The acting is great. The animation is good. Only a few scenes had that obvious CGI that takes you out of it. Very much a Josei. That’s the audience it’s made for. Not probably going to like it if you really don’t jive with Josei.
It falls into that common alternate history trope where the characters are written more like historical figures than like fictional characters. They grow and change but not in a way that’s really in service of a character arc. Things just happen to them and they have to respond. The world isn’t shaped to facilitate rewarding payoffs and character moments. And the narrative is very focused on the progression of history. This works great if you’re primarily invested in the lore, but not as much if you are really getting invested in the characters.
Not really spoilers, but the premise is that a plague that only effects men has decimated the male population, forcing women to take up male roles including that of the Shogun. The first episode takes place well into this era, and even though you know what kicked it off, it’s not entirely why things are presently the way they are. It’s an interesting stand alone story. The remainder of the series goes more into how things got here and it sufficiently explains it. Sometimes it over explains but that could be due to condensing the source material.
Netflix flagged it for nudity but I think it’s only because of a fisherwoman in traditional fishing attire that shows up once. The sexual violence tag is the one to take seriously. Little is actually shown but it is really clear what will/has taken place, and this could be a big issue for some viewers. They really should’ve flagged it for violence and gore too instead of “smoking”. Lot more katana action than smoking.
It’s been called feminist but it’s not really pushing an agenda here. Things suck so much for men and women in this story and we see both men and women inflict pretty brutal stuff on the other sex. It outright states that the new status of men isn’t really anything like that of women previously, so it’s really not direct commentary. It just asks a lot of questions and leaves it up to the viewer. It can be very sympathetic to the unique struggles of both sexes.
