Dies Irae Series Review: A Hard Pass On This One

Posted on by Karandi
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Overview:

Weird guys with supernatural powers descend on a town intending to sacrifice it for some more power and Fujii Ren is apparently going to try to stop them. I’m not going to pretend like the story in this actually makes any sense or that it matters so that’ll do for an overview.

Review:

As you may have noticed from my overview, or if you followed my episodic reviews on this, that I found this show a little hard to swallow. Okay, scrap that. This show well and truly deserved the ‘they made this’ status that it wore in my weekly listings for most of Autumn. It is a complete mess from start to finish with very few redeeming characteristics.

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And I’ll start with the couple of positives. Firstly, if you really just want to switch your brain off and watch over the top villains cause carnage than you may just find something appealing here. Just don’t ask how or why they are doing what they do because even when told why it isn’t satisfying and no logical or consistent explanation is ever given for their powers. They just do stuff and we’re supposed to be all impressed by how badass they are (apparently because I can’t think why else they would present the characters in this way).

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Outside of fights with a supernatural edge, there’s pretty much nothing else to recommend the show. Episode 0 is… I don’t think anyone watching it really knew what that was but a few of us held out hope that once the actual show started it would begin to make sense. That was probably overly optimistic.

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Fujii Ren is a terrible character but fortunately he doesn’t eat a lot of screen time despite probably being the protagonist of the story. The show is more concerned with showing us the villains and their antics. While you wouldn’t think it possible after his bland beginning, Ren actually becomes more boring as he becomes more powerful and to be honest I really never cared what happened to him. His partnership and relationship with Marie makes no sense and just seems to exist as do most of his relationships. His motives are never clearly understood and a lot of his actions seem stupid. Basically, I disliked Ren quite a bit.

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That could possibly have been okay if the villains were worth their screen time. But basically they fall into two categories. They are either horrendously smug and self-assured and spend a lot of time talking down to people, or they are the shrieking and insane type villain. Neither is particularly interesting nor enlightening and the only real mercy here is that the shrieking villains tend to have a shorter life expectancy. Not because some hero is taking them out but more because clearly even the villains can’t stand each other.

All and all, the show is a visual mess with a narrative that makes enough sense that I can’t say it has no story but it isn’t particularly satisfying, and after the 11 episodes that makes up the TV series (there are apparently another six episodes to be released online but I am not going there) you are still more or less in the dark about everything and have no reason to care about anything.

While I won’t say this is the worst anime of 2017, it was a pretty good contender for it.

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Episode Reviews:

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Karandi James

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The Worst of Autumn 2017

Posted on by Karandi
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Something different this season, I’m starting with the worst so that the best can follow. I will admit, this season the poll had the most votes for worst anime of the season and there was a clear winner fairly early on. So, first I’ll share my picks for worst of the season (keeping in mind these are the shows I watched and not the ones I dropped) and then I’ll share the result of the reader’s poll. Be sure to check back later for the best of Autumn.

My Least Favourite Show

Despite a number of shows managing to disappoint or not live up to their potential this season (and yes there were a lot of amazing shows too but that means very few ended up in the middle either being fantastic or meh, dull or just painful), a clear winner for my least favourite show still emerged. Yes, it was the show I should have dropped after that train wreck of a prologue and I certainly shouldn’t have continued beyond episode 3 and yet I’m just not very good at knowing when to admit defeat. You guessed it, Dies Irae. A horrible mess of a show that never got any better and after watching a prologue and 11 episodes I’m still not really sure if there is any point other than crazy characters with super powers being crazy.

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My Least Favourite Character

This is actually kind of hard because there were a lot of very bland characters out there this season. I’d nominate most of the cast of Juni Taisen but none of them hung around long enough for me to really care enough about to say they were my least favourite character. And Asta (Black Clover), as much as he would win for most annoying voice of the season, hasn’t actually done enough of anything for me to care about him either. So, sorry to say but the character who I liked the least even though he is kind of important to the story was Koiwai from Recovery of an MMO Junkie. If I knew him in real life I would genuinely despise this guy. Regardless of his intentions, his actions are at times highly questionable and he has way too much fun stirring up Sakurai.

