Dies Irae: Reimei

Hey, this is my first time writing a review on MAL.

So, first I'll clarify that I've read the Visual Novel and I love seeing it animated.

This episode adapts a side story of the VN (Die Morgendämmerung) which was 2 hours of gameplay.

I see a lot of controversy on this episode and I understand why since it was confusing to most. Now the adaptation was a bit rushed I'll admit, but it covered nearly everything from the story leaving minimal plot holes and censorships. If you watched this episode first then you might be confused but it makes more sense after episode 7.

The sound ... was nigh-perfect imo. They used the same voice actors from the VN which are outstanding and they remade the OSTs as well.

The art is not bad but not great either. Compared to the VN it lacks, but it's still amazing on its own.

The characters are pretty much the same except that they don't get fleshed out as well as in the VN. But taking into account the budget and the time limit the directors did a pretty good job.


In all, I liked it a lot and I'm sure some people who've also finished the game will agree. It's true that it can be confusing to newcomers who don't know the source's existence but I don't think that it's a good reason to not give the anime a try because of that reason.

Being an episode 0, the story bounced around a lot, but it has good potential. It's been a while since I've watched a subbed anime, but I had been following this one for a while and its on the dubbed list to be done in a few weeks.
I've def since worse anime, but the animation was interesting and the concepts were something I've never seen before, like at the very beginning. I definitely wouldn't call it the worst I've seen, or bad because it was done very well. It's a fantasy story that's based in real world history so that was cool too. ... Give it a try!

This episode is that bad, and it was an obvious introduction to the characters that will soon play a role in the series. It began with a typical setting of an opening with an introduction of a bunch of characters. Yes, it is an okay special, but it is so basic in my opinion. It was uninteresting and I get cringe at times. I gave it a 4 since I can see how cringy it is to me. I rather accept the cringiness of the series than this special. But I gave it a generous score of 4 since it still has an interesting setting ... for the plot and that is the only thing I appreciate about this special. Other than that, it was terrible.