As the saying goes of too many cooks spoil the broth, too many game designers and producers with no anime or manga work spoil the anime.
It really felt like a mishmash of story elements that everyone envisioned of creating an anime for and they threw all the ideas into a soup pot and gave it a stir to see what came out.
There are mutant monsters (which just screams of Resident Evil), we have time travel as three warriors of the past are transported to the near future. There is a pandemic - very apropos given the current situation of the reality we are in right now. There are aliens... yes, you heard me right, aliens. Not the type from the movie of said name, but aliens from another world. There is a character that dresses and uses a gun almost like Jigen from Lupin III. And another character that would remind one almost of the Punisher from a certain comic line, complete with a black t-shirt with a skull on it (though a smaller skull). It is like they wanted to include every single favorite thing they liked in there.
I'm going to start with the artwork - which for the character design and the cell backgrounds is actually pretty decent. And on its own, I would give the artwork a seven on. What brings the artwork down to a four for me, is that it also includes really poor CGI for all the Gibiate monsters. And they just use multiples of each design stacked on the background, rather than handling each one separately. So they all move rather stiffly and all move the same way. It really drags the artwork and animation down. The CGI I would rate a one or two.
The sound I thought was pretty good overall. And I enjoyed the opening and ending music. Was it a great fit for the anime though - not too sure.
The characters are not too bad. The warriors three each have an interesting background. There was not a lot of character growth, however. Actually, most everyone is just character fodder - as in any apocalypse type show, the majority die.
Now onto the story.
So the basic premise is that there is an unusual viral pandemic that people have no idea of how it came about. But what happens, in this case, is that once infected, the virus re-writes the DNA of a person and causes rapid cell growth so they turn into varied monsters - all complete with a stinger so they can sting other humans and infect them so they too will change into an unintelligent monster. So instead of an undead zombie apocalypse aka Walking Dead, or Resident Evil, we get the monsters from the later parts of Resident evil. And no lie, some of them bear a striking resemblance to the ones in the last couple RE movies. There is also one mutation that looks an awful lot like a giant-sized Stitch from Lilo and Stitch. And like many monster movies, these things like to hunt primarily at night. Oddly, though the primary directive for the monsters is to replicate, they only do so by infecting others apparently. And even though there are a handful or two of different types of monsters that people change into, all the monsters seem to coexist with one another far better than present-day humans do.
But apparently, for all the military acumen and modern weaponry present day, it is all inferior in handling the monsters. Of course the way the even drew a pump shotgun was so wrong that no wonder modern-day weapons didn't work. A person could unload a fifty round magazine into one of these creatures and just barely damage if kill it. Or on the pump shotgun, there is a barrel and beneath that barrel is a reservoir tube for the extra shells. The reservoir tube needs to be the same diameter to hold the spare rounds, not half the diameter as it appeared on the screen. But along come the warriors three from the past, and using a garrot, a giant spiked club, and a katana and greatsword, they are far more effective at killing the beasts and saving the day. And wouldn't you know it, but they also just happen to find an exhibit that contains their own personal armaments from the past - how convenient.
What really chaffs my groin though is some of the stupidity of the shows overall story.
At the start of this, when the warriors three are brought to Japan in 2030, apparently this pandemic has already been going on for two years. So society as a whole has been shut down for two years. But in many of the areas, they go to, the building they enter still has power for the lights and computers. Global satellite and towers are still working for them to use the navigation on their smart devices. The satellites I could understand, but the required towers on the ground would need power. They are still easily able to get gasoline for their gas-guzzling RV that must also work like a Tardis on the inside.
They find store shelves stocked with cup-o-noodles, two years after the start of this. I don't know about you, but less than a month into our real pandemic, I could not find ramen or many other items initially. But then the same person who found the ramen, says that the components for making his bombs - mostly TnT, is very scarce and hard to find. My jaw hit the floor. Sorry, but the base material for simple TnT is black powder which is very easy to come up with the components for.
I swear, whoever wrote this did no due diligence in researching various aspects of their story. In this story, once you are stung, if the stinger had any venom in the stinger, the person is a lost cause. Yeah, I might be reaching here a little bit, but it is common knowledge that if a person is bitten by a venomous creature like a snake, that you can use a tourniquet to slow the poisons spread, or you can attempt to bleed out the wound of the poison, or worst case scenario - you amputate the infected limb or area. It would have made sense for them to at least have attempted such - especially one of the warriors three to think to try that. One of the characters is a nurse for god's sake. You'd think she would at least know that. But yes, she gets stung in the foot, so she wanders off on her own to await her own transformation.
And it comes down to the last two episodes. Throughout the show, the group has been followed by one particular beast that is higher functioning than the rest. It can go out in daylight. It can transform into other beasts at will. And it did not sting anyone when it had the chance. The lead scientist who is working on a cure referred to it by a direct name - Meteora. No one thought that was odd. I did. Each time, he didn't attempt to say anything or change their course of action when they tried to fight it. But in his interview with Kathleen he mentions his girlfriend. When Kathleen says she is sorry for his loss, he says he never said she was gone. Big clue.... Yup, they have another encounter with this Meteora and finally vanquish it. At this point the scientist gets upset as they just fought and killed his transformed girlfriend. Ummm, gee. You think he might have stated that earlier on perhaps. But noooo, he s now irate and beyond reasoning with. So he injects himself with the "cure" which actually transforms him into a Gibiate, but one that retains his intelligence. And he goes on to explain that he and his girlfriend are from another planet and that because his ship is controlled by thought waves when it flew too close to the sun (poor piloting there I guess) that it allowed Kathleen's thoughts to summon the warriors three from the past. Yeah, really bad exposition.
I really wanted to go into this liking it. But each episode it just kept sinking lower and lower into the quagmire that is was belched forth from.
