I was kind of overjoyed when this started for the simple reason that it is a fantasy (well alternative history kind of fantasy but still it isn’t isekai so no modern humans meandering about making fourth wall breaking observations). I love fantasy and anime has very few anime that are genuine fantasy and not game worlds or featuring way too modern protagonists so this title was always going to get a bit of a look from me despite being a historical setting more than a fantasy, and unless it becomes truly unwatchable I’m sticking with it.
That said, the first episode was okay. Not great. There’s plenty of pacing and animation issues in just this first episode and you could certainly be pretty critical of it and walk away. However, given I’m looking for a fantasy to watch I’m going to