Blade & Soul

**SPOILER WARNING**

At first, this series seemed to be extremely intriguing. I liked the premise of the story, and the art/animation style is gorgeous. But unfortunately, for a majority of the series, that's the only thing that I could say positive.

Alka is an assassin for the Clan of the Sword. She's on a journey to find Jin Varrel, who killed her master Hon. Jin is a demon-like woman who controls the Energy of Chaos and kills without feeling, which is similar to how Alka has learned to kill in her work as an assassin. On her journey, Alka meets three gorgeous, strange women, each a great ... warrior in her own right and grapples with her slain master's wish that she leave the life of an assassin behind.

Sounds promising right? This series has great potential. But, it develops far too slowly for me. The action, when it does show, is very exciting. But does not occur frequently enough. Like most series, there are flashbacks and back stories that are needed to be shown. Unfortunately, I feel as if it took way too much time, and deviated from the primary plot too often.

I feel as if the series relied too often on the bombshell beauties' looks to maintain the viewers attention. Yes, the female characters are gorgeous. But that can only take a series so far. That being said, the animation style used is outstanding. I thought the colors used really conveyed to the mood of each situation/episode. Same could be said of the music.

Overall, a wonderfully animated series with some great characters. Some great action. But far too much emphasis on the gorgeous (big breasted) characters looks.The series was very slow to develop, and was boring at times.

Blade and Soul seemed promising, but then it lied to you...

STORY: If you don't already know, Blade and Soul is based off an MMORPG. The story is based around a girl named Alka, who belongs to the infamous Sword clan. A clan known for being extremely dangerous and are usually hired assassins. At first it seems like something promising, then the next episode disappoints you, and then the next and then the next.
5/10

ART: The art in this anime isn't something that should be talked about. As they only focused on the female characters and left all the male characters looking like an awful, ... half-ass, middle of class drawing. And of course the only thing that gets great detail are the boobs.
3/10

SOUND: Its your typical BGM for the anime. Nothing really stood out, especially the ending, which I found embarrassing to watch for reasons that I don't fully understand yet.
5/10

CHARACTER: The characters seemed promising, until everyone else besides the Main Character developed throughout the anime. Of course the only time the Main Character develops into a decent human being isn't until the end. But before that, she's your typical anime character who is full of nothing and has/shows any emotions. Then you got your side characters who are all over the place.
5/10

ENJOYMENT: Its not really much to watch, but its something to watch when you have nothing to watch.
5/10

OVERALL: 5/10

The anime has supernatural dark theme and mainly focuses on woman with a little fanservice here and there. The protagonist is a woman named Aruka who is seeking revenge against Jin Valel the one that killed her master, while being haunted by bounty hunters at the same time.
Plot (3/10): it was kind of disappointing that blade and soul didn't really have a solid plot, the episodes aren't connected to each other whatsoever, each one has its own events, characters and places, I found it to be very boring actually... I wouldn't recommend this anime if you're a fan of big/complicated plots.
characters (4/10) : since females ... are the only ones who lead, there's total absence in characters variance, no originality, basically they all share the same looks, even personality except for Aruka who is the silent/dark type which is even more annoying because the main character is supposed to stand out, not stay silent for 3 consecutive episodes.
Graphics and sound (7/10): the thing that attracted to this anime is mainly the graphics, after watching the first episode you can tell that it has good animation, great battle scenes, the sounds were also beautiful and really matched the theme.
character development (6/10): the main character really changed a lot through the episodes, from a cold blooded assassin to someone with a human side, lost and confused, instead of becoming stronger, Aruka became weaker, I don't want to use the term "useless" but her presence in the anime just became annoying and you'd wish she reverted back to her old self.
in general, I had great hopes for this anime but it disappointed me, I wouldn't say it's bad, it's okay but just didn't live up to the expectations..

To be honest, Blade and soul have good moments and alot of Bad moments. The bad ones surely overhelming in this anime but the character design and the style is very nice drawn and also animated, with exeptcion of Episode 10 this was the worst of all.

Alka is beeing hunted by Jin Varrel ( Ingame name is Jeon Seon Yung) Yuran and Ga Gangte.
this is not always the case of the entire anime in some Episodes we all thing it is the end because main antagonist died before the end. And then its turned into an unexcepted disaster.

Overall it is hard to follow ... and sometimes you wish just to stop the entire series. But the 3 end episodes saving this anime from breaking apart under its story. So I really hope it turns out good with the special ones.

