You know, I liked this anime when it first started airing. The first couple episodes showed great promise. The premises were fresh - a complex fantasy setting mixed in with a time-travel-upon-death mechanic similar to what you see in a video game. I was genuinely interested to see what happens next to our stereotypical dysfunctional teenage MC.
However, it didn't take long for the settings to backfire on the overly ambitious writers. Because the majority of the show-time was taking the character back to his original checkpoint, the story itself was constantly repeating the same scenes over and over again, along with the character relationships. I'm certain that the writers are aware of this, so they tried to compensate by accelerating the plot's pace and that's when the problems began setting in.
The characters "developed" bonds that I consider to be creepy and unnatural. They have only met each other for a short time (largely due to the death-reset mechanic) , and for some reason they act like they're willing to do anything for one another.
Now, that doesn't sound too horrible, I suppose. Until the scenes kicked in. Yes, I'm talking about the torture hentai. At this point in time, I can't help but wonder: is shock the only thing people value from a story? The only thing shocking I found was seeing how people in the comment section responded to these scenes. They were either praising the gore, or circle-jerking about how sad the scenes were. Really? These characters came straight out of no where, with no history or even a visible personality, and people are going crazy over their "deaths". At this point, I realized why this anime have such a high rating at MAL. The writers identified what gets people going, and showed no restraint in overflowing the entire anime with them. Gore, psychological tantrums, moe characters, then just fit all those into a random medieval fantasy world and you got a winning recipe! ...right?
Maybe it didn't work for me because I never found myself head-over-toes over the personality nor the looks of the female cast like many others have. I mean, I've seen people spam Emelia-tan and Rem-chan in real life and I just shudder and pretend I didn't hear it. The writers want to tug at people's heartstrings by torturing the female characters (whom half the guys are jerking their chode off to as I speak), but even when they died, I honestly felt nothing. Okay maybe a little sympathy, but I was mostly feeling sick from the excessive gore that had very little substance. The story was progressing but it had no direction. The characters apart from Subaru, are likable but strangers to me. I felt no connections to them because they told me very little of themselves.
Oh, did I call Subaru unlikable? I did? Ok good I was afraid I forgot about him, though at this point I wish I could. There is an alarmingly high amount of people defending Subaru as "one of us" and justifying his actions as natural as anyone of us would have acted. I honestly felt offended. Subaru's dialogue consists of "anything I'd do for EMEEEELIAAA-TAAAAN" to "no one understands anything. I'm edgy and I will save everyone. WTF WHY ISN'T ANYONE HELPING ME?!". It's mind-boggling how someone can be so useless and despicable as Subaru. I don't sympathize with him, or the way he addresses the people around him. He has this blatant superiority complex that is atrocious to watch. Despite having no abilities (not in the fantasy world nor his old world), he openly treats others as obstacles holding him back from "saving everyone". He is never content, and will always find something to snarl at. It's astonishing how anyone can relate to this ignorant boy. Perhaps the people praising Subaru are the same people who wants to justify their own attitude towards life - arrogant and ungrateful.
If Subaru showed even a tiny bit of restraint, and not clogging up 90% of his lines with either otaku slangs or emo comments, I might've gave the anime a passing score. But even then, the show is too occupied with stale violence and Subaru's edgy soliloquy.
Art is nice. Music and sound are alright. Not enough to salvage a horribly written and executed anime.
2/10.
