Endride

Shun Asanaga is a 15-year-old junior high school student with an optimistic and bright personality. One day, he finds a mysterious crystal in the office of his father, who is a scientist and businessman. When Shun touches it, the world becomes distorted, and he is sent into the world of Endra. Emilio, a prince of the kingdom of Endra, is nearing his 16th birthday and despises the reigning king, Delzain. Since Emilio is now at the age when he can inherit the throne, he takes up a weapon and attempts revenge. However, because Emilio is too weak, he is captured by Delzain and put in prison. When Emilio is in grief, the wall of his cell becomes distorted and Shun appears from there with two goals: return to his own world, and complete Emilio's revenge. What future lies ahead for the two boys trying to survive in Endra, yet raised in two different worlds?

(Source: MAL News)

Asanaga, Shun Main

Ono, Kensho Japanese

Langheim, Emilio Main

Masuda, Toshiki Japanese

Louise Supporting

Itou, Shizuka Japanese

Pascal Supporting

Mizushima, Yuu Japanese

Faralion Supporting

Ohashi, Ayaka Japanese

Demetrio Supporting

Takahashi, Hiroki Japanese

Felix Supporting

Uchida, Yuuma Japanese

Eljuia Supporting

Toriumi, Kousuke Japanese

Mischa Supporting

Yuuki, Aoi Japanese

Caretaker Supporting

Miyazaki, Chieko Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Ozawa, Juukou Producer

Inage, Hiroyuki Producer

Watanabe, Masakazu Producer

Reviews

Aug 14, 2021

Emenalus

Recommended

This is my first time writing a review for an anime, but I felt like I had to address my own opinion about the anime as how it seems to me, the anime is incredibly underrated.

Now, I don't know where the unnecessary hate or skepticism comes from. Perhaps people assumed from the cover of two boys holding swords that Endride would be an action-packed series. While swordfighting is quite frequent in the anime, it is not the focus of the series and doesn't try to make it seem like it either. For anyone that picked up the anime, watched a few episodes, called it boring ... and dropped it probably didn't realize that the anime doesn't even promote Action genre. Unfortunately, betrayed expectations also tend to lead to cynicism and from there to ignoring anything else good that the series might have had to offer.

Aside from ranting about the mistakes that people have made when evaluating this anime, let's talk about why this anime is good.

Compared to dozens of different anime that I've seen in the past, Endride has one of the best approaches into world building that I've seen so far. Heck, even most of the mainstream titles cannot compare. Although often criticized for its slow pacing, Endride offers a good opportunity to look into the world of Endra where the story mainly takes place in. Going anywhere from seeing the entire continent through a map into learning about its very ecosystem, there's something you can always learn about Endra.

Character development in Endride was also something I would consider commendable, especially in the case of Emilio, the prince of Endra. Once a spoiled child who has never seen life outside of the castle embarks on a journey with a complete stranger, with only one simple goal in mind: Revenge. However, he learns much about the life outside the castle walls, including the values of a group of revolutionists, poverty and discrimination of other races. By the end of their journey, Emilio has changed a lot and seeks to exact the faults in his kingdom on his way back. Development of course doesn't limit only to Emilio, so there's a whole lot to look forward to!

The story of Endride is also nothing short of intriguing and always shrouded in mystery. Suddenly taken into a world inside a crystal, the immediate question arises: How do you get back home? And while seeking an answer for that question, many other questions are uncovered along the way, which without answer could mean the destruction of Eldra. As if the constant search for answers wasn't enough to keep you on your toes, the story also has the tendency to take the most unexpected turns...

In conclusion, I think Endride has a lot more to offer than people seem to realize, only in a completely different way than expected. While it might on a first glance look like an action anime and in that regard prove to be a disappointment, there's a lot more else going on in the anime and is up to the viewer whether it is sufficient to keep them interested. If you ask me though, if you have even the slightest interest in seeing through an unique plot, I would definitely recommend checking Endride out!

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Aug 28, 2016

ablh11

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (5/24 eps)

In this review contains minor spoilers( if you have seen past episode 3 there shouldn't be a problem), nothing that would ruin the plot, i am merely reviewing the state of the anime by describing the huge flaws in the characters.

The main character, a boy in episode 1 practically loves gemstones in search of one that will bring him to another world. However once finds that gemstone and arrives in that work all i seems to want is to leave and return back to his normal life. To me at least this seems to be quite the contradiction and bad character design, to see a ... boy who is described as "charismatic" and "brave" enter into this new world that he was looking for and seems only to complain and what to leave the instant he gets there. The prince which i believe to be equally as terrible as the MC seems to derive the majority of his hate for the current king from the fact that one day he heard to maids talking and apparently the current king was an enemy of this "true" father. For some reason this lead to a cycle of hate towards the man who raised him and clothed him. Just because of that weak reason led the prince to attempt to kill him and even overthrow him. Some may say well the prince befriended his teacher and this king exiled him, well the teacher defied the king not because he had scientific reasons or any type of evidence that the surface world would destroy Endora but just because of a "gut" feeling that it would be bad. For a man who claims to be a scientist he doesn't appear to be very convincing in his role and it makes sense why such an individual would be banished for challenging authority with no evidence and little reasoning. Overall the ideals and reasoning of the main characters made this anime lackluster and quite bad, i have not seen much of the anime but from what i have seen its a time waster at best and not something worth investing into.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Oct 10, 2016

butterfly22

Not Recommended

Originally, I had no intention of writing a review for this series but when I found out it was an original and most of the reviewers hadn't finished the series; well, I couldn't help myself.

