was also responsible for Higurashi Kira, the OVA which completely butchered the characters and using a lot of perverted humor which is unfunny.

STORY (3):

The story takes place in year 2199, where Humanity waits for the dawn of the new century where a series of devastating magical warfare ends. It is up to Ragna the Bloodedge to save the day and basically that's all there is.

You don't go into this anime for a deep story. You just go into this anime to see awesome action scenes. The problem is the story is all over the place. There was a fight between Hakumen and Ragna in the beginning of episode 2 and suddenly we jump to the scene where Ragna rescues Noel Vermillion. In episode 4, we see Hakumen being tied up by Kokonoe. How did that even happen? We never see Haukmen in episode 3 but here he is tied up in episode 4?

The dialogues were hilariously bad. Just like Hakumen say "Before my powers, your measly powers are insignificant". Hakumen just never say how Ragna can improve. The most entertaining part of the show is during the duel between Ragna and Hakumen.

Some of the episodes are filler including episode 5 where Taokaka brings Ragna, Noel and Faye-Ling to the hot springs. There's no need for that. Anyway, let's move on to the animation.

ART (2):

The animation is blur and not pleasing to see. Maybe the budget is too low. But the animation will not affect the overall grade.

SOUND (5):

The opening and ending are ok. The opening had this rock and roll feeling just like I had with "No pain, No game" by Nano. The opening is "Blaz Blue" by Faylan.

The ending is "Reincarnation Blue" by Aira Yuuki.

CHARACTER (1):

Haha. Oh boy the characters.

All the time, Ragna puts on this angry stern look. He is always never happy. He's either sad or he's hurt. I didn't care for his character. He is overreacting.

Noel Vermillion is your typical damsel in distress and not to mention she always cry easily when things go wrong. Even when she is crying "Baka", she didn't put into any emotion.

Taokaka's personality reminds me of Neko Arc. Not to mention Jubei's personality reminds me of Neko Arc Chaos. Neko Arcs are the characters from Carnival Phantasm who are hosts for the show. Taokaka is cheerful while Jubei is serious. Except that Taokaka is more annoying than compared to the Neko Arc.

Jubei was an interesting character but he didn't have enough screen time or anything to work with.

Hazama's personality reminds me of Hisoka from Hunter x Hunter. However, Hisoka is more threatening than compared to Hazama.

The rest of the cast were all like emo and never show signs of happiness. Especially Rachel Alucard & Kokonoe.

The only character I rooted for was Lambda-11. However, her character was thrown out of the anime in the later episodes. Thank you for doing that.

There was no character development.

CONCLUSION (2):

This anime tried to compress into 13 episode but failed to make the story progress properly. There are some scene that jump from one scene to another without explaining. And we have the ending that was anti-climactic, some characters just become enemies for no reason. Just like one minute they liked one another and the next time was like "You're a terrible person".

I wasn't expecting much from this anime since people already gave it a low rating. The story and characters are handled poorly. But there are at least some decent action scenes.

Overall, Blazblue Alter Memory is just a mindless action game adaptation that was poorly adapted. I didn't expect anything good from this anime. i just wanted to examine on what made this anime a poor game adaptation.

I am not hard on this anime just because I like good video games. I am hard on this anime because I like good anime. Unfortunately, BlazBlue Alter Memory didn't do that.

And so I give this anime a 2 out of 10. If you want a better experience, play the Blazblue games. If you want to watch this anime, watch it with a group of friends and rip on this anime. It will definitely be an enjoyable time.

Story - I think it would be better if they had more fighting scenes , but instead its more like flashbacks that are really close or identical to the game so might as well play the game for more plot.

Art - i enjoyed the art i liked it a lot compared to some other animes i've seen that have random budget cuts and art turns terrible , overall it was enjoyable for the scenes/arts

Sound - good quality depending where the person is watching from.

Character - Characters were great , i think they tried to make a little bit to much on ecchi at some ... points but they were comical so i don't really know if it was really fitting.

Enjoyment - i enjoyed it a lot because i'm a fan of blazblue so i will strongly stand by it , played the games since it first came out.

