Braves of the Six Flowers Archives

Overview:

I’ve previously reviewed the anime adaptation of this but I wasn’t overly impressed with certain aspects of the story (wasn’t bad but also wasn’t anything overly amazing, but the fight sequences do make it worthwhile) and so I picked up the first volume of this hoping it would tell the same story but better. We’ll get to whether it succeeded in the review, but basically this is the story of Adlet, an idiot who through some childhood trauma ended up training himself to be the self-proclaimed strongest man in the world in the hopes of being selected as one of the six braves who will go and fight the evil god who awakens every so often and tries to destroy the world. All pretty simple except that seven braves show up and one of them is a fake who is most definitely trying to get Adlet killed.

Review:

My issue with the anime was the lack of viable suspects after they set up a mystery and if I’m honest the book is worse if I read it as a mystery. The whole who is the seventh thing is absurd, plus this book jumps perspectives so we can ‘hear’ the inner gloating of the seventh from time to time starting at page 80. Even if I hadn’t watched the anime the tone of this, the timing and choice of target just scream at you to figure out who it is. So while the characters are solving a mystery, the reader isn’t and nor are they really invited to given you’re mostly just waiting for the reactions of the characters once they catch on.

Rokka2 — I do actually like these character designs better than how most of them appeared in the anime.

I actually looked this up after reading and the book is classified as a fantasy in most places I found it and isn’t labelled as a mystery. So the disappointing mystery element might be overlooked, except that there is nothing else in this story.

We have introductions to seven characters, some mythology around the braves, the saints, the fiends, and the evil god, and we have a locked room mystery that the braves have to solve. That’s it. This book doesn’t get on with that bigger story or anything else, it is pure set up, but it is set-up that is mostly pointless.

Throw in that Adlet is a little bit more insufferable in written form (that ‘strongest man in the world’ line get’s really irksome) and that Fremy comes across as completely irrational, and two of the characters I didn’t mind so much in the anime are pretty much down for the count. Hans works better in written form (both his character design and his scenes seem to have more life and energy than they did in the anime) but this is about the only character where there seems to be a noticeable improvement due to the difference in delivery.

So far I’ve enjoyed picking up reading light novels but I won’t be continuing this series. It just wasn’t interesting enough and the plot didn’t go anywhere. And maybe the argument could be made that the story is just getting going, but when I’ve read a whole book and feel like I’m still just waiting for a story to get going it is time to bail.

The real question is whether I might have enjoyed this more having not watched the anime first and the answer is probably not. The writing works but isn’t particularly descriptive, it is hard to visualise a lot of the fight sequences (and I was probably filling in blanks with things I had seen in the anime) and the characters are fairly ordinary (Hans being the exception because I quite enjoyed him in the book). With a plot I’m not really interested in and a set up as generic as defeat the evil god that then isn’t even really addressed, I probably would have passed on this one anyway. At least the anime has cool and well animated fight sequences to distract you from some of these issues in the story. So while I might have watched a continuation of the anime (had it got one) I’m not going to read any further.

If you have read the book or watched the anime, I’d love to know your opinion of either so leave me a comment below.

Affiliate Link:
If you’re interested in reading Rokka, Brave of the Six Flowers Volume 1 it is available on the Book Depository.

Overview:

Legend says, when the Evil God awakens from the deepest of darkness, the god of fate will summon Six Braves and grant them with the power to save the world. Adlet, who claims to be the strongest on the face of this earth, is chosen as one of the “Brave Six Flowers,” and sets out on a battle to prevent the resurrection of the Evil God. However, it turns out that there are Seven Braves who gathered at the promised land.

From Crunchyroll

Review:

I copied and pasted the overview this time because essentially this is supposed to be a mystery and given the series ends at an episode titled “The Time To Reveal The Answer” kind of means that if you have already been tipped off as to who the seventh is there isn’t a lot of point in watching. Mostly because even though the established premise of this series is that the braves have to go and fight the demon god, the series ends with them going to fight the demon god. Way to shoot your storyline in the foot.

So we end up with something that kind of feels like a prequel series to the story of how the braves defeat the demon god, and admittedly, it is interesting enough. As the characters point out about episode 4 or 5, it is a locked room mystery that needs to be solved. We’ve got a limited cast in a confined area and while there is no murder yet, all of them believe it is only a matter of time before the seventh tries to kill them so why not kill the seventh first.

This is pretty much my biggest issue with this series. It ignores the grander plot of the world to focus on one step of a journey these characters are on (which would be fine if this were the first installment in an ongoing saga but as far as I am aware there’s been no announcement of a continuation of the anime) and the characters fall back on the silliest of all assumptions. They assume suspecting each other and trying to find the culprit is actually the best option when all it does is nearly lead to them taking each other out (which is more likely the plan in the first place). If they’d actually just looked for a way to deactivate the seal from the start and decided to not worry about whether someone was a fake or not, the fake would have had to act (giving themselves away) or would have simply failed.

Having got that gripe out of the way, I really enjoyed watching this. Adlet is a really fun protagonist. Yeah, he boasts a bit and at times plays the fool, but he’s a lot of fun to watch in combat, to travel with, to see the other characters from his perspective, and he doesn’t have amazing plot armour saving him from harm though he does rely heavily on luck, a fact even he acknowledges toward the end. There are a few inconsistencies in how injured he is at times where it looks like one minute he can’t move, then he’s standing, and then he’s collapsed again, but this is a minor nit-pick.

Actually, the four of the seven braves we meet are really fun characters (even if they aren’t entirely likeable). Unfortunately that leave three that mostly just fill a particular plot point or role and don’t really endear themselves as actual characters. This is kind of a problem for the simple reason that it really limits the number of suspects the audience actually has when putting the mystery together. There’s really only two probabilities from a fairly early point in the series and by episode 8 it should become reasonably obvious which on is the culprit and which one is the red-herring. They did try a small twist at the end by making you believe the red-herring was the culprit but that didn’t last particularly long before attention turned to the one who was the obvious suspect. I’m going to leave that line of speculation there because anything further just spoils viewing for others.

I wasn’t a fan of the theme song for this series. It isn’t bad by any means but it is just kind of there and the visuals are kind of ordinary. Considering the tone of the show and the over-the-top nature of some of the characters it would have been great for the opening to really get you ready for the show but mostly it was just kind of there and then we began.

Visually this show is interesting. The fight sequences were fun to watch. Right from episode one where Adlet interrupts a sacred tournament, I enjoyed watching the combat in this show. Each character has a truly unique style and weapons and they tend to use tactics more than brute strength (though there is definitely an aspect of brute strength in a few of the fights). I liked the designs of the temples and cities with its very central/south american feel even as none of the character designs or weapons matched that particular setting. What it ends up feeling like is something wholly unique and it works even if it isn’t particularly logical at times.

Really, this was fun to watch. I started it because I had a long weekend and wanted just to declutter my mind and ended up not really being able to stop watching. I did stop at episode 8 the first day and finished the remaining four episodes the next morning, but otherwise did this almost without pauses. I knew going in that the overall plot line wasn’t going to finish so that was less annoying than it might have been and the mystery was wrapped up neatly even though they then threw some sequel bait at us. Basically, if you haven’t given this one ago and you’ve got some free time, it will probably be an enjoyable few hours of viewing.

What are your thoughts on Rokka?

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