I’m gonna be honest, watching this show was like watching someone creating scenes and having little to no idea how to logically connect them. There is a story here but it’s sparse and scattered.
Before we start I would like to explain something. I will be talking about “plot” and “story”. Many people use those terms interchangeably. I’m not one of those people, so to make sure everyone is on the same page…
I use the definitions for “plot” and “story” as Lisa Cron describes them:
“What happens in the story is the PLOT, the surface events.”
“STORY is about how the things that happen affect someone in pursuit of a difficult goal, and how that person changes internally as a result”.
The show is mostly plot and the worst kind of plot. The type that happens because it needs characters in a certain state or place and not the type that uses internal logic. Simple example: At some point we get a pretty good fight with a Dragoon. That part is solid, even if the fight itself could be a bit longer to show us the extent of skills and powers on both sides. But how did we get to that pretty good fight? Our protagonists (Chaika, Tooru and Akari) go there… because an enigmatic, obviously powerful, informer tells them that they will find one part of their quarry there. Just like that. No one questions that, no one asks why he is just giving them this info. Nothing. We don’t even see him getting any kind of pay for the info. I get that this is a very simple story but for fuck’s sake, there’s “simple” and there’s “moronic”. Tooru and Akari are supposed to be trained soldiers and they just go with it?
I’m not even getting into the fact that the reason why Tooru and Akari join Chaika is absolutely stupid.
The second not so well written thing is the worldbuilding itself. The show uses a lot of words that are poorly, or not at all, explained. For the most of the time You could deduce what they mean but it’s never confirmed. Even the “character class” of Tooru - “The Saboteur” isn’t properly explained and leaves more questions than answers. You could take it, as we do IRL, as someone who “deliberately destroys, damages, or obstructs (something), especially for political or military advantage” but it’s not a perfect match for him.
I actually like the fact that “magic” in this world is much more like just supernatural engineering than classical D&D style of magic. The problem I have with this is that it really is not practical. “Wizards” - people who use those magical tools walk around with damn sniper rifles to use magic in combat. Why? They are big, cumbersome and require some time to “load” a spell. No one thought of creating an assault rifle version, shotgun or even a simple revolver? Hell, I’ll even accept a sort of a jury rigged pipe gun. Is there a reason why it has to be a sniper rifle? A problem with miniaturization? Give me something. Above that there are moments when people use magic without any type of medium or catalyst. Most notably the moment when Chaika saved Tooru in the last episode. What’s up with that?
The world building is also absurd and laughable at times. One of the antagonists verbally states to Chaika that the brain is always the weak spot of the Dragoon. Seriously? No shit! Do you know anyone that survived having his brain destroyed? What’s next? They are going to tell me that water makes things wet? It’s almost as stupid as “People die when they are killed”.
It's a shame because the story idea is a solid one. A story about a girl on a quest to gather her father’s remains that were scattered by people who killed him. I call that a pretty nice starting point. The story also has its twists that are actually good ideas but the writing just makes them tolerable. There is no exploration of them. Well, that’s not true. We do get some exploration into Chaika but it’s almost exclusively done by the antagonist and it’s still just surface level even after the fact that one of his subordinates asks valid questions about her. It’s almost like a different person, the one who almost knows about writing, wrote those parts. If we got more into the things that they are doing and not the boring plot that the protagonists have, this show could have been a solid action-adventure-mystery. But as we stand it’s just a middle of the road adventure with not exactly competent fight scenes. Don’t get me wrong, some of them are pretty good but they are few and far between.
Do I think this is a bad show? A bit, but mostly I think it’s just safe. It takes no risks, does not expand on the genre and isn’t even concerned about its own world building and internal logic. I can see why people would like it, a gothic lolita with a magical sniper rifle does sound and look cool but that’s about it. There is no depth here. Only surface level writing, flat characters and a lot of wasted potential.
