Blue Archive the Animation

Kivotos is a federal megalopolis comprising thousands of schools and is led by the General Student Council (GSC), which acts as its governing body. Ironically, despite being an academy city, Kivotos is rife with gun violence, and all students wield firearms as part of their everyday lives.

As if the crisis in Kivotos was not enough, the GSC president is nowhere to be found. Fortunately, before her sudden disappearance, the GSC president enlisted the help of Sensei—a teacher who is most likely the only one in Kivotos—to support students in their time of need. Sensei's first course of action is to assist Abydos High School, a once prestigious academy now with merely five students in attendance. These remaining students are doing everything they can to pay their academy's crippling debt of almost one billion yen.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Sunaookami, Shiroko Main

Ogura, Yui Japanese

Takanashi, Hoshino Main

Hanamori, Yumiri Japanese

Sensei Main

Sakata, Shougo Japanese

Kuromi, Serika Main

Ohashi, Ayaka Japanese

Izayoi, Nonomi Main

Miura, Chiyuki Japanese

Okusora, Ayane Main

Harada, Sayaka Japanese

Sorasaki, Hina Supporting

Hirohashi, Ryou Japanese

Rikuhachima, Aru Supporting

Kondou, Reina Japanese

Onikata, Kayoko Supporting

Fujii, Yukiyo Japanese

Hayase, Yuuka Supporting

Yamagishi, Daigo Director, Series Composition

Naya, Ryousuke Sound Director

40mP Theme Song Lyrics, Theme Song Composition, Theme Song Arrangement, Music

Oonogi, Hiroshi Series Composition

Reviews

Apr 21, 2024

Neo_Randomz

Recommended

Preliminary (3/12 eps)

First of all *sob emoji* *sob emoji* *sob emoji* *sob emoji* *sob emoji*.

Now, "Blue Archive the Animation," the adaptation of the hit mobile game "Blue Archive," finally aired, and so far IT'S SO GOOD.

From the animation to the opening sequence, characters, and background song, it's safe to say this is one of the best gacha game-to-anime adaptations.

The plot itself follows and adapts the same story present in the game with a little bit of tinkering so it fits the anime aesthetic, and some anime-only scenes were added BUT don't affect the original story whatsoever. Sadly, they don't really animate the prologue of this anime, so ... anime-only watchers might find difficulties understanding the lore and world-building, like "what is that thing on top of their head?" or "why are they bulletproof?" or "why does that guy keep a girl inside a fcking iPad?" or "SHE'S FIFTEEN?" and so on. There are also a few character cameos that only game players can notice and appreciate.

The songs are amazing. There's a saying that gacha game studios are actually just music studios in disguise, and this saying still proves to be true. No bad songs are to be found in this anime, be it the main theme or the background songs—it's all good.

The animation is almost, if not as good as, the "Princess Connect! Re:Dive" anime adaptation. Yostar definitely put all of that gacha money to good use—it's vibrant, colorful, and serene. The same goes for the opening animation—it's without a doubt one of the best openings I've ever seen. A banger song combined with video game PV-quality animation that also fleshed out the core of the Blue Archive world itself—a world filled with joy and conflict. It's perfect.

The characters... oh man... don't get me started. It's just so... peak. Never have I thought that they could make all of these already cute characters EVEN CUTER. And it's funny how they buff some "parts" of the characters while also nerfing some "parts," but BALANCE is needed. You can't buff everything because it's going to be overflowing, and you can't nerf everything because it's going to be shallow. And it's always the way Blue Archive designed its characters—crudely tame and subtly lewd. Tame enough to make them precious and warm your heart, but lewd enough to flick the hidden beast inside you.

And now for the most important part—the MC himself, Sensei. Quick reminder, Blue Archive is a self-insert game, which means, in the very first place, the main character has no actual physical form. Even in most "media," he is depicted as a cute and funny doodle. But Yostar, for the first time, learned their lesson, so instead of making the MC a person with Schrödinger genitals or A FCKING CHICKEN, they actually made him a young man with a soft-looking physique with an even softer personality, lovable face, and friend-shaped. They designed him to look average enough while at the same time showing the reason why every student in Kivotos wants a piece of him.

Overall, this is a top-tier adaptation of a mobile game. Yostar definitely knew which audiences they wanted to please this time: their fans, which fortunately is easy since Blue Archive was already very popular before the anime was announced, so it already has a large audience in the first place. Safe to say, this anime is not merely to promote the game but also a cheer and thank-you gift for all the Sensei around the world who have been supporting the game.

Is this recommended? For the players, absolutely. For the anime-only watcher, it can be hard to understand the plot and world-building sometimes, but you can still enjoy this as a cute-girls-doing-cute-things anime... just with guns and A DUDE.

