BlazBlue: Alter Memory

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

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.

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.