Isekai Suicide Squad

The isekai genre is easily the most overdone genre in anime. Ever since the success of Sword Art Online in the early 2010s, isekai has continued to grow in popularity, with more and more series being churned out each season. As of 2024, the average viewer's sentiment regarding isekai is that its become synonymous with the phrase "quantity over quality." This brings us to one of the recent additions to the genre's catalogue, Suicide Squad Isekai. Is it more of the same junk food we've grown to expect, or is it a hidden gem which takes on the genre in a more creative and unique ... way? Unfortunately, the answer is the former. Suicide Squad Isekai doesn’t do much with the isekai concept, nor does it do much with the concept of the Suicide Squad.

The fantasy world that the main characters are transported into is nothing more than the same generic setup we've seen many times before: there's a kingdom, there's a war and the main characters are expected to be the trump card in winning the conflict. However, the world-building never goes beyond the surface level, and it's clear that the show itself has no desire to explore things in depth. It uses the isekai genre merely as a backdrop rather than as an integral part of the story. The characters themselves even make meta jokes about common isekai clichés and plot conveniences, but these jokes fall flat because the show doesn't attempt to parody or satirize the clichés; instead, it merely underscores how basic and cliched its own narrative is. The story's only redeeming aspect so far is the pacing, which moves fast enough within each episode to prevent the show from becoming too boring.

The main cast do attempt to add some life into an otherwise plain and generic isekai, with Harley Quinn's chaotic charisma doing most of the heavy lifting. However, the majority of the other characters fall into basic one-dimensional character archetypes. The worst example of this is Peacemaker who comes across as dull as a plank of wood whenever he's on screen. So far, there is little to no attempt at exploring characters beyond their surface-level personalities which is reminiscent of certain anime video game adaptations where the characters exist primarily to maintain the status quo and to serve as little more than promotional tools for a brand. There is definitely so much more that can be done with the concept of the Suicide Squad as there are countless comics out there to draw inspiration from, however it seems like the show is unfortunately not willing to explore the characters beyond their wikipedia page descriptions.

The show maintains high production values, as expected from Wit Studio. However, there are occasional noticeable drops in art quality during certain parts of some episodes, despite the overall good art and animation quality. The show's soundtrack is well-made and fits the genre and tone of the anime well.

Overall, Suicide Squad Isekai offers nothing new to the isekai genre, relying heavily on typical genre conventions and clichés that may not appeal to those who have grown tired of them. The standouts of the show so far include the good production values, vibrant character designs and Harley Quinn's chaotic charisma, powered by her amazing voice actor. However, the anime struggles to deliver a unique narrative and doesn't bother to expand on characters beyond their surface level personalities.

Current Scorings:
Animation: 7/10
Sound: 8/10
Story: 2/10
Character: 4/10
Value: 1/10
Enjoyment: 4/10
Overall: 4.4/10

The one good thing I can say about this show is the characters are animated well and are drawn beautifully. The CGI doesn't feel out of place like the bad ones we tend to notice. The good aspects of the show ends there. This show was unneeded for the franchise. The plot is all over the place and doesn't establish itself as knowing what it wants until the last few episodes (way too late into the game). It felt like I was watching a cash-grab. Isekai as a genre is already oversaturated; I was betting on this to be good based on the team ... behind the serie. But what I got was something half baked

Plots that don't connect well and a narrative that can seem forced or incoherent. The anime may not meet expectations based on the films or comics, resulting in discontent with differences in tone and approach. The quality of animation and character design can be considered subpar, especially compared to other anime or superhero films.
.
Tramas que não se conectam bem e uma narrativa que pode parecer forçada ou incoerente. O anime pode não atender às expectativas baseadas nos filmes ou quadrinhos, resultando em descontentamento com diferenças de tom e abordagem. A qualidade da animação e do design dos personagens pode ser considerada abaixo da média, especialmente ... em comparação com outros filmes de anime ou super-heróis.

