What is Blue Archive about? This series is about Sensei (yes, he’s called that, he doesn’t really have an official name unless you consider our usernames in the game) who is hired to be… you guessed it, a teacher. His job is to take care of the schools in a world we call “Kivotos”. In this scenario, though, this show is at least based on the Countermeasures Committee arc. Shiroko found Sensei lying around on the ground in the town and thought it would be a good idea to have him as the teacher of a forbidden school named “Abydos”. Abydos is a shell of what it was before because as of currently, it doesn’t have any students other than the Foreclosure Task Force which consists of Shiroko, Serika, Ayane, Nonomi, and Hoshino. They want Sensei to stay around for longer because not only do they want to keep the school they study in healthy but there’s also danger involved. Blue Archive’s premises are interesting because unlike other school anime whether they have fantasy involved or not, there’s always initial tension involved and each of the story ideas tells us the creation and mystery of each relevant school. Sadly, however, this won’t last for long.
Before I get into how the anime is directed, let me briefly explain Volume 1 of the game first. I’m personally not a fan of Volume 1 (and the game’s storytelling in general). While they do have nice build-ups, they feel a little too stagnant for what they are. They rely a little too much on slice-of-life aspects and as much as I’m a fan of SoL, they tend to get in the way of the story’s progression. Hell, even if we get to the serious parts, the story tends to take itself too seriously. It tries too hard to express the personal struggle of each character but most of it either felt forced or doesn’t matter. It also has symbolism which is actually damn awesome but in the end, it’s rendered as more of a concept than an actual connection to the story. With all of this being said, this right here is an anime adaptation we’re talking about. You would think that even with just 12 episodes, it should at least decently address the problems of volume 1 in the game, right? To that, I answer, HELL NO. In fact, the series does the opposite. Even for non-BA standards, the anime disrespected what the game really offered and it’s really painful to look at.
The direction is the biggest cause of this show. While the direction in the game is still mediocre at best, it at least stayed true to how it connects with the story. This one, on the other hand, misses the whole point of what the story in the game aims for. It even misses the point of what Sensei is. More on that later. But you get what I mean here. The directing is the cause of why the pacing is so problematic in the first place. Cutting out the prologue is the biggest mistake this show has ever made. The prologue actually shows us how Sensei roams around Kivotos while also building his responsibilities as a teacher. We see how Sensei meets his students. We see how he takes care of his students. We see how danger is set up. Heck, we even see the mysteries set around the world. We don’t see ALL OF THIS in the show. It’s as if the show thought the first few minutes of volume 1 was the true start. On the surface, this doesn’t seem so bad. But if you had played the game before, you would have realized that this is not how we start the story. There are a lot of unanswered questions involved and this is our first encounter.
Hell, even ignoring how this show cuts out the prologue for no reason, the directing is still bad. We have a lot of cool and strong shit from the game. We have the halos which play a very crucial role in the story. We have the origins of Kivotos. We have the mysterious evil leaking in Kivotos. We have Sensei’s credit card. We even have heavy lore revolving around the characters. You wanna know what the show did? While most of those are present here, none of them actually play a role while other stuff like the credit card is left out. Why? It’s because the show treats Blue Archive as a slice-of-life romcom with action as a superficial aspect (again, more on said aspect later) instead of what the game is even about. This is not Lycoris Recoil. This show shouldn’t really be doing any of this. It has a lot of things that are in the game and it still didn’t even try to use any of it alongside the absence of the prologue on top of it. If you’re wondering how nothing happens when someone gets shot by a gun even after finishing the show, I wouldn’t blame you. This is a massive problem we’re facing and it’s only spreading from here.
