Chronos Ruler Series Review: Cool Concept Does Not Equal Good Story

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Overview:

Time eating demons have stolen Victor’s time leaving him looking younger and without memories of the past 12 years. Together with his son they are hunting the demon that ate his time in order to get it back.

Review:

This actually should have been kind of fun. Two guys with weapons that can slow down and speed up the time of particular objects (Kiri uses water and Victor uses a deck of cards) to fight horologues (time eating demons) that target people with regrets who want to turn back time. It all sounds like it should be kind of fun to watch.

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Then we get the reality where Victor is the particular kind of annoying protagonist that is ridiculously cocky in his own abilities so acts like a complete fool almost 100% of the time. Never taking anything seriously, drinking, hanging out with girls, teasing his son, he’s basically incredibly annoying in every single scene. That I could probably overlook given a lot of the early focus in on Kiri who plays the straight man of the duo. The son forced to deal with the fact that his father barely remembers anything about him and to also deal with the fact that his father acts like a three year old fairly continuously. Except that the series then wants us to take Victor’s plight seriously and the entire final arc asks us to start seeing Victor as a good guy. Sorry. Too late. I have no empathy for the character and I want him to get eaten.

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This is kind of the problem with the whole show. It wants to have those serious emotional moments but the characters have not been presented to the audience in a way that makes them plausible. It wants the villains to have weight and feel threatening but has spent too long with the characters playing the fool for us to actually believe the villains they fight are any kind of real threat. There’s no balance between the comedic moments and the more serious moments and the writing doesn’t lend itself to having the audience really looking for much from this series given the plot just kind of drifts along with no sense of urgency at all and villains appear for no reason other than to inject a fight sequence and then disappear with no consequence.

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Basically this show is built around an idea that is very cool and could be really fun to watch. The group of Chronos Rulers could have been really awesome and we could have had a nice and simple linear narrative fighting some opposing force. Instead we follow Victor and Kiri, and later Mina and Blaze, as they wander about looking for a character’s memories when they’ve given us no reason to be invested in that quest. We learn nothing about the greater war that is going on or any of the other characters, though their brief appearances suggest that knowing less in this case is probably a good thing.

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For most of the season this show dropped into the They Made This category and I stand by that placement. Though this show could have built something quite interesting it was held back by poor characters and writing and ultimately wasn’t all that enjoyable to watch. Even the time manipulation element which at first was kind of interesting, never went anywhere as characters just used the same basic attacks over and over again.

I’d love to know your thoughts if you watched this show last season.


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Karandi James.

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Chronos Ruler Episode 13: At Last The End

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Review:

As the final episode comes around I wonder if this show has accomplished anything? Victo/Victor (subtitles changed mid-series) still hasn’t got his time back and in point of fact now knows it should be impossible to ever do so and yet apparently feels it could still happen. Kiri is still trailing after his useless amnesiac of a father and enduring the absurdity of being put down for not being able to eat pasta through his nose. The only real change is they now have Mina and Blaze also tagging along, whenever the writers remember they should be relevant.

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This wasn’t a satisfying final fight. Last week the horologue revealed his true form and this week unleashed a barrage of attacks that really should have just annihilated the team. However, Victo then decides he can work with the others and trust them in order to achieve victory and for some reason this also means he doesn’t die when he very clearly should have.

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Honestly, this was no worse than any other episode in this show but all and all the writing and characters have been terrible and literally the only reason I’ve stuck with it was I was kind of interested in the time manipulation element. Too bad they never did anything with that. Will write a final review soon.


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Karandi James.

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Chronos Ruler Episode 12: Obvious Symoblism Before A Final Form Reveal

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Review:

Chronos Ruler hasn’t exactly been great. In fact, the writing and characters have been pretty terrible and these final episodes are certainly cementing that point. Episode 11 was basically a series of extended mini-fights with the side characters before we got back to the main boss and episode 12 pretty much screams boss fight from start to finish with a minor character moment mid-episode just in case they haven’t convinced us yet that Victo (Victor) is actually a really great guy (something they decided in the second half of the season because in the first half he was scum).

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But hey, chain symbolism. Haven’t seen that in… Never mind.