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My Least Favourite Story

Unquestionably Juni Taisen. I think what makes this worst is the advertising that insists on twists and turns in a plot that is utterly devoid of anything resembling a twist (unless a lack of twist is a twist these days). And really, where is the story. They fight, they die, we still don’t know what impact that had and we never had any reason to care about them. The few interesting elements of this show can’t save a plot that marches through the process of knocking off its cast without bothering to give us a reason why or making us care.

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My Least Favourite Opening Theme

Sengoku Night Blood, oddly enough. It isn’t that it is terrible but it is just painfully generic and unremarkable in any sense of the word. I guess it matches most of what the show delivers but to be honest this was the opening I skipped the most during Autumn.

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My Least Favourite Visuals

I have to give it to King’s Game. As much as I quite liked this story, the terrible depiction of deaths (heads getting screwed off, bleeding, severed limbs etc) just come off as incredibly laughable when they aren’t completely lame. While the rest of the show is just kind of average, for a horror that takes pride in knocking off its cast with alarming regularity they never really did manage to make even one death look in any way cool, interesting, or even just impressively real. For instance, in the image below, the guy is bleeding from the neck and his head is about to fall off. While censorship could be blamed a little, even that isn’t enough to account for how poor some of the visuals are in this anime.

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Reader’s Choice – Worst Anime of Autumn 2017

Well, here it is. I’m going to be honest in that I was hoping that Dies Irae would take over the lead but I guess I always knew what the majority of people would vote for. Thanks to everyone who participated in the vote this time round.

Worst of Autumn

Yes, King’s Game had an early lead and never really relinquished it. Clearly, bad horror left a bad taste in many viewers mouths.

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That’s it for the worst of Autumn 2017. Be sure to check back later for the best of Autumn post and remember the best of the year poll will open tomorrow with results to go out next week. As always, I would love to know your final thoughts on the season, so what did you vote for and which shows do you think deserved the title worst of the season?

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Dies Irae Episode 11: I’m Done

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

While I know there are more episodes of this to come out online, I held out until the season finished and now I am done with this absolute mess of a show. It has never made sense and never improved. It is just full of pointless fights, random powers, and lots of speeches and declarations from villains that make absolutely zero sense even in the context of the show.

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So despite a lack of resolution, as this was the final episode of the television series I’m calling it done here and I’ll get around to a series review of this eventually. I have no intention to ever revisit this title though.

However, this is your last week to vote in the reader’s poll for best and worst anime of the season. If you haven’t voted click here.

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Dies Irae Episode 10: Blah, Blah

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

This episode finished off the fight at the hospital but mostly we just went between different people talking about stuff that doesn’t make a lot of sense and the characters reinforced the fact that none of them actually get on with each other and then the hospital went boom.

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Yeah, at some point Marie tried to defend Fujii and there was some touching moment where he woke up and essentially declared her his property and then he learned to stop time… I’m not even going to try to pretend I care what is going on at this point.

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Autumn 2017 Week 11

Posted on by Karandi
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Welcome to week 11 and we are nearing the final episodes of most shows (or the halfway point of a couple). Autumn has been an excellent season for anime watching and I’m almost sad to see it end but I’m also really excited to see how some of these shows wrap up. As always, I’d love to know what you have been watching this season so please leave your comments below. Remember also to have your say in the reader’s poll for best and worst anime of the Autumn season. If you haven’t voted click here.

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Must Watch

March Comes in Like a Lion Season 2 (Episode 31)

Another wonderful episode and this one shows us the culmination of all of the things Rei has been hearing and processing over the season and a half of this show as he manages to self-reflect and to learn from a previous mistake. It is a great moment and is followed by another brillian Rei/Hina moment. This season of the show is truly fantastic.

Land of the Lustrous (Episode 10)

This show continues to deliver some fantastic character development while upping the tension beautifully as we approach the end of the season. With two episodes to go, it seems unikely that we’ll ever learn everything we want to know about how the world got to where it is or the relationship between the different races, but it still seems like this show is preparing for a fairly dramatic climax which should hopefully be satisfying. Fingers crossed as this has been a great watch this season and I’d love it to end on a high note.

Girls’ Last Tour (Episode 10)

Another very solid episode from Girls’ Last Tour. Continuing to build a very interesting world while exploring interesting questions, the story remains interesting and fun to watch even without a lot of direction behind the girls’ journey.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride (Episode 10)

Well, I wanted to know more about Elias and we’re finally getting a glimpse of his backstory. While this show isn’t in a rush, there is an ongoing sense that we are moving toward something. We also continue to learn more and more details about mages and magic creating a fairly rich lore for the setting of the Chise and Elias’ stories.

