Reviews

Darling in the FranXX began with such potential. A show done by Trigger, a studio well known for amazing anime, and by A-1 Pictures, a studio that has an amazing budget for Trigger to use with Hiroyuki Imaishii storyboarding the show. It began pretty strong and stayed that way until a bit over halfway through the show. The action was better than decent; the character interactions were fun; the drama was alright; everything seemed to be going well. Then, something ended, and the show lost its footing. It had no idea where to go or what to do and became a bad slice-of-life anime, culminating in one of the most disappointing final collection of episodes I’ve Ever seen. Somehow, they made anime fights boring. The final episode ended in a satisfying way, but it never even got close to reaching how it was at the beginning and the potential it had. Throughout the entire show, I was expecting something else to happen, some random being or villain to come and save the show, but that thing never did show up. The story is just bad. The art is alright, but the character designs, save for Zero Two, are all incredibly bland and boring. The few fights at the beginning and a couple tracking shots are he best animation in the show, which, honestly, is very good. The sound is not great. A good OP, one good theme, and not much else. No starring battle theme to make fights actually interesting, not the best sound editing, just really rough on that front. Besides Zero Two, every character is awful. All writing for them is just trash, and none of the characters at even mildly interesting. I didn’t really enjoy this anime; I honestly just kept watching in hopes the ship might right itself, especially with the last episode supposedly being directed by Hayao Miyazaki. But, in the end, the show became a bore fest of epic proportions, losing all my interest in it, and becoming one of my most disliked and most disappointing shows I’ve Ever watched. Please, save yourself and don’t watch this show. It’s not worth spending so much of your time on this dumpster fire.