Now, before I lose my composure to not say the C-word, I have to end my review with a message: let's enjoy this cute and funny anime to the fullest, my fellow Sensei. It's not just for you or for me but FOR US *sob emoji* *sob emoji* *sob emoji*.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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May 14, 2024

YuudachiFR

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (3/12 eps)

small update on the review.

summary of the opinion:
you are a player, you can watch.

you are not a player: pass your turn.

story that clearly lacks meaning (they skipped important things like the most basic thing: why don't the characters take bodily damage after being shot?)

however the fights, the opening, the ending are quite successful.
...
too bad that the 'sensei' (thus us) is very neutral while on the game we clearly have more impact.

For players it is clearly a success but for non-players it is clearly a failure but we are not the target for many who are not necessarily interested in gacha in general.

it is + worth reading the stroy than watching the anime.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Apr 22, 2024

OrkusReOrca

Not Recommended

Preliminary (3/12 eps)

What a... mess? This anime feels like more of a crowd pleaser or an advertisement for the game. It doesn't know what it want to do. Like you're gonna be an action show? a cgdct show? a drama? a mystery? what is it, and it trying to be everything is such a mess. Even though it listed genre as action and fantasy, it even fail at such, and all because the failing world building, with no prominent plot to stand on. No amount of sob emoji can save this one i'm afraid.

Recommend for: Animation, Production quality, CGDCT, Character
Not Recommend for: Writing, World building, Story

FULL REVIEW:
Background: ... I didn't play the Blue Archive game, so I have no knowledge of it, and purely review this as an anime critic.
THE PROS:
This show would succeed as a cgdct. The character design is very good, but the plot does interfere with it and does sometime do deus ex machina over the character in some place, will get into that in the cons section. Though overall the character design is ok, there's some stereotyping but also have some uniqueness to each character, and not all of them have a strict 1 personality to stick, so it's really refreshing and feels real. [8/10]

The animation is also beautiful on the eyes to watch, the style fits the show really on whatever mess they're trying to do. The comedy also got complimented by the animation really well too [10/10]. With some perfect mixing of the soundtrack, not overused, and overall not make the show boring [8/10]. Overall very good production quality alone.

THE CONS:
First of all, the world building is one of the biggest flaw. From someone totally not related to the game, this show fail to make sense of the world to the viewers. Even if the world is VERY VERY interesting in its own right, not showing it or even explaining it in a meaningful way make the interesting world feels more like a mess rather than a cool world to be intrigue about. I first expect it to slowly explaing / show to us the world through the story, but 3 ep in and nothing in sight. [4/10]

Next is the story, the story might be good enough on the gacha game standard, but when translated to an anime, the standard is held much higher, and this show fails at having an interesting good story. Even if it's on a comedy / cgdct standard (expect to have chill plot/non at all), it's still below average. This wouldn't be a problem if its laid the ground work for the world building better than this, to let the audience know what to expect of the world, and what characters in this world decision are made from / their environment. So with the unsaid world building, the story took a hit from it. [5/10]

Last and the worst, is the writing. The one thing that make me say this is episode 2. THE WHOLE OF EPISODE 2 IS LITERALLY FABRICATED FROM A DEUS EX MACHINA, just because they want to do something. Full reason with spoiler can be found under the note of this anime on my profile list. Though to conclude, bending a character thoughts and action just to make an event happen is not right. Not giving the reason to that decision is even not more right. Even with the "caustious" argument that that character could be doing it because they're cautious, then it should be the whole group, not just 1 character. So it's just the biggest most blatant plot hole that do effect the plot and story a lot. [1/10]

THE NEUTRAL:
The action is pretty good to action anime standards. With some uniqueness to it. Though flops on the choreography and sensible, since it's all just power blasting everywhere. [7/10]

OVERALL:
In conlusion, this show got some good production quality to back it up, with some good characters and cool unique style to the world. However, its flaw with the conveying of the world building, combined with the writing that's low quality and many plot-holes everywhere, really drag the show down, along even with its shenanigans story.

RECCOMENDATION:
If you enjoy cgdt, guns, and funni stuff, go for it.
If you are sensible to sensible plot, may be try it out, but might not please you.

Overall score as an action fantasy: 7/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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	Poll: Blue Archive the Animation Episode 7 Discussion Xanek - May 19	30 replies	by Kimberly112 »» 2 hours ago
	Poll: Blue Archive the Animation Episode 9 Discussion Xanek - Jun 2	18 replies	by amlg »» 7 hours ago
	Sensei, tell us who is your favorite student. ( 1 2 ) Shizuna - Apr 17	62 replies	by Shizuna »» Yesterday, 1:47 PM
	Does this show have merch? Phantom_373 - Jun 2	3 replies	by Phantom_373 »» Jun 3, 1:48 AM
	Poll: Blue Archive the Animation Episode 8 Discussion Xanek - May 26	21 replies	by SouthRzVa »» May 31, 6:17 PM