Sep 24, 2016
This is a perfect example of how trying to fit a 25+ chapter story into 12 episodes can lead to catastrophic results.
The premise behind this series is quite good, but it never reaches its potential due to wanting to do too much in too little time. I'll illustrate with some examples:
- Fight scenes: these have the potential to be amazing, that is, if fights had enough time to flesh out. Four fights happening simultaneously in the same location? Too bad, we have to close this shiz in one episode, so let's just show two blows, loser gets dismembered, winner says some snarky remark about their
...
clear superiority, and quickly transition to the next fight happening, we have 20 minutes ffs.
- Character development: you'll have no clue of what some characters are talking about half the time, due to background information about said characters only existing in the minds of the series' creators, they don't have the time to explain it in the series proper. There's a particular secondary character who appears in like... three episodes. He gets like 2 minutes total screen time, says approximately 6/7 lines, and for how powerful he's supposed to be, you don't even get to know his name.
Other problems about this series include the main protagonist feeling like a total wimp who has no idea of what he's doing half the time and only stares in awe while his opponent pummels the shit out of him.
There's also a problem with fight development: most other series give you a general idea of what a character can or can't do in combat, be it by showing their training or having a roughly cohesive thematical identity, so you can expect some attacks and be hyped for their potential to be untapped, and so on. Yet here, because of the same reason I've been repeating all along, it's all very sudden and you can't get hyped by anything.
I have the impression the studio had planned a longer series and had to change plans in the middle of actually making it, because the action and characters in the first few chapters are way more fleshed out and overall interesting. It's kind of like the infamous Gantz's final chapter, where they suddenly throw everything out the window because they learned they wouldn't be continuing the story along with the manga and they wanted to give it some closure.
The few redeeming qualities of this series are good looking art, a pretty good OST and sound effects (I'm a sucker for the WOOOOP of the Void Maker), and a huge amount of fanservice which doesn't feel too out of place. I'd totally watch a 26 episode version of this series, and I'd probably rate it higher than this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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