Overall - Typical anime fighting / romance ( Tiny parts ) / Interesting i wanna see if they decide to make a season 2 because it does leave on a possible continuable story line.

First: this is my first ever review here on MAL, Second: As a diehard BlazBlue fan I'll write what is wrong with the anime (I'll relate it with the game) and as an anime watcher I'll write what is right/wrong with this series.

Story: 7

The good 'ol BlazBlue story, the setting is nearly identical to the game, the story is pretty.... umh, RUSHED.
So the anime starts with one of the Time Loops that happened in Calamity Trigger, nothing bad here, the second episode is another time loop that cover the True Ending. Yes. The 90% first game completely skipped. The anime starts with the true ... ending of the first game. Since episode three it starts the second game, Continuum Shift using parts (adapted into anime in wrong way of course) from the Noel Route and Ragna Route, now it comes the good part, episode 4. HALF OF THE EPISODE IS A BEACH EPISODE, A BEACH EPISODE, did that ever happen in the game? NO. Not only this anime rushes important events, IT ADDS USELESS PARTS, well you can call it fanservice IF ONLY the animation didn't sucked.
The rest of the episodes since now are a mixup of the various route in CS with many adapting error (Episode 6 has a fight that happens near the end of Jin Kisaragi route, and episode 6 is "based" off the very first part of his route)
What to say, the story is rushed and bad adapted sometimes. But at least is the same as the game.

Art: 6

Oh boy oh boy, the animation sucks.
The chara design does not have that BlazBlue feeling that the game or other BB animation had, for example Jin in the game artworks is what you can call a bishonen and here looks like your average an angsty teen.
Another example is the MC: Ragna, take the Ragna of the artworks (or the one that appears in the anime openings such as the Madhouse's Continuum Shift Extend opening) he looks grumpy as hell and here in the animation looks like... a bishonen from some random otome.
What I'm trying to say this art style is not good for a series like BlazBlue, the only character that fits this style is Hazama.
As for the actual animation its pretty bad, sometimes the expression of the characters goes derp and such similiar problems.
A good thing though are the fights (but they lose points because of the animation) and the special effects that appear a lot of times through the series

Sound: 9

A really good thing that this anime has to offer is the sound, most of the soundtrack are very well done remixes from the original games, the Opening theme is pretty cool and the Ending is not bad, as for the voice acting there are no problems since the voice actors are the same from the game.

Character: 8

The characters are the same identical from the game, but there isn't as much development here like in the game.
Anyways there is not much to say here

Personal Enjoyment: 6

As a BlazBlue fan, this anime is bad, REALLY BAD, as an anime watcher I could say that is watchable if I didn't play the games.

Overall: 7

There are many problems in these series mostly because this is a 12 episode anime adaptation of two games, there's no other way but to rush the events.
The animation is bad compared to the other show this season, but needless to say this could easily be one of the best anime adaptation from a game (Little Bust**s, Dangan***pa: the Animation miserably failed as many other adaptations) , because the studio (and from what I know is a little studio) is trying to take events from like 17 routes of a game and adapting in 12 episodes.


So this ends my first review, since english is not my language I'm pretty sure that there are lots of typos (100% sure), and maybe I went too much against the anime because of my love for the games, anyways I hope that this review is helpful for someone.

After complate BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger Story mode, this anime was my most desired adaptation but result was total disappointment for me. I did fascinated from games story, maybe because of that i couldnt watch it objectivly.

First of all story telling was horribly boring. I couldnt watch even after episode 6. I accept it BlazBlue have diffrent story modes for every character plus true ending story mode. Because of that tide up whole story is very hard thing but my expectation was episode story arcs for every story mode whatching same story from diffrent characters eye.

If you are played game, finished whole story mode (not ... arcade mode stories in that total diffrent case) and if you really like it, i dont believe you are really enjoy this anime.

As far as anime adaptations for games go, this one isn't the greatest, yet at the same time it is inoffensive to its source material.