So the first 1 episode sets the premise of the series i gues kinda in a way it puts the mystery in it like oh what is this machine?"" What are they doing, whats happening? Ect
It was definitely a more interesting uproach to the isekai part. But i would have laughed my ass if the joker got hit by a car and became sexualy attrackted to minors as every isekai goes.
I will tell you it's really enjoyable it has comedy. it's full of action and gore, and it's a lot of fun, but the writing is missing, and when i say missing, i ... mean like missing, it feels just like another middle of the run crashgrab from DC with no writting effort put into it not no experimentations just a basic story with no interesting qualities characters ect. Not only that but with every episode the animation declines and gets worse and worse i really hoped that this series could have been like Cyberpunk Edgerunners but no. Dont waster youre time

After this squad solved its first problem with the time limit, I just cant find myself caring what happens to them next. The story is generic isekai, which is not bad in itself, but absence of an MC who you can relate to, makes this too boring and unwatchable.

A lot of questionable artistic decisions. One of them is some weird map that replace action sequences of their travels. Another is the presence of some flashbacks with Joker, which do not help either, as they are just time-wasting fillers.

The main problem is the lack of any clear personal goals for the main character cast to ... which you can start to relate to. Without them, they are just a bunch of overpowered monstrosities running around without a clear goal. Boring.

As someone who really enjoyed the original Suicide Squad movie, I was really excited for this anime, though I had some reservations about the decision to make it an isekai Anime. And that worry turned out to be justified. The whole thing ended up being painfully average, with a story that felt forced and eventually spiraled into an incoherent mess by the end.

I feel like there was so much potential here but it was all wasted. The opening is an uninspiring mashup of music, characters from the fantasy world have shallow backstories and are painfully stereotypical, the world-building is practically nonexistent, and the plot is ... dull, forced, and confusing. I feel like the biggest problem in all of this is that they opted to make the story into an isekai. The anime market is so over saturated with isekais these days which makes it so hard to stand out in the genre. And the fantasy world in " Isekai Suicide Squad " is quite frankly even below average, which causes the entire project to suffer. There's plot twists which are there to keep the story interesting but you can mostly smell them miles away. The animation can get choppy and goofy at times which just further adds to the negatives, though admittedly some fights in the later episodes were animated well and ended up being enjoyable.

When it comes to the positives, I always try to be fair to shows and give it the benefit of the doubt. The show did a good job in advertising itself and I had seen a lot of posts on social media and trailers long before it even started airing. And let's be honest here, capitalizing on the trend of western franchises getting anime adaptations was a clever strategy. "Suicide Squad" is a name many people are familar with, which makes it easy to get people interested in your anime. The DC villains were drawn really well and especially Harley Quinn looked phenomenal. In fact, Harley Quinn was one of the few highlights of this adaptation. Her character design, voice acting, and overall portrayal all came together so well.

In the end, this turned out to be a huge disappointment, though my high expectations likely played a big part in how let down I felt. There's just too many issues that prevent you from truly enjoying "Isekai Suicide Squad" and I honestly also cannot recommend this to anyone curious whether they should watch it or not. It was average, though you could also make a case for it being even worse and I would fully agree. It's sad, but this one truly missed the mark.

When I started watching I had high expectations, because it's an isekai with DC villains, like what's the chance of being disappointed?
Well... the characters don't always manage to make an uninteresting story interesting.
My biggest complaint is the story, in my opinion it's boring, lots of random characters involved, the fact that they wanted to transform the suicide squad into a squad of heroes didn't work.
To be honest the firsts episodes caught my attention, but after watching a few episodes I lost interest and only finished it out of curiosity if the ending would be good.
And I was disappointed again...

I want to like this series more than I do.

As pure turn your brain off fun, it's not a bad time by any means. The sakuga goes hard when they go all out, the characters are varied and have the kind of zany personalities you would expect for something like this, and the setting lends itself to some ridiculousness.

The trouble is two-fold. One, and the lighter of my complaints, I just don't think it does much to justify the setting beyond "wouldn't this be cool!?" Maybe that's kind of the point, that this fantasy world is a playground where our characters can have ... wild adventures, but they keep hinting at deeper dynamics with its monsters, kingdoms and magic that just never manifest. Worse yet, at least from where I'm sitting, they don't use that setting to the fullest. You would think that bringing these characters into a magical world would mean we'd get to see all kinds of crazy interplay between magic and their various powers and skillsets, but there's surprisingly little of it until very near the end. It's a wasted opportunity to make this as crazy as possible, though admittedly when its at its craziest, there's not a lot you can make out behind all the magic circles and colorful attacks.

