Well, let's get on with this.
It's pretty good, but I'm still a bit disappointed, not that I had particularly high expectations for the adaptation to begin with. Let's begin with the thing I was most worried about before it started, the pacing. This, at least, seems to not be too bad, but it's also a bit early to say. The first episode covers the first three chapters of the manga, but that comes with a bit of a problem. There is quite a bit cut from it. My biggest worry going into this was that is would try to cover the entire manga with just two cours. With there already being a noticeable amount cut when adapting three chapters into a single episode, a rate that would get them to chapter 72/111, if they were to try and adapt the whole thing, they would likely have to cut entire sections out of the story, and my fears of terrible pacing will be founded. Luckily, around chapter 70 is a bit of a lull between major story sections, so it would actually make for a pretty good stopping point for the end of the season. We should probably talk about what was cut though, so this next section will be about the structure.
A lot of the cut content was comedy. I found the most likely things to be cut were small, one or two panel jokes, details, and internal monologues. In fact, just about every one or two panel joke was cut, to the point that I was able to remember one that was coming up and correctly guess that it would be skipped (guy with a broken finger during chess). It's kind of a shame, as a lot of those jokes were some of the best in the early chapters precisely because of their brevity. At the same time, they added a bit to the scene where Vamirio is a judge that could probably have been shortened in favor of a couple of those jokes, not to mention the first minute or so that was anime original. The thing that I'm most concerned about that was skipped was the .5 chapter. I didn't expect all of them to be put in the adaptation, but they're usually good for character building, like the one that was skipped, and a lot of them are important to the main plot. I would have preferred as many of them be put in as possible, but I knew that at least some of them would have to be cut. I just hope that it doesn't just cut all of them, as that would actually harm the story in more major ways. There were some weird structure choices made with the Asuta segments. For some reason, they changed the placement of her introduction scene to the middle of the card tower segment instead of after it. The weirdest change I found was how it presented it's information. They have removed most of her inner monologues, something she has in most of her scenes in the manga due to her usually being alone. For her introduction scene, her inner first monologue was replaced with a narrator. While she was walking toward the town, she had another inner monologue that gave some lore exposition that is important to the overall story, but that entire thing was cut. When she got to the town and decided to contact Isuta, they then cut back to the tournament. When they cut back to Asuta, they added in a scene of her contacting Isuta, in which the narrator explains class two magic abilities. This bit confuses me. Why would they cut a scene of Asuta explaining a more major lore element, but add an original scene where the narrator explains something that would already get explained shortly afterward anyway? The shuffling of scenes doesn't seem to add anything either, so why do it in the first place? And why insist on getting rid of so much of the internal dialogue, often just replacing it with a narrator but sometimes cutting it completely? I didn't mention it yet, but Hon had this happen to him several times as well. I can understand cutting some of it for time, but why replace any of it with a narrator? I really wasn't keen on how this bit was handled.
Let's talk about the visuals. They're not good, but at least they're not Biscuit Hammer. It actually does have animation, though it is minimal and saved only for action scenes. I'm glad they decided to go with the artstyle from later in the manga instead of the early artstyle. I really don't like the frequent use of ugly effects animation, but at least some explosions look fine. I'm a bit disappointed with some of the artistic choices made. Namely, a lot of the facial expressions and general expressiveness have been nerfed, especially on the side and background characters. Take the scene where Kenros shares his "revelation" about the card tower competition. Throughout the scene, his face barely deviates from what it normally looks like. It gives a much more flat perception than the bombastic feeling of even mundane moments of the early manga. Similar comparative flatness can be found in multiple parts of the episode, such as when the competitors are getting ready right before the card tower match. I'm also not a fan of anything they did with Rubero. They cut his introduction scene since it was in the .5 chapter, fair enough, but for some reason they made him yellow instead of white and nerfed his muscles and facial expressions. I don't care for the colors in general, but I do think they did good with how they colored most of the more important characters.
The sounds are pretty typical for a modern anime, but I had a small problem with the soundtrack. There were a couple scenes where this mild song was playing over the character's talking that I think probably would have been better with no background music. I didn't like the opening or ending, but I thought the ending was more okay. The opening was basically default for modern action fantasy anime in terms of both song and visuals, and Helck only gave a single half smile in it, which I didn't like. I'm not sure what was up with the visuals of most of the ending, I thought they didn't really match with anything in the story, but the song was nice.
I'd say that so far this hasn't been the best of adaptations, though it hasn't been too bad. Most good points it has were also good points with the source material. I was going to say that the artstyle was a step up from the manga since it uses the later artsyle instead of the earlier one, but with how many artistic changes were made that were a step down from the manga, I can't really say that was the case. There really isn't a single thing about the experience that enhanced the manga, which is the biggest strength of good adaptations. In fact, by having so much cut, it became a worse experience compared to the manga. With all that said, it's still Helck. I said most good points were also good points with the source material, and it just so happens that source material is fantastic, so the good points with the anime are still really good. The anime at least seems to be adequately covering the important parts, and if it's able to do a decent job with a lot of what comes later, it will still be a great experience, even if it's entirely due to the source material. |