Sit back, relax and make sure that you drink some of that sweet, sweet elixir as I present to you the anime review for Ulysses: Jeanne d'Arc and the Alchemist Knight. Lets Begin.
Story: 2.5/10
Set during the 100 years war between France and England, the story follows an aspiring alchemist by the name of Montmorency who wants to protect his closest friends by becoming the next Ulysses, a protector of humanity. With the help of the fairy queen, Astaroth, and being the owner of the powerful Philosophers stone, he finds out that he cannot do it for he cannot contain the power of the stone. However, after encountering a young farmgirl by the name of Jeanne who is able to able to contain the Philosophers stone, they decide to become a beacon of hope for all of France to drive back England to their country and become the heroes the country needs.
If it wasn't obvious already, the story is based off the story of Joan of Arc, a woman who was blessed by God to drive back England from their land. Only this time, its not religion that grants her powers, its magic. It was intriguing for me at least to begin with since magic is more interesting I would say than being blessed by God because you can make some interesting storylines with that. Well it would be if the story managed to keep sight of what the story is supposed to be based on. Even though the magic element makes for some good explanations, it doesn't change the fact that this is a loose adaptation of the Joan of Arc story. Throughout the series, the story goes off track as it likes to take detours to explore other plot threads. If you are going to do that, you've got to make them interesting. Ulysses does not do that. The story's characterisation is piss poor. They don't do well at distincting the characters from one another and establishing them in the story. Instead, they just fall into cliched character tropes that just don't help make the story more interesting.
It makes the story overall feel uninspired. It doesn't do well to captivate its audience as it just lacks that unique factor despite its setting. It doesn't help the fact that the story just goes off the rails near the end and feels like a completely different story overall than what it was supposed to be. The fact that the entire story continuously forgets that this is a fantasy retelling is bad when you think about it. It is like the show just loses interest and wants to do something different. That's just bad storytelling. If you are going on a set path, stick with it. There is also explanation dumps at the start of almost every episode to tell the story that is going on in the background. Telling your story and not showing doesn't exactly make your story engaging now does it?
Characters: 1/10
The characters in this show are just plain awful, cliched and boring.
lets start with out main protagonist Montmorency. Montomorency is yet another standard, generic protagonist. His motivations are clearly just to protect his best friends and Jeanne which isn't exactly an original motivation and his personality isn't endearing either. He is more or less annoying and a bit dense as, like every other generic protagonist, he doesn't always consider other people's feelings and apologises for it. He doesn't do much either as his only relevance to the plot is at the beginning and near the end of the story. That's bad for the character that's supposed to be the main protagonist.
And it only gets worse. All of the female characters in this show are best described as "Montomorency harem." The majority have little to no personality whatsoever and basically just feel lost without Montomorency. They basically can't do much without requiring their mmaaaaann to come and save them. It kind of ruins their individuality. Richemont especially feels like this. What I thought was going to be a strong female character turned into one of the parts of the overall harem and what the show likes to focus on when it comes to fan service with some groping and sexual harassment. Yeah, like that's going to build a character. And the fact that she feels lost without Montomorency at her side feels so cliched (again, the harem).
But what I find the worst part of the characters is the show's treatment of Jeanne. Jeanne (or Joan of Arc) is regarded as one of the most empowering woman in history. Her motivation and ability to unite France under one banner to drive back England was inspiring and captivating to make her an icon in France's history books. So what does the show do? Make her a thirsty loli who has an obsession of having big breasts. That's just insulting. And also, she feels like a secondary character despite she should be the main focus of this show and, guess what? Feels lost without Montomorency. The show goes through Montomrency first and he is just so boring, uninspired and unlikable. So that just makes all other characters just as bad, if not worse than Montomrency.
Animation: 3/10
Crap is the simplest way to describe it. While the art style is arguably alright, the animation itself is just bad. Cutaways, intense, shaky cinematography instead of animating it and some really crappy looking CGI. It makes the fight scenes really lacklustre. There are times though where the animation looks good, but they are few and far between when the show is dominated with cheap ways to animate a fight scene. The character designs are somewhat relevant to the time period, but some of the designs lean more to the fanservice side with large, bouncy breasts pretty much everywhere (No wonder Jeanne wants a pair) and showing more skin than, well, armour. Again, it just feels like the characters are just there to act as nothing more than part of the harem.
Sound: 6/10
The music for Ulysess is alright. Nothing spectacular yet not bad at the same time. It certainly sounds kind of like the style of music that would be playing at that time with a sense of French royalty to it. It can add a mood but really, it is played down a little too much and is forgettable or even noticeable at times. It fails to stand out and add to a scene. The same goes with the opening as well. It is a pretty standard opening with showing the characters and visually foreshadowing of events to come. The song "Liberation" by Mai Fuchigami didn't really make want to "jam out" to this opening because it just meh. That is it, it doesn't do anything good, neither does it do anything bad. It just exists.
The ending sequence though. Now that's beautiful. It's brilliant artwork correlating to the episode is just so good to look at. The calming song as well adds to it as it just makes it that more beautiful. It almost makes it worth to watch through an episode. Almost.
Conclusion:
There are some anime that I watch because I enjoy them. There are some anime that I watch because I am going along with the ride. Then there are some anime that I watch because when I get to review them, I get to bash the s**t at them. Ulysses is very much the latter. A story that has no idea what it want it wants to do with itself. Uninspiring and uninteresting characters. Crap animation and and meh ost. This show really doesn't have anything going for it. It doesn't do anything well and just does everything else either meh or poorly. I had some hype going into this series and it really didn't do anything to amaze me to match up to that hype. What could have been an interesting, fantasy retelling of the story of one of the most iconic woman in history turned into a mess that I don't recommend anyone to watch. Not even to the curious. Your time is best spent elsewhere with this one.
My personal enjoyment: 1/10
Overall score: 2.7/10 Recommendation: Don't f***ing bother