Story: 5
The story of Alter Memory is to the Blazblue franchise what a recap episode is to a season of any other anime: more enjoyable if you've gone through the original airing/game. Alter Memory focuses mainly on the key story elements from Blazblue Calamity Trigger and Continuum Shift, and glosses over many of the other plot lines from those games.
Art: 7
The art really varies between scenes, for some, it is quite fluid, and for others, it's a little odd (Looking at ... you, Jin's Ice Brick), but it's not jarring enough that the viewer will be turned off.
Sound: 9
Considering this is an anime based on a fighting game, the only way its sound track can go is up, and Alter Memory delivers, not to mention one of the first tracks played is Ragna's theme 'Rebellion'.
Characters: 5
This is the part that usually makes or breaks this adaptation, considering most of the characters get glossed over for Ragna, Jin and Noel, but when the characters do appear, they at least remain true to who they are.
Enjoyment: 8
As someone whom has played through the story of both games, I found this to be an enjoyable treat as a fan.
Conclusion:
I'd only really recommend this if you've played Blazblue before, as you'd get more enjoyment out of it then.

This thing sucks. It trys way too hard to faithfully turn the games into an anime but just ends up with typical, generic characters with little to no development. The music was sub-par and the anime was painfully boring, with a completely confusing story which I ended up paying no attention to and just playing on my other monitor. It's just a completely terrible anime.

There really isn't much else to say (but MAL forces me to write more) so I'll just point out the logo for this series is completely awesome. The art's pretty good too.

Jin is also the only good character but he ... doesn't even move the Character section up to a 2 because he's absolutely overshadowed by the other cruddy characters.

A video game adaptation and you don't get whats going on..? No.... Never....

If you are trying to pick this series up and u haven't played through story mode COMPLETELY in BBCT or BBCSEX you will have no chance of understanding everything that is happening in this series.

This animeseems to be made for fans of the game alone, and even there they don't quite hit the mark of epicness the game brings about. Honestly, I wouldn't recommend this series to anyone unfamiliar with BlazBlue, as this anime is based on the sequel to the first game.

This series involves manymanymanymanymany time loops and world lines. Many of ... which from the game aren't included at all. And only a few characters are truly aware of what is going on, if you aren't familiar with the series you will be lost. They don't have time in a 12 episodeseason to explain the nuances between the characters, and the history of the game, and actually have things happen as well.

The fights are decent (though some characters end up looking really bad at fighting), the music is taken from the BGMs in the game (which is an awesome touch for fans), and the animation is pretty good as well. Finally seeing the events that transpire in game put into animation just makes me love the characters even more. Thank you ArcSys for taking the risk of making this show!

Great series if you've played the game.

i like it it is good and cool and funny and blazblue it is blazblue and it is blazblue centralfictoin i like blazblue centralfictoin and dealyef based netcode is actually good and the friend showed me the vide ogaem blasx blue centralfcitoin and it is vewry very good and cool and i like izanami 623b it is very good and very fair i like the part where it goes haha blazblue i like blazblue it said calamity trigger and is like htte first blazblue game calamity trigger and i like the shot of noel's thigh it is very cool and i like

Story : 3/10
Sometimes you need to admit when you are fan of the game and it got adapted but story mess up the whole scene. Theres plenty of thing unexplained here. Except if you do some research or re-watch again then you would understand the series.

Art : 8/10
From my experience the art wasnt that dissapointed in fact its better than i expect from the game.

Sound : 7/10
If you played the game it was the same except they added more new songs and edit it. But it wasnt my type of sound (bgm). If it was voice acting. They did well.

Character : 5/10
As the main character ... Ragna the Bloodedge the actor didnt match well with the anime and some characters screwed alot. Character progress went bad at first the they start fixing it as the story progress.

Enjoyment : 8/10
As a fan of Blazblue i must admit when you get the whole story from the beginning it went well. At first sight it would be awkward with the story mess up then with alot of incoming characters, more explained history and do some research on google They did very well with the adaption. Also some extra scene as known as Fan Service and side joke make the anime complete.

Overall : 6/10
I do recommend this anime for those who played the game before either way if you didnt know the game i recommend skip this one and move to another anime, beacuse the story was really complicated here without any research or the game you cannot understand easly the storyline.