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Usually Entertaining

Recovery of an MMO Junkie (Finished)

Just Because (Episode 9)

Definitely more movement going on in this episode with all of the girls stirred into action. It will be really interesting to see what the overall outcome of this is because I can’t see everyone getting a happy ending but I kind of want them to at this point.

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Okay, I Guess

Our Love Has Always Been 10 Centimeters Apart (Episode 4)

Episode 4 felt like it was stretching content for the sake of it as this communication issue with Haruki and Miou reaches silly proportions. While Miou’s actions kind of make sense to a point, it just drags out too long and by the end of this episode I really wanted them to be getting on with things.

King’s Game (Episode 10)

Things are getting fairly tense as the kids are ordered to run for the day with the person furtherest from the goal getting punished at eight hour intervals. I’m actually amazed only one character decided to take out the competition and the rest are just running along. This show remains pretty terrible but entertaining enough for fans of bad horror.

Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ (Episode 10)

Another functional but not particularly exciting episode. The show is trying and yet I think it is all a little bit too late to really engage me. Probably the best thing I can say about this show is it has played it pretty safe the whole way through so fans of the genre or people who haven’t seen a lot of these types of shows will probably enjoy it.

Anime-Gataris (Episode 10)

Episode 10 wasn’t bad, but it doesn’t undo all the poor episodes of the mid-season. This show might yet pull off a reasonable ending but that’s about as much as we can hope for at this point.

UQ Holder (Episode 11)

My thoughts last week that we weren’t given any reason to care about the villain continue. While some history was given this week, it still didn’t tell us the all important reason to actually want to stop the villain or reveal anything of actual significance. It felt like wasted air time to be honest and the fight in the stadium continues into next week.

Kino’s Journey (Episode 10)

Yep, the pointlessness of this show continues without any kind of message or theme being constructed, it just rambles on with its episodic nature with very little to tie it all together or any real purpose given it doesn’t even stand up as just entertaining.

Black Clover (Episode 11)

And episode 11 killed the tiny little bit of hope that episode 10 gave me that this show might be improving. But at least they didn’t let me get my hopes up too high before dashing them on the rocks of mediocrity and repeated punch lines.

Juni Taisen: Zodiac War (Episode 11)

So the match is over and the victor decided and we still don’t really know what was at stake or what it means for the world. Maybe they’ll bother to tell us in the final episode. I’m mostly just waiting for this one to be done as it has been more than a little bit disappointing.

Sengoku Night Blood (Episode 10)

This show continues to be pretty dull and mostly pointless as we go through the motions of character interactions but none of it has any real feeling behind it or given me any reason to care. The main plot line, if there was one, seems lost in amongst these smaller exchanges so there’s no real sense of anticipation about what is to come. While there are certainly worse shows out there, this one commits the worst crime of being boring.

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They Made This?

Dies Irae (Episode 9)

I have no hopes for this show at this point and time. I’m watching until the end of Autumn and then the show will either be done (if one episode count is true) or I will drop it (if it turns out this is going for more episodes). There’s just nothing to recommend this show and it seems to take delight in being dreadful at this point in time. It isn’t even a so-bad-it’s-good kind of thing. It is just bad.

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Tried and Dropped

Evil or Live (Episode 4)

My Girlfriend is Shobitch (Episode 2)

TWOCAR (Episode 1)

Taisho Mebiusline Chicchaisan (Episode 1)

Love is Like A Cocktail (Episode 1)

Konohana Kitan (Episode 1)

A Sister’s All You Need (Episode 1)

Urahara (Episode 1)

 

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Dies Irae Episode 9: Disturbing

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

I’m going to keep this super brief because I’m pretty over this show. Truly disturbing birth sequence followed by some overly emotional drivel on the roof before people show up and fight. End of episode as new bad guy shows up, steps on own ally and then challenges hero, who was already losing, to fight some more.

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There’s just nothing to recommend this show. When it isn’t senseless it is boring. Visually it has remained unimpressive and at this point I don’t even care when a character gets cut because clearly our protagonist has sufficient plot armour that it isn’t going to make a difference. I still haven’t dropped this but I’m really wondering why.

