However i rather have them stay around so they dont taint other studios that actually manage to make something consistent and linear instead of butchering the material.
Sadly the cost of keeping them around is that some simple fun little stories get mangled adaptations while they have more potential even if you want to make a budget show.
I have not even read the material but could tell that there are so many cuts it would make people in self harm groups jealous....
As far as ive seen anime adapts 4 Light novel volumes into 12 episodes which is already a red flag considering usually its 12/13 episodes per 2 LN volumes....
My god episode 1 was just tragic, last 5 minutes gives you a 1890's cinema experience with some "whimsical tunes" and first 17 minutes could have easily been wrapped into sub 10minute opening..
Hell it shouldnt even exist, if you skip episode 1 not only your viewing experience is improved, you dont miss any important details at all apart that setting is set in VRMMORPG and that players built and run nations in it.
If you ignore the tragedy that was the first episode, the show is your classic seasonal budget offering
Sadly while premise is rather simple and its clearly a slower story, Studio A-CAT decided its not happening and tried to speed up the pace which hurt the adaptation
Screen Writer and Storyboard Artist were probably picked up at elementary school or something because i cant imagine how fully functioning adult would mess up the story flow so bad
Animation is fine, CGI used is popping and sticks out like a sore thumb if not down right bad, budget show so cant expect much on the department, however there are shows which did it better even with bad budget because they cared to some degree
Action scenes really need some more polish but it passes as long as you dont look into them too much
Plenty of still frames, but its budget series staple
The background art goes from really good like some of the early indoor interiors that have some intricate patterns to cityscape segment being copy-pasted 12 times with occasional bits being turned sideways or even worse they add completely different style objects and mix it with other segments so they clash like crazy.
All character art stands out in the background just as bad as CGI enemies, so there was no effort in trying to blend the things in
Makes you wonder if they didnt just get some premade visual novel templates for the backgrounds from the internet...
Similar situation is with soundtrack, there is some nice background music but then they push their luck and play it when it doesnt even fit the scene
Background ambience really needed more love and bigger variety, characters speaking will mute rain sounds as example...
Voice acting is nothing special but it works out, doesnt meant it couldnt be better, not that it would have saved this show anyways...
The poor story... I feel bad for the author even if it was nothing too special of a story to begin with as Studio A-CAT just butchered and mangled it.
Who in the right mind would consider to cram 4 Volumes of Light novels into 12 episodes... It was asking for a disaster right from a get go
From subtle story content cuts to outright interaction skips between the episodes which then get added as small recaps when you need context for on going story currently on the screen...
Also the toilet breaks... Why would you even include bodily functions like that which give nothing to the story. Keep that stuff for LN or maybe do one joke about it but thats about it, at this point someone wanted to watch animated female MC answering natures call...
All that time they took animating toilet scenes could have been used at expanding any other part of world building
Truly a shame that the adaptation came to be like this, setting alone had quite a lot potential even with the cliches...
There are independent / animation school project pilot episodes on youtube that are better quality than this adaptation
If only more competent studio had taken this under their wing we could have had a really simple and fun budget show to relax and enjoy....
After long internal debate i give this a 6 for being bellow average even for budget shows...
But its really bordering the zone of "why do you even exist"