Watch this if you enjoy a good artwork of anime, however don't expect too much from this anime in terms of story and character development.

The story seems like they cut it way too short and the fights are so quick and ends way too fast which both are a bit of a disappointing side.

However, if anyone doesn't mind a poor story and loves good female assets bouncing around, they would enjoy this anime though.

I give this a fair score due to the good artwork, else i would even give it slightly lower than a fair score.

Enjoy if you are watching =)

Story 5.0/10

Blade & Soul was a good anime at all, didnt followed the original story of the game, but still a interesting story in general, but sometimes it was kind of confusing for what exacly the main character was looking for, and in the end i have to confess that was cliche , and i really had high hopes for the it because i like the game so far, writting was bad but the background history was still good, the battles was kind of nonsense but still fun at least for me, the end like i said was ok but it could be a lot ... better.

Art And Sound 5.0/10

I quite liked the anime art, was very good designs of the characters, but I didnt liked the point of the ecchi / Fanservice, let the warrior female characters naked, something I expected much more was the Scenarios and Landscapes, disappoint at this point! would be amazing if it had beautiful landscapes like the original MMORPG, the soundtrack was ok, good osts but it could be better, sometimes reminded me some historical asian movies.

Overall: 5,0
Poor writting and the background story was pretty and interesting, character progress was kind of poor with the art of the anime, if you dont have nothing to watch and dont want a deep action anime and you like the story of the Blade and soul, you should check it out, but dont expect too much from it.

Story 7,5/10

Blade & Soul has a good story to be inspirational in an MMORPG, the development is quite normal fulfill the goals it promised in the beginning but in the middle the story starts to get confusing . Revenge was kinda the main theme of this whole show saying we should take revenge upon people who done bad or some crap

The battle in episode 2 11 and 12 were awesome the thing that kept the show interesting

Like if ur into an anime with a good story this isnt for you but for battle come check it out got some good ones and boobtastic ... things lol

Though I do see why people don't think such fondly of Blade and Soul, I do think it's unappreciated.

Since this is an adaptation of a game, the makers probably chose to focus on the characters than the war.
While I do see the show lacked on the world building department, on characters development department was top notch, specially on the MC.

Aruka started as an empty character, moving only by the desire to kill her master's killer. And that wasn't for revenge, at least, due to her lack of emotions, it seemed that way to me.
But during the course of the story, her evolve at a ... slow but extremely well built pace. The other characters also had great development, Karen in particular.
But, it all culminates on the end, when someone ask her what she was doing and Aruka answered "living".

The story could be seen as an unique genre of it's own. Almost like a Action Fantasy slice of life.

I'll say again. I do see why people complain about Blade and Soul, but if you watch thinking about the characters and how they evolve with each chapter, maybe people would appreciate more. Or perhaps this is only wishful thinking.

I'm going to get my biggest praise out of the way now: The ending credits kick ass! Seriously, you have to watch at least that once. The animation and song are both absolutely fantastic, and I literally (and I mean it in its denotational sense) ignored the attractive woman doing the fan dance in favor of the effects surrounding the fan and her.

Now to serious stuff:

The characters are sort of well rounded and generally likable, but still hit on some of the tropes, namely being emotionally dead inside and lo-and-behold therein lies all your problems. Oh, and let's not forget that you have to have ... something to protect as well.

The animation is solid throughout the whole series except for one episode for about 1.5 minutes where it looks like the heroes are riding past a background painted on plywood.

One of the big problems is that very few things are fully explained, namely the Impurity stuff. So sometimes you have to burn it for incense, other times you have to boil it and drink the resulting water, other times all it does is cause hallucinations, sometimes it blows people up, sometimes makes a shockwave, sometimes it makes you strong, and sometimes it's just a pretty "poison" that noone properly explains. That's world-building spackle, kinda like how the Force can do whatever it needs to in Star Wars.

The plot's a little all over the place, and the lack of continuity makes it harder to engage in watching. If I were forced to watch it again (I hate re-watching or re-reading anything), I would do it at about one episode a day, because nothing about the ending of the previous episode really pushes me onto the next.

Another thing that's worth noting is that the ecchi is entirely arbitrary. There's no reason there couldn't have been more important male characters, the female characters couldn't have dressed in a more, either western fantasy or traditional anime, style and it would have sacrificed nothing. The last episode in particular was really the only ecchi episode, but I would say it was a fair palate cleanser after all the death, sadness, etc. from the story proper.

