Tensui no Sakuna-hime

First things first, I LOVE the game this Anime is based on, so I review from a point of comparison and focus less on character and story progression.

Tensui no Sakuna-hime is a game adaption of "Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin" which is a mix of 2D Hack 'n Slay and 3D Rice farming while containing some RPG elements like the crafting of clothes and weapons. However, as you may know Anime adaptions of video games are kinda a gamble - there are great ones like Persona 4, pretty solid ones like Valkyria Chronicles, and such disappointments you regret you ever watched it (I'm looking at ... you, Corpse Party). So which type is Sakuna-hime? Well, let me explain.

If you played the game, you will notice the producers of this Anime didn't just played it as well, they LOVED it! You have the same outfits and voice actors of the characters, the mountain pass, the fields, the cabins are perfectly adapted as well - hell, they even sit in the same order while eating diner. You have some of the comments Sakuna uses in the game like when she steps on the watered field. On plus, every episode contains some information about rice and its planting.
So yeah, they didn't produced this Anime just for the sake of it, you can feel they put their heart in it!

But as I pointed out in another review, an adaption can - but doesn't has to - be close to its source material, so how about the changes?
Well, in the game you have a lot of fighting to explore the island and collect materials, but here, they kept out a lot. On the one hand it's understandable that you can't focus too much on the fights if you only have 13 episodes to tell such a wide story (24 to 26 episodes would have been better), but therefore it's kinda hard to feel all the pressure Sakuna is going through at the beginning of the story. I mean, yes, there are some short fight scenes, but it's only mentioned and not really shown that she has to do so like every day while also planting the rice.
Furthermore, some chronological orders were changed, but not really for the better - the story about Kinta, Yui and the Crane for example takes place in the later game but here it's in the first half of the Anime which let to lose some impact. The same problem occurs within the last episodes with the drama around Tama which they cramed in only one episode instead of building it up in the middle of the story and fulfil it near the end. Therefore it also lacks of impact. Oh... and a similar issue is there when it comes to the volcano and Kokorowa-hime.
Also, there is no mentioning what will happan to all the characters after the end of the story like you had in the game.

However, that all is complaining at a high level since you have a lot of effort put in this Anime and I just can repeat myself that 13 episodes are way too short for such a wide story. That's why when I saw there will be an Anime adaption, I thought they would do 2 seasons to capture everything. So my biggest criticism is just that the Anime is too short, which leads in my opinion to the problem, that the first half feels more like a kind of slice of life and the second part like it forced the rest of the story to happen (even if I wouldn't know the game).
The art is solid and nothing special, but THANK GOD there is no shitty CGI in it! The music is just on top! Most of the time you have the music of the game, which let you feel home if you played it, and the OP and ED just fit perfect and send you good vibes - especially the OP.

In Conclusion, this adaption is solid to great. This Anime has a lot of heart and effort in it and let you feel everything from joy to concern to hope. The only weakness is that it's too short and would has need more episodes to capture everything and to keep a better pacing. But either way, you will have a good time watching it.
If I wouldn't know and love the game, I would say it's just a solid 7 and recommand, from a perspective of a game adaption an 8 or maybe 9 with little mixed feelings.
So, since we unfortunately don't have a 7.5 rating, I round up to 8 and recommand ;)

A pretty chill anime with a really chill vibe. As someone who thought I'd drop this on the first episode, I ended up keeping up with it--if only because I enjoyed the art style and vibe to it.

There's nothing particularly special about Sakuna: of Rice and Ruin. It's one that requires patience and being able to get past the first episode where it gives a terrible first impression between the character introductions and the fact that the main focus of the games, the plot itself, /the rice/... is super CGI. Something that can be a big turn off for a lot of people, me ... included. But it was only the rice? Sure why not.