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If that wasn’t bad enough, we then get all the good guys together and they start overwhelming the bad guy. Who of course then does a final form reveal right before we cut to the end credits. Why don’t villains ever use their ‘true’ form from the start of a fight? It would save us a lot of time.


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Karandi James.

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Chronos Ruler Episode 10: Let’s Experiment

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Review:

Hey, this show might actually get to a plot before it finishes. We’re finally finding out about Mina a bit and Victo’s past and we’ve finally actually met the Horologue they’ve been trying to find since the beginning. While it isn’t doing all that much different this week as we still have the group fighting in the forest while random stranger taunts Victo by explaining in detail how it has been using his home town as the site for various experiments, somehow, it felt more satisfying this time round.

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I’m not saying this makes up for week’s of mediocre to poor storytelling and characterisation but at least it made me happy I didn’t drop it as it might end up being okayish.

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Plus, the villain here is kind of interesting. I actually do want to see where they go with this. Of course, if they just cut him down next episode in about two seconds, I’m going to be a bit put out by that.


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Chronos Ruler Episode 9: Victo Finally Got Slapped, by Himself

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Review:

So this week the Kiri, Blaze, and the maybe wife of Victo are running around the forest fighting a snake. That is literally the entire part of their role this week because they just kind of drag it out intercut with scenes of Victo dealing with his family issues. The snake runs, they chase, short confrontation, continue.

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While there’s some okay dialogue between the group, there’s zero plot development happening here until the end of the episode where they discover a wall. So basically this whole episode could be wrapped up in about two minutes if they’d just done it.

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But Victo is still playing house and ends up involved in a situation where young Victo has to give his mother blood for a transfusion because it is a super rare blood type and so young Victo misses an exam and blah, blah, blah… Once again, I would care more if they hadn’t spent the majority of this show making Victo a complete jerk. And young Victo is worse. Not even a little upset when older Victo slapped him sideways, though not supporting violence against children.


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Chronos Ruler Episode 8: Playing in the Past

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Review:

Well whoever is doing the subs on this one finally decided that Victo was meant to be Victor and so we now have the name change. Unfortunately this coincided with the episode that decided it also wanted the audience to start taking his character a little more seriously as we delve into his past, quite literally. Yet, it is a little bit too late to ask me to care about Victo/Victor or whoever else he might be given he’s been a flake and pain all the way throughout the series.

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Basically the group finally made it to Victo’s home town and of course for some reason time has reversed and there are Victo’s parents and himself as a five year old, pre-tragic fire and back story that they’ve only just bothered to tell us. Wasn’t it enough that he lost all his adult memories we now learn his few childhood memories are of tragedy? No wonder the guy acts the clown all the time but that doesn’t make him any better to watch. More importantly, Kiri has had to put up with Victo as a father and you have to admit an amnesiac who looks and acts younger than you isn’t exactly a glowing role model.

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All and all, this episode tries for a more serious tone at times but doesn’t hit the mark and then ruins its own attempt by a few incredibly lame gags. It is watchable but that’s about all you can say for it.


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Chronos Ruler Episode 6: I Hate You / I Love You

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Review:

This show continues to have an intriguing premise and some interesting developments but is so busy burying it all under poor execution, terrible characterisation and dialogue, as well as some really cheap jokes to actually deliver on what might otherwise be a fairly promising show. You walk away from each episode wanting to have enjoyed it and wanting to know more about the story but having face palmed so many times you have to wonder why you still are watching it.

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Having kind of resolved the whole joining Chronos thing and now being given random titles that I do not see any reason or need for at this point in the series, Victo has managed to read some of his old notes and they are going to the place where he had his last mission before losing his time. I’m all kinds of confused because Kiri is clearly older than 12, so why doesn’t he know whether Mina is his mother or not? Or why didn’t he know about Victo working for Chronos? And yes, given he isn’t yet 18 it makes sense that he was really young when whatever happened to Victo happened, but he has to know something.

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Meanwhile the is she or isn’t she question of Mina remains. To be honest, I really hope she isn’t because Victo is annoying enough, a Victo and Mina combo for the remainder of the series would just be annoyance overload.


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Karandi James.

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