Infinite Dendrogram is another line of game isekai anime in the same lines as Sword Art Online where the gimmick to this VRMMO is that that there are infinite amount of possibilities that can happen. By that, LA means ANY possibilities be it quests, abilities and the players themselves can bring in these possibilities throughout the anime, Oh and the NPC's, when they die, they die forever...you know like Log Horizon does and with that if NPC's die, their quests goes with them. Infinite Dendrogram does do something new with this concept but man.....typical game isekai cliches ABOUND.
So before LA rants about Infinite Dendrogram, it does have a few strengths to it. Like for one, the main character Reiji Mukudori "Ray" voiced by Souma Saitou is uber powerful what with the settings of the game given to him, HOWEVER it also means the opponents as well as other players also have similar OP abilities like him, thus making the scaling balanced in some terms and this helps with the party members as they do get some limelight moments within the anime. Next would be that the world building is actually pretty decent, as one of the better strengths to Infinite Dendrogram as Ray and his party does random quests and the such, we get lots more from the gameplay of the game to some of the lores of the world of the game (THOOOUGH it delved into long exposition at times), and that's it. Lastly, at least most of the battles doesn't give Ray a one hit kill for most of the anime, like he HAS one, but he goes through ALOT of crap in order to unleash it further down the battle, it's not much but that is there.
Infinite Dendrogram falls mostly under the typical OP main character in a MMO game world and yeah LA defended that the main character is balanced with everyone else BUUUT his plot armour is utterly impenetrable, sure his consequences of "dying" is just having to log off for a few hours but his entire focus is trying to save the important NPC characters one way or another and majority of the time, he'll succeed. Next is that because of this...Infinite Dendrogram's core cast is boring to say the least and LA says this as most of the core cast are OP like Ray and they have pretty bland characterization as Ray gets the most focus but Ray is uhhhhhh the typical white knighting all in all good guy...yeah, to further wring this point across, would be that LA couldn't remember the core cast's names, hell LA had to look up Ray's name he was that forgettable.
Infinite Dendrogram ONLY had ONE character LA remembered and liked and that was Marie Adler voiced by Yoko Hikasa because of her mysteriousness, once her backstory is uncovered in "her episode", she became the only character LA ever got invested on and LA WANTED HER to be the main character as she's got ALL the motives, backstory that felt solidified in comparison to Ray Starling who just does what he does "because" main character syndrome. However afterwards, she gets done into the background the it becomes the "Ray Starling show", pity as the anime had something with her.
Infinite Dendrogram's animation done by NAZ was ok, not absolutely praiseworthy just "ok", from the somewhat exotic character designs, decent backgrounding and the decent battles, NAZ didn't do the barest minimum with the animation department, but NAZ if anything did "moderately decent" animation, decent but nothing praiseworthy.
The voice cast was...like the animation decent but nothing praiseworthy either, from Souma Saitou as Ray, to Yuuko Ono as Nemesis, Satoshi Hino as Shu Starling doing a Teddie aka. Kuma from Persona 4 impression, Yoko Hikasa as Marie Adler just having fun, Yuuki Takeda as Babylon and Makoto Koichi as Rook Holmes. All in all...what with LA not even giving an MVP here, Infinite Dendrogram's voice cast were just decent, just decent.
Infinite Dendrogram falls prey like most isekai with no effort put into it, a bare bones "white knighting" main character, overly long exposition episodes, typical OP main protagonist isekai cliches, meh production values and an almost a whole cast of characters that are ALL OP, and you know what happens when you have an OP cast of characters in one anime, well under Infinite Dendrogram's circumstances...if everyone is OP and special, then no one will be and that's what LA got out of it and this statement utterly STINGS the majority of the anime's cast (sans Marie at least) and these flaws does not help what Infinite Dendrogram's strengths of decent world building and ONE potentially good character...but it's strengths were squandered by overly long expositions on certain characters and an OP main protagonist that essentially STEALING the spotlight majority of the time because of course he does.
Truly, what Infinite Dendrogram fails at and is the BIGGEST flaw LA you can surmise in this review, is that quite obviously...it's just plain boring.
Itai no wa Iya nano de Bougyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu. quite obvious won in terms of the isekai offerings in Winter 2020 as it was refreshing in a different VRMMO game perspective, Infinite Dendrogram is base generic and boring isekai about a game world filled with OP characters, yeah sure filled with infinite possibilities through some decent world building but they squandered that by focusing on those OP bland characters.
Vengeance is Mine?, no Vengeance is UTTERLY DULL...