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Dies Irae Episode 8: It’s All Just Stuff

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

I kind of get the impression even the characters are bored with this show at this point. It is all trying to look super dramatic and cool or whatever, but basically stuff just happens and then other stuff is said to explain the stuff that happened, and then some more stuff happens. And I know that you could mostly put that description on any story ever, but most of them seem to care about making that ‘stuff’ actually seem like it matters rather than just another thing that happened.

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So, apparently the bad guys are now going to get serious about unlocking the swastika’s or whatever and that apparently is going to mean a lot of deaths. But even they aren’t in any hurry as they don’t want it all to happen at once. See what I mean about even the characters being bored with this plot line?

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The ‘hero’ of the story literally takes a nap for half the episode and isn’t anywhere near the action this week, which doesn’t really matter because there was barely any action to speak of and the blood spray was worse than lazy. You know, I can forgive poor blood splatter in live action stories but anime doesn’t have the excuse of not actually wanting to cut the actors up.

All and all, this remains a fairly pointless watch and one I’m not really enjoying at this point and yet… I kind of want to know what the end game is so I am stuck.

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Dies Irae Episode 7: We May As Well Just Go With It At This Point

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

One thing I have learned since I started blogging and trying to actively keep watching shows rather than dropping them at the first sign of disappointment in order to have consistency in my review schedule, is that some shows it is better to just switch off any kind of critical thought processes and just watch the pretty colours play out on screen. I probably would have enjoyed Hand Shakers far more if I had taken that approach.

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This week, Dies Irae brings us another incomprehensible mess of narrative. It isn’t that the overall story is that hard to get now. Basically over-powered nazi guy wants to use his full power and his magician friend is apparently helping set the stage for doing that. Everything else is either window dressing for that or just background noise in terms of the overall plot of this story. That might change if they do anything with any of those sub-plots that are kind of hanging in there, but at the moment, that’s about the sum total of things that are important.

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What that means is that the majority of what we’ve seen so far is pretty much not important. And as it hasn’t really contributed anything of value to the main plot and hasn’t actually made us understand the characters any more, it is literally just filler until we get to the main event.

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And, if you read my feature last week, you’ll notice I asked people to be nice to villains because we question their motives too much. Well, here’s a case where the character should question his own motive. Everything that is happening is essentially happening because he’s bored and the world hasn’t offered him a big enough challenge.  Of course, I wouldn’t be so critical of the villains except that this is one of those rare shows where we started by seeing the villains and realistically they have significantly more presence than our potential hero has, so while his motive is boringly shallow to non-existent as well, I kind of don’t care but with the villains driving the plot I’d at least like them to have a reason other than emotional joy-ride.

But whatever. This episode goes from a weird dance sequence, to Fuji being chained up for about a minute until he is let loose. To another random conversation with the priest guy. Before he gets introduced to round table and holographic nazi guy to have yet another weird conversation. Then we get to see magic bad guy and nazi bad guy laughing evil bad guy laughs as the episode ends. You know what, don’t think about it.

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Anime Quotes – Autumn 2017

Posted on by Karandi
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Yes, this is another fairly random post where I have collected my favourite quotes from this season (so far) in one place. I’d love it if you would share your favourite lines or quotes from the season in the comments.

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Dies Irae Episode 6: Shiny Lights and Stuff Goes Boom

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

So I am not confused about the plot anymore. I was seriously over thinking this under the assumption that there was some deeper meaning to any of it and once this episode thoroughly convinced me that this was not the case everything kind of fell into place. The issue being that what I’m not looking at is a plot which is rivalling Hand Shakers for being ultimately completely pointless.

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Now that is not to say that this couldn’t somehow turn things around and maybe show that there was some actual thought put into this, but so far evidence suggests that this is a concept focused on a highly adolescent version of what might be cool and not an actual well thought out or developed plot.

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But hey, if you just want to see glowing characters beat each other up and throw trucks and each other and generally cause chaos, you might genuinely enjoy the mess that Dies Irae continues to be. I, unfortunately, am stuck in the same space I was with Hand Shakers in that I really don’t like this show but that small chance that it might, just somehow, pull off some sort of amazing twist is going to make me watch it through. Expect more hate as this series continues.

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Karandi James.

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