Story - 9/10
As we all know, the plot of this series revolves around 6 chosen heroes all with different abilities whom are tasked with defeating the Majin whom is the ultimate evil of this series and his armies of Fiends
Sounds pretty generic on the outside and rightfully so it pretty much is however, this story has so much more to offer that personally it shocked the hell out of me.....One thing that the average person would expect from a fantasy/supernatural/adventure anime is the potential for good world building and character interactions and everything that falls under. I know for a fact that there are a lot of skeptical mindsets when it comes to LN adaptations due to the fact that a lot of studios nowadays tends to fail to properly adapt certain aspects of said novels in terms of either missed dialogue or even the skipping or rushing of scenes all together
Rokka no Yuusha surprisingly does none of that....Not only has it refrained from skipping or rushing material but it actually takes out the time to adapt every bit of dialogue whether it be internal monlogues or conversations between characters. Moreover, there is such a great attention to detail as well as information about the world, characters besides the main ones, abilities as well as background information
But that's not even the most surprising part....This entire season has literally revolved around something that doesn't even directly focus on the overarching plot of the story.....Usually in series such as what I just lightly mentioned doesn't even happen until much later on in the story yet alone having an entire season/volume be based around it and the great part is that its handled so freaking well!!!!! Everything from the suspense and intensity of the dialogue, straight up to the inevitable conflicts amongst the characters whether it being verbal or physical is just done to perfection.....There is another important aspect in regards to this but I will touch on that in a later segment
All in all, albeit the story being generic on paper, how it's handled is anything but amazing.....You would think that everything would be straightforward but boy is that the biggest and most false assumption that anyone can even imply
Art/Animation - 7/10
This is easily the weakest part of and tbh the only major flaw that I see from this anime.....The evidence is everywhere and as such I shouldn't need to even pry on this matter however, there are some things here that are worth noting
The character designs are all very well thought out considering that this series takes place in what seems to be like a period of early civilizations and as such the characters all look like they belong in this time period....Lastly, even though the art tends to look bad for the most part, the animation however is still pretty decent and does a good job portraying the action bits of the series. The fiends all look pretty menacing and has that creepy factor going for them as well which is also good
Sound - 8/10
As with the character designs the OST fits particularly well with the theme and tone of the story primarily both of the OP's which might I add, all sound beautiful. The voice acting is also pretty good and they each seem to fit their respective characters very well (Primarily Adlet, Fremy and Hans)
Characters - 9/10
In regards to the other segment that I mentioned earlier, I wanted to save it for this particular section considering that this is the icing on the cake. Like with the story, the charters themselves are the standard archtypes/generic but that's only on paper
In short, this story is VERY character centric and as such, there is a lot of focus on every character with some getting more focus than others for obvious reasons as you dive further into the story....Another thing is that their personalities are all very diverse primarily because of their respective backgrounds for example our MC Adlet, Fremy and Nashetania.....There isn't much development for some of these characters, but they are written in such a way that they don't really need much of it at all
What makes thsee characters shine even more is the twists that they all bring about and as such, it is quite evident that everyone isn't exactly like what they are being portrayed as (On purpose might I add considering future events both in this season and beyond) and that is lovely because it adds to the suspense and intensity week after week and what makes it even better is that the characters themselves are aware of this very same thing hence why they the way they do towards each other as well as showing the dynamics between them all....Another thing that I love is that plot armor isn't much of a factor here and nobody is truly invincible or that overpowered so the fear of shit hitting the fan is pretty high
Enjoyment - 10/10
For all of the reasons above....I am a sucker for this kind of story and to not only see every aspect being handled so well but have insane plot twists combined with the great character interactions and the characters themselves being very interesting in general all wrapped up in a very thrilling, mysterious and suspenseful plot is just wonderful....Also each character is impressive battle wise in their own unique and creative ways which is a huge plus for me considering that they all had to earn their strength
I want to give this series a 10/10 but taking my inner fanboy away, this is the most well deserved 9/10 that I've given to a seasonal anime in a long time