I'll start off with my sympathy for those who dropped the series early on. I completely understand. If I wasn't so stuck on always finishing series no mater how poor they are in hopes of it turning around at some point, I would have done the same.

In all honesty this series is extremely shallow. It's like a rough draft that somehow made it to the publishing stage without fleshing ... it out properly. The dialogue is shallow but the banter between Shun and Emilio always makes me smile, mostly because it's two teenage boys fighting with each other for no other reason than the fact that they're teenage boys (as far as I could understand). The characters as a whole were very hard to relate to or make any kind of connection with. There was dialogue but very little introspection into what the characters were doing and why. All you really get is that Emilio is bent on revenge and Shun is perhaps overly optimistic and accepting. Alicia is a dead weight throughout the whole series. Most of the time you don't know what she's thinking because you aren't given the proper information, whether actions in sequence, or internal dialogue; it's just not available. For most of the series I was almost dead set that Pascal was a traitor just because the series wasn't fleshed out properly. He makes foreboding facial expressions at crucial times but then nothing is every done about it. No explanation is giving as to why he's making that expression (similar to Alicia). Demetrio and Louise were done quite a bit better and I really feel like these two characters saved the series. Demetrio is pretty bad ass and you have a decent amount of back story given to him. His reasons for fighting are also very clear and you get a good sense of how he thinks and what his personality is like. Louise was a little harder to figure out but her personality is pretty constant, her actions and expressions are also explained well enough for you to make a semblance of a connection to her.

The weapons in this series were outright ridiculous. Louise's weapon...dear god it was awful. Demetrio (once again) is one of the few with a decent looking weapon, most likely because it IS, it's a normal weapon compared to all the Warp Relics everyone else possesses. Speaking of weapons, the fight scenes were so horrible I just wanted to laugh. No one really gets any stronger during the series, Emilio and Shun both suck and continue to do so throughout the series but somehow manage to defeat the bad guy all the same. Which reminds me, the bad guy's weapon seriously looks like Dr. Octopus from Spider Man. Seriously, no lie! There's a lot of issues with coordination as well during the vast majority of the series, if I didn't know any better I'd say it was a rush job. (Even though the episodes were released slowly.)

The plot is a mess. It's a typical 'stuck in fantasy world' series that honestly reminds me a little of Tegami Bachi (with the whole crystal in the sky thing). The pacing is quite bad and things don't start to get interesting until Shun and Emilio end up on the surface. (Literally the last four episodes.) Other than that it's a bunch of nonsense, while it makes you laugh and could be interesting at times, it's nothing special. You could easily brush it off and not think twice about it.

I honestly don't know why I was hyped about this series, maybe I read the summary when I heard it was coming out and thought it would be an awesome show. When I heard Funimation was taking it up I was even more excited but was disappointed when I didn't see a lot of advertising for it during the time it was airing. Now, I understand why. It's like the red-headed step child no one wants. As a rough draft, it's not bad, it just needs to be fleshed out, but for an original finished series, it's horrible. To publish something like this is just, wrong. You can tell at least one person was working hard and put their heart into the series but no one else followed suit. It's really sad because it could have been a decent series had they really worked hard on it.

Shun's facial expressions are much the same throughout the series and while Emilio gets time to grieve the loss of his family, Shun seems unfazed by his own personal loss, which doesn't make sense because he was agonizing over the person in question for a whole episode. Inconsistency was the main downfall of the series and perhaps a lack of understanding regarding what makes a good series come alive and pull the viewers in. Regardless, I wouldn't recommend watching the series, especially if you can't stand horrible pacing, useless characters, and only four episodes of interesting and moderately good anime.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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	Poll: Endride Episode 4 Discussion Stark700 - Apr 23, 2016	39 replies	by The69King420 »» Sep 12, 2024 2:45 PM
	Poll: Endride Episode 24 Discussion Stark700 - Sep 24, 2016	38 replies	by Craneface »» Mar 19, 2024 5:29 PM
	Poll: Endride Episode 20 Discussion Stark700 - Sep 3, 2016	19 replies	by Craneface »» Mar 19, 2024 2:05 PM
	Poll: Endride Episode 19 Discussion Stark700 - Aug 20, 2016	41 replies	by Craneface »» Mar 19, 2024 12:57 PM
	Poll: Endride Episode 12 Discussion Stark700 - Jun 25, 2016	20 replies	by Minakata_Hizuru »» Dec 25, 2022 8:06 PM