Ohhhh man, somebody tell me if this show ever conceives a single original concept to throw into the mix, but I could barely withstand the sheer onslaught of anime cliches that were catapulted into my eyes by, possibly the most lazily named show of all time Sword Gai, after episode 2. Sure, it's nice that Netflix is still going hard in the paint on their "original" anime funding, even though this pales in comparison to their work on B: The Beginning and Devilman Crybaby, but they really need to pay their writers as much as their animators when it comes to these shows because it seriously seems like the concept came from a brainstorming session that sounded something like "what does everyone like about every anime ever? Let's throw it in there and hope it's not a complete mess!"
Story: 3
Sword Gai is about a guy named Gai who is essentially Sasuke from Naruto but not (Natsuke?) and was born in literally the exact same way as Guts from Berserk and also loses and replaces the same arm as Guts (Gaits?). Gatsuke works as an apprentice to his adopted pops, an old school fire forging blacksmith in a story that is somehow set in the modern day with (of course) annoying high school kids, because every anime ever needs to have something to do with high school, right? The story contains enough equal amounts of cringe and edge to supply a national chainsaw juggling competition and had some serious issues trying to decide exactly who and what it wanted to focus on, instead opting to show countless underwhelming side stories and occasionally remembering to check back with the titular character of the series, Gai.
Animation: 7
This show contains a multitude of comically drawn-out firehose blood spurts that would put most B-Movies to shame and some generally great-looking overall animation when in 2D form. However, the jump to 3D, as is often the case, is where the problems start, like in the first 3D fight of the series which was literally two tiny Megazords grinding their swords together angrily for 15 seconds until one pushed the other into a wall so hard he decided to take a nap. The animators also seem to have a hard time grasping the concept of distance, because in the first episode a squad of about 6 soldiers UNLOAD every clip in their pistols on a guy with a sword standing still like 4 feet away from them only to somehow graze his face once and then knock his glasses off with a BULLET but not hit him in the head, it was honestly so stupid I wanted to smack someone involved in the making of it.
Well, if this show gets any better at some point I might come back to it, but I don't think that'll happen for quite some time, so for the time being Sword Buddy Pal Friend Guy gets a disappointing 4 outta 10 from me.