I do like that the female characters are strong (for most of the series), but when protagonist du jour discovers feelings again, she's essentially incapacitated for four episodes, and it get's really dull. However, I think that that leads me to my final point:

There might be some reference to the story of Buddha. After getting her emotions, Alka finally 'sees' the old, the sick, and the dead. Though I think the argument falls apart a bit when she goes on about actually living instead of being an ascetic.

Final verdict: Sure, go ahead and watch it. I'm sure you'd think it's around a 6 or 7 too. It was good for me just because I was running out of things to read and watch when I got home at night.

Character Development-
Great! But, just for the main character. Supporting characters seem to have no use later in the show. The characters you wanted to see more of didn't get to shine as much as you would like.

Animation-
Animation looks great, but it's kind of a fake-great. If you are viewing backgrounds, details on characters, and effects, you'll notice that they are completely under-detailed, especially later in the show. At one point a background character was literally walking in place for 4 seconds holding a bag.

Sound-
The sound is okay, not the best i've ever heard. Very few themes caught my attention while watching. Definitely not a ... show with a showcase of great music. It gets the job done though.

Other Characters-
Supporting characters seemed to have a role throughout the show, but their goals with said role were rather the same. Almost every single supporting character can be linked back with Alka one way or another. To put it shortly, the supporting characters make Alka feel like crap, and make her wonder why she feels like crap then come to some sort of conclusion to not feel like crap.

Story-
The story jumped around a bit. I can say a bunch of the stuff you wanted to know about was left unanswered. I'm not sure if this is setting up for another season, or to be explained within the Blade And Soul game, which isn't in North America yet and I don't think many characters within the show exist in the game.

Overall the show is just average with some good and bad points. The best thing it did was character development, but that's about all I can praise it for. If you want a quick show about women and fighting with some okay story thrown in, this is the show for you.

*only really minor spoilers here
Watching the first 8 episodes of Blade and Soul feels like you're just watching another fantasy medival anime, albeit a very bad one. The story feels rather rushed and is vaguely explained, the characters are flat, and lack any meaningful depth or connection to them.
What got me through this anime for those episodes was the somewhat decent animation, and a little hope that the anime would improve itself. It eventually did, with the second half delivering more emotion, character development, and brings and interesting twist to the story. It eventually reverted back to being your typical hero vs Big bad ... guy towards the end, but the main character motives are better understood and the ending was conclusive. It still left a lot of questions unanswered and quite a bit of flat characters though.


One thing I didn't particularly like was the way the anime tries to develop their characters and progress the story by introducing new characters every episode, only to kill them later on in the SAME EPISODE. This is somewhat similar to what Akame ga Kill did, showing the side characters backstory in one episode and killing them in that same episode. This may work with a lot of people (and in AGK it did), but for me it just won't do.

Talking about things that are mixed, there is also the animation. Sometimes the fight scene can make you go wow with some stunning shots and cheography, but most of the time it is just average. Animation consistency is decent with the some strange inconsistencies (mainly one of the final episodes, they were just probably saving budget to animate the following episode, which has a big fight scene). Women character designs are good though, if a not on a little bit of the fanservices side. They look good and stand out, but you kinda feel a little bit jarring when almost any woman in the anime has big breasts and huge asses.

Have you guessed why I wrote "women character designs" instead of "Character designs" yet? Because the character designs for the male characters in this anime are nonexistent. They either be extremely ugly, or extremely generic if you are being generous. This probably won't pose a problem to the viewers, because 95% of the main chracters are females anyways.

The BGM used in the anime is rather standard, but I was pleasantly surprised by the ending, "RAINBOW" by LEGO BIG MORL. Not only the ending music is good, but the animation accompanied by it was simply amazing, even if it is CGI. The opening is trash though.

Overall, Blade and Soul is not good, nor bad. It didn't do anything well, but that doesn't mean it did a bad job either. Other than the twist after the first 8 episodes, and the simply top notch ending, There is nothing that is particularly good or new that can be had in this anime.
I definitely had some fun while watching this anime, but would I recommend it to anyone though? Probably not. There are animes that are more worthy of your time than Blade and Soul.

So, as a summary,
Watch if you want:
- fanservice, characters with big boobs
- somewhat intersting fight scenes, battles
Don't watch it if you want:
- a decent story
- memorable characters
- beautiful animations (art is rather debatable though)

Scores:
Story: 5/10
Art, animation: 6/10
music: 7/10 (just for that godly ED)
characters: 5/10
enjoyment: 7/10

Overall score: 6/10