Regardless of this first impression, I found myself feeling comfortable with the overall art style and the cozyness with it. I enjoy the ending theme song most of all. Most of your beginning cast of characters aren't very likeable at the start and they don't really grow on you until much later. And even when they do "grow", it's very minimal. A lot of what I really wanted to see and learn, you don't really get to until the final few episodes. Of Sakuna's actual fighting plot, the enemies, finding things out about her parents... the real meat of it you'll find in those last episodes.

Before that however? This anime reminded me of my childhood days where I'd turn on the tv and a pokemon cartoon would be showing. Because it's very much like watching a children's show and the way the character's personalities are is very akin to those olden days of watching cliche anime like that.

The anime isn't bad, but it's not great. It's average at best, and truly is enjoyable... sometimes. I'd go into this with tempered expectations.

Game adaptations are definitely an interesting medium. One way or another, they're very loose adaptations of their game counterpart due to the game in nature being a completely different experience -- usually spending tens of hours to complete. How does one adapt those hours of gameplay into a mere four hour adaptation?

Mobile games, in my experience actually tend to have the most success. Surprisingly, the production value of mobile game anime adaptations tend to be the highest, with a solid plot that the original game might not have been able to produce in it's mobile medium. Examples can be Rage of Bahamut Genesis (only season ... 1 let's be honest here) or Magatsu Wahrheit: Zuerst.

Tensui no Sakuna hime? It's a console game. Still, I don't judge. The first six or so episodes were good, especially the first 3 or so. It's about farming on a remote island, with a main character that acts spoiled, but slowly comes to age as the story progresses. Whether it be doing minor chores, taking on major responsibilities, or acting as a mediator, Sakuna-hime goes from a pampered spoiled god to someone that is shouldered with a bit of responsibility as a Goddess of Harvest. Sakuna-hime is a great character that's multifaceted and experiences many dynamic changes due to the challenges and hurdles she's forced to confront.

However, that's where all the magic stops happening. When the show becomes less about character development and farming, then it starts going downhill. Suddenly, a show about farming and developing land and character interaction becomes some third rate shounen anime about beating the evil god. Of course, this theme about demons looming around is certainly a theme that was always behind the scenes, but to so suddenly only focus about fighting was a wrong move. You're subject to the most one dimensional villains with self-righteous dialogue from Sakuna-hime and the rest of the cast that it's sickening. Yet another cliche-filled dialogue about how "we have to stop the cycle of hatred," and yet none of the main characters are forced to make a difficult moral decision. Rather, despite letting go villains and evil-doers constantly, the issue resolves by itself. By "forgiving everyone," Sakuna-hime and her people are able to still easily be absolved of any consequences due to plot armor. The final boss is similarly boring plot armor fights where feelings and sentiments are more important than the fight itself.

Additionally, I never said that the side characters were good. Tama is good just because he's mentoring/a close companion of Sakuna, but the rest of the characters -- especially the human ones -- are extremely cliche. Kinta was supposed to be a reclusive, polemic yet perhaps misunderstood or kind character that could have been explored a lot more than it should have. His whole arc with Yui kind of makes sense, but it just seems quite rushed and there's not enough exploration into the character relations afterwards for me to care. In fact, after Kinta's and Yui's character arc, he kind of just becomes a completely different character, which is to say he becomes a nice and generic side character that never contributes to the plot again. Tauemon, Myrthe, and Kaimaru are also similar in that there are some surface level descriptions of all of them, none of which are going into depth, and they also similarly contribute literally nothing to the story other than sometimes functioning as a plot device to a Hero's Journey.

If all of the human characters were likeable, the slice of life farming with some fights and magical happenings could have carried the entire show for 12 episodes, but unfortunately that would require good writing capabilities. Instead, if you slap an already failing cast of side characters and shove them away to make way for a generic and below average shounen show about beating the big bad boss guy, it's still slop, but you can get away with the terrible writing you had in the initial half of the show.

Art was fine, probably above average definitely when it comes to character design, details, and renders, but it was quite obvious that 90% of the budget was focused on the first few episodes where the visuals were quite a few notches above the latter parts of the show.

Overall, an uninspired anime adaptation that could have been great if it focused on character development and better writing.