Two, this series is based on existing IP. The Suicide Squad has canon behind it, and while I don't know a lot of it and don't expect this series to mirror everything (I personally don't mind that the relationship between Harley and The Joker is significantly lighter and more loving on his side - the abusive relationship has been done to death), I think it should get some of the major beats right. Haven't given my thoughts on this one up til now, but generally speaking, I expect three things from my Suicide Squad content: characters should die, their allegiances should always be in question, and they should wreck some shit. On all three fronts, I'd say this work fell short. It never felt like any of the main characters were in any substantial danger, though I'll hand it to the show that they're not exactly kind to the villains who they defeat. The characters just align with the main kingdom and there's rarely an indication that they're even considering working their own angles beyond doing what they have to in order to stay alive. And while they do cause a good deal of damage, it's usually to the enemy. There's generally very little sense that our main characters are or were villains.

I think hitting these marks were the low-hanging fruit to make this anime work, and while it hits some of them from time-to-time, but misses more often. So while this was a decent enough popcorn watch, it's almost all empty calories that surprisingly doesn't go as hard as it could while failing to capitalize on the best parts of the IP.

Isekai Suicide Squad is an out of place and unnecessary addition to the genre. After watching the first five episodes it became clear that the series is simply a misguided attempt to capitalize on popular fandom at the expense of the viewer. While the animation and art style is quite good, it severally lacks the narrative qualities you would find in any decent anime.

Story Writing: To put it simple character interaction feel forces and dry. There is a severe lack of plot and motivation for the story to follow. Even in a genre known for its flexible realism, the whole premise of this project seems ... ridiculous There are no quality story arcs to be found and violence seems to be the only solution the character are capable of. This simple lack of creativity and two dimensional characters leaves each episode feeling more and more flat and devoid of excitement than the last.

Characters: The main characters are not at all life like or expressive. Even for supervillains the level of emotional maturate each displays is extremely poor. There is also very little character development throughout the story making it hard for the viewer to connect. This lack of character appeal will leave you un invested and rooting against the protagonists you were mean to support.

Visual Quality: The only quality of this anime that is worthy of praise would be the art style. The quality of animation and action scenes show attention to detail thay many hope of in the new seasonal anime. Despite being from the DC Universe the characters are designed to fit in to the animated world the show tales place in. Unfortunately, no level of beauty can salvage a series that is this intellectually unappealing.

Conclusion To put it simply, you should not take the time to watch this. An Isekai anime with rebellious western supervillains isn’t the type of thing that a dedicated audience want to see. This project should have simply been left to imagination. Hopefully this forgettable and disappointing crossover will serve as an example of what not to do for popular animation studios in the future.

Rating 1/10 (Despite my love of Isekai)
Authors note: This is an honest and fair review the series. However, it was been heavily moderated by "gaussian_"

It's just the suicide squad story line,
with the change from another nation, to another world.
The only amazing part about this animation was the visuals.
The story is mainly a bad combo of it takes 2, with some elements from gate, but mainly just the generic storyline from suicide squad.,.
Basically, something I hoped it wasn't going to be and wel already saw from the trailer.
The story isn't a generic isekai, but it's not like they are bringing something new to the tale when it comes to "suicide squad".

I'm srr, but if you like anime and mainly consume anime and not cartoons, this won't be the best thing ... to watch.
Taste is basically a personal thing
and I like things which I know a lot of people wouldn't even watch if they would receive a billion euro and 2 million lamas,
however, with such a lame storytelling, which makes even the lamest of lamest isekais look really well written like "how a realist hero rebuilt the kingdom" I wouldn't really recement it, besides the "visuals" which are quite good.

Although it seems like a great idea to make an anime with the Suicide Squad characters, the application they made with this 'pile of nothing' they produced is useless.
Although the animation is good, it still has its flaws—deformed faces at times, lines that don't match the rest of the scene, and changes in art style in the middle of scenes. These are all somewhat subtle issues, but they create a strange feeling, and once you notice them, it's hard not to.
Finally, let's talk about the story. It fails to stay consistent, sets a rule and then simply forgets it ... the next moment, doesn't apply continuity in a decent way, has scene changes at inconvenient times, doesn't revisit interesting plot points when it should, and ultimately fails to keep the story engaging for the viewer.