If I have to sum Orient in one sentence, it would be this: A prolific mangaka's fall from grace, and what worse than karma to make a horrible adaptation out of it.
If you have absolutely no idea who mangaka Shinobu Ohtaka is, go do yourself a service to read and watch Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic series. For anyone whom has even heard and/or seen Magi (yours truly included), most of them would consider the series to be the her crème de la crème, pièce de résistance of a work, and to think that it has been almost 10 years (as of this review) with Magi's anime adaptation starting in 2012, wow, life must feel so long. And let's not forget her first series of Sumomomo, Momomo in the mid-2000s, that only now exists as a footnote in her biography work that's completely overshadowed by Magi.
Come this year, and we have her newest series: Orient, which started in 2018, and features the same Shonen tropes as per similar counterparts like Hiroyuki Takei's Shaman King (which the recent complete adaptation of a reboot is more rushed and boring than the unfaithful-but-better 2001 adaptation) and Yuki Tabata's Black Clover (which I admit that it has the same problems as Orient at the very beginning), all with the same unchanging beautiful art style. Except...let's repeat Black Clover's problems with Pierrot and make it "double the trouble" with outdated studio A.C.G.T which produced the horrible, lambasting and lamentable Dies Irae done from 2017-2018! For such a dated studio whose work on the Freezing! series during the early 2010s is the best that it could muster, that says quite a lot.
But let's not speedrun our way through Orient. There's gotta be a place to start, and that's with the ludicrous story that is just a copy-paste from Black Clover, change some things here and there to make it look more Magi-like, and why not incorporating stuff like a motorcycle to make it feel modern at least! Honestly, reading this in manga form just felt so awkward, and finally watching it in anime form only solidified the fact that for such a series to have a bad start, this to me, just feels like Black Clover all over again. I mean, for a story set in the Sengoku period with demons/Oni called "Kishin" and samurai called Bushi that travel in groups called Bushi bands lead by leaders with their family names on display, it's pure expected typical Shonen that rests on its execution to deliver, and oh boy, the execution...let's just say that it doesn't exist at all. Even when the anime is following the manga's first few volumes to adapt, which is really a rough start for investment values because of time constraints, I'd say that Black Clover has the edge overall from broadcasting in the same TV station (TV Tokyo) but on the more suitable Shonen dinner timeslot that everyone can watch (6~7 p.m.) as opposed to airing this at midnight in Japan, much less working with only 12 episodes to boot.
The characters feel so dated, and that's not for the lack of trying. The worst offender of MC protag-kun Musashi feels like Asta but doesn't have the likability of Aladdin, Kojiro Kanemaki is a more depressed and downcast version of Alibaba, and Tsugumi Hattori like Morigana, is cheerful and forgiving, but has severe personality issues when faced with adversity. Couldn't even bother to name the other characters because they are so one-note-ish, and taking Tsugumi's oppressor Hideo Kosameda for example, he's leading his Kosameda Band of what looks like a population of retirees with children, only to be a manipuative asshole to the people serving under him, including Tsugumi to instill fear within the people that both Musashi and Kojiro would ultimately save them from his fear of oppression. Sorry for the spoilers there, but I could not for the life of me, fathom how shallow the character writing has gotten to this stage, and to experience it TWICE from reading the manga and now watching the inferior anime adaptation, that's kinda of a low-blow.
I've already gushed how absymal the animation is, heck, I'd rather read the crappy story and experience it with Shinobu Ohtaka's amazing art style, which is something that she is very consistent in the manga. But to think that High School DxD and Seireitsukai no Blade Dance a.k.a Blade Dance of the Elementalers director Tetsuya Yanagisawa is directing this adaptation, that honestly cuts the knife deeper for me to see that how did such an esteemed director like him could go off the rails THIS BAD. Honest to god, I'd expect at least he would do some changes being in a directorial position, but he didn't do much to save this god-awful adaptation. Even with series composer Mariko Kunisawa whom did a fantastic job with Honzuki no Gekokujou a.k.a Ascendance of a Bookworm, she did some things that made the watching experience better, even if by a tad bit. What in the world...
The music fares no better either. J-Pop boy band Da-iCE isn't a remarkable group to say the least, and their Oricon singles charts since their debut in 2014 only peaked best at No. 2 since then. Even so, their OP here is just typical Shonen one pony hat-trick fanfare, it gets old really fast, and I REALLY mean it. Also, it's weird how Wataru Hatano's ED song just doesn't fit at all, being yet again like a song meant for disposition use when nothing works. Don't get me wrong, I love it as a standalone song, but incorporating together with the anime just...felt so strange and off-putting, not to mention the RGB influence on a PowerPoint slide show of a lazily-put ED.
Not every Shonen anime these days needs to come close to Demon Slayer or even Jujutsu Kaisen levels of treatment for enjoyment, just a better execution and a better staff team (not to mention a better animation studio) could've just worked things right. And sadly for Orient, as much as I would want to say that Shinobu Ohtaka kinda shot herself on the foot for the basis of her new manga, it just feels so out of touch with the modern Shonen juggernauts these days, and I would like to have you believe that her best days are certainly behind her. Even as a work just to earn enough for a rice bowl, it'll only take another season for Orient to really show off what it's capable of, and this prologue just didn't cut it at all.
Magi, until the absurd final moments, at least it was a good ride. But for Orient, you could have been a good post-Magi effort...but this is what we got. Just an immeasurable disappointment that could've been much better being in the hands of capable people. See you again in Summer with the The Battle of Awaji Island arc.