The halos aren’t really explained here. They’re really just there for aesthetic purposes while students are invincible to gunshots. This show either forces us to play the game to discover how it works or it purposely reduces that factor into plot armor. Like I said, it doesn’t end here. The show contradicts the story by shoving in a lot of slice-of-life and comedy aspects to “cover” the unanswered chaos involved. While the game still overuses those aspects, those treatments are even worse here. The show really doesn’t know what it tries to aim for. It just seems like it wants to be like the generic seasonals we see before. It plays too safe with its setup. It doesn’t want to expand more on serious stuff. It’s not funny. It’s how it is. By the way, I mentioned how symbolism in Blue Archive is relatively underused in the game. It’s a good time to point out that it’s not present here and… that’s also really a massive problem. I can forgive the game for rendering symbolism as concepts even if it degrades the writing. But leaving them out is a horrible thing, even worse than cutting out the prologue because they’re used to show us what the mysteries are.
Lastly, the fight scenes are garbage. Some may consider this as a nitpick and that’s totally understandable. But I just can’t stress to you how negatively it affects the show. The choreography is complete nonsense. Characters resolve each problem in each fight by asspulls, such asspulls as removing hardcore consequences the moment students are about to win or students are motivated by Sensei’s weak-ass words just because. There is something really off with the choreography. We’re not given enough time to see how students fight. We spend the rest of the time seeing characters do surface-level stuff. They don’t really show how they fight effectively. We just see characters winning by either random luck of their own or elements of surprise. The show is too afraid to hurt its own characters because of those problems. Hell, we can ignore the horrible fight scenes and this glaring problem is still presented. Even Hoshino, who sacrificed herself to save the Foreclosure Taskforce, is given a treatment that is not harsh enough.
Let’s move on to the cast, consisting of Sensei the main teacher, Shiroko the bank robber, Serika the tsundere cat, Ayane the table flipper, Nonomi the sunflower with a minigun, and Hoshino the unstabled uncle. The main girls aren’t really much to speak of, even in the game. They have no personality other than being based on one character trait. Yeah, they do their own purpose but that’s really about it. Nothing to say here because they aren’t really worth more than a few sentences individually. The same can be said with the side cast. They have a role for each but they don’t do much. None of these characters are close to being impactful. They’re too straightforward and they don’t express much besides their cookie-cutter expressions. Yeah, we have the famous Aru shock face meme presented but most of the time, they’re really just plot devices to move the plot forward.
But no other character comes close to being a problem child as the Sensei in this show. He is, without question the worst part of this godforsaken adaptation ever. Sensei in the game was actually a character of his own. He’s mature, he’s independent, and he sets up his own responsibilities. While I still don’t think he’s that great of a character, everything he does in the game is at least understandable. In the anime, you get none of that. He’s reduced to being a generic harem protagonist who’s afraid of certain things for no reason. He really has nothing to show. He’s just there because the anime really needed a teacher around. Think about it, he’s a living contradiction to the story. He clearly has no idea what he does as a teacher. He only does his job because his students really need to succeed. While that is understandable by itself, he’s brainless because he mostly follows his own students just to keep his job going instead of actually taking care of his own responsibilities alone for once. Seriously, I really want to punch him in the face.
The animation in this is bland. It’s stiff. It looks like it was made by middle schoolers who recently discovered Twitter. The character designs, anime or game, are a massive hit-or-miss. While they at least fit with each character, most of the time, they still look generic and aren’t really my cup of tea. The soundtrack, minus the OP and ED both of which are fine, is deplorable. From a generous perspective, this is the biggest crime in the show minus the absences of the prologue and the symbolism as well as the flanderization of Sensei. The music is outright amateur and doesn’t fit well with Blue Archive at all. The voice acting is good, though. Hoshino’s voice actress really went all out with her character.
It’s a shame with how the anime went and the anime is a shame itself. Really, though, it manages to miss the whole point of what Blue Archive is. Listen, I personally don’t like Blue Archive in general but I can still see how it’s written. This show is a spit in the face in how it “promotes” the game. It’s yet another generic example of how fundamentally flawed Gacha adaptations are. Just look at Arknights for a moment. Sure, it’s not very amazing but the story in there is still pretty good and manages to connect with the game well. Blue Archive’s anime cannot do the same. It tries too hard to be its own thing when it messes with what the game offers. Let’s hope that if it were to have a sequel that adapts volume 2, it would at least avoid the problems this anime has. But I highly doubt it would happen.
