Blue Archive the Animation Episode 3 Discussion

I watched the story until the previous episode in the game, and Serika seemed less agressive than she was in the anime. They are cutting out a bunch of stuff (which is fine, because it's not super important stuff, and I heard that they need to do this to fit Volume 1 into a 12 episode anime), but also adding a couple anime-original things (like everyone following Serika on her way to work, Shiroko talking to Serika near vending machines last episode, and a bunch of other stuff).
Whether to sit beside Shiroko or Nonomi was the most difficult decision in my life.

NAN DESU TTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Love them already.
Btw the "BLUE ARCHIVE" at the end of the ED has the same font as YOU DIED from Dark Souls lol

I really want Aru in the game. I rerolled enough to get both Iori and Shun from the tutorial gacha and was satisfied with that at first, but aargh. I know that she's farmable a bit later into the game, but it'll take a long time to get her that way right? :')

@Embient If you started very recently then just reroll for Aru from the tutorial gacha. Blue Archive is a super casual friendly game, and Aru is actually quite good anyways.

@HunLepto The "spoiler scene" in question was also in the prologue at the very start of the game so I wouldn't call it a spoiler.

@LotteWeiss But if I start from the beginning again, I will miss out on rewards from the first and second anime episodes, and I don't want that.

@Embient If you started very recently then just reroll for Aru from the tutorial gacha. Blue Archive is a super casual friendly game, and Aru is actually quite good anyways.

@HunLepto The "spoiler scene" in question was also in the prologue at the very start of the game so I wouldn't call it a spoiler.

I thought this episode is the worst one yet. Episode 1 and 2 were very decent but this one suffer from a very weird tone. It should have been comedic but the scenes with the meeting was very poor. It lacked any climax (Ayane's table flip) and the music choice was very forgettable. Furthermore, the way they introduced P68 is a bit jarring with the original scene with the boat and Aru's iconic face appearing before the abydos meeting in the restaurant. Unwelcome school also only played during the boat scene, very weird choice.

I also thought the battle was very poor. Blue Archive doesn't need that much focus on battle. The point of the battle was just to be comedic with the part-timer signing out. Instead we got a pretty serious battle with Shiroko vs Aru showoff until the bell ring and the part timer quit. That was honestly very bad. I think I also recall the abydos group thinking of capturing P68 to find out who hired them but that was seemingly skipped. That also clash with how the faceoff between shiroko and aru ended in the anime where abydos just let them go scott free.

Overall this was a very poor episode in many way. The game has a very simple and short story telling for the first chapter but somehow the anime makes it feels a lot longer and less entertaining with a lot less details. I'm hoping that it get better and that this episode was an exception but if you can't even hit the SOL scene properly in the anime, who would even care about the characters? The OP and ED are doing a better job of showing the characters bond than the actual anime so far.

Really they need to tone down the fighting. You can skip it. I know the game has a lot of fighting stage but there's no need to show them all.

I thought this episode is the worst one yet. Episode 1 and 2 were very decent but this one suffer from a very weird tone. It should have been comedic but the scenes with the meeting was very poor. It lacked any climax (Ayane's table flip) and the music choice was very forgettable. Furthermore, the way they introduced P68 is a bit jarring with the original scene with the boat and Aru's iconic face appearing before the abydos meeting in the restaurant. Unwelcome school also only played during the boat scene, very weird choice.

I also thought the battle was very poor. Blue Archive doesn't need that much focus on battle. The point of the battle was just to be comedic with the part-timer signing out. Instead we got a pretty serious battle with Shiroko vs Aru showoff until the bell ring and the part timer quit. That was honestly very bad. I think I also recall the abydos group thinking of capturing P68 to find out who hired them but that was seemingly skipped. That also clash with how the faceoff between shiroko and aru ended in the anime where abydos just let them go scott free.

Overall this was a very poor episode in many way. The game has a very simple and short story telling for the first chapter but somehow the anime makes it feels a lot longer and less entertaining with a lot less details. I'm hoping that it get better and that this episode was an exception but if you can't even hit the SOL scene properly in the anime, who would even care about the characters? The OP and ED are doing a better job of showing the characters bond than the actual anime so far.

Really they need to tone down the fighting. You can skip it. I know the game has a lot of fighting stage but there's no need to show them all.

but these fights are part of story

@LotteWeiss I meant the Volume F scene. That was supposed to be a much later reveal.

@Seeker1995

It is indeed a bit delusional to cut the fights, not like these fights also demand top tier animation, they're minor fights but fights that are apart of the story, I more-so applaud them for being majority accurate

@Tiau You can show the beginning and skip to the end of the fight. How the fight happened doesn't matter, what matter is the conclusion. All I got from watching the fight (that lasted 3min!) is that sensei once again made a weird kinda useless plan and that kayoko is somehow skillful at CQC. Everything else felt pointless. Every bullet are dodged not even showing how resistant everyone is, no fanservice of any EX skill. They might have tried with aru and mutsuki but it looked hella goofy and pointless. I didn't mind the first 2 fight because it was setting up that sensei help the student with his "genius plan" but it got very repetitive and the plan looks awful most of the time. It's also getting very tiring that abydos looks weak which is not what is usually shown in the game. It seems like they are nerfing them or making the opponent stronger to "raise the stakes" when there are not supposed to be any.

The game also has a few fight in some animated PVs and they looked way more dynamic than whatever is shown in this episode. If they are not going to do dynamic fights like those PV why bother? It's very boring. If they are keeping a more dynamic choreography for more important fight, why even bother animating these unimportant fights?

@Thai777
Respectfully disagree there, all they did was use the fight to establish Problem Solver's characteristics.
I honestly wasn't even shocked about Kayoko being good at CQC considering the dress variant basically being a spy and it's not really like her EX skill does much outside of gameplay, having her trick them alongside Mutsuki is a good idea

The issue with this fight in particular is that Abydos technically speaking outside of gameplay never actually 'win' in this encounter, they fight from after they eat till when the part-timers clock out, I would argue that Abydos isn't established to be particularly strong until much later on in the story.

While yes they could change things, but for the most part all they've done was adapt things straight, even if they made changes and cut the fight shorter, to what gain? As far as I can tell they're well in pace of the story and that's with added scenes if you cut out all the fights but the "important" ones its not like they need the extra runtime, least not currently anyways. I also don't think it's realistic to compare it to PVs since those are pretty different from pacing out an entire season with an animation team that might not be capable of doing sakuga every episode, and if that is the case theres better fights to use your best animators on than this.

somehow managed to be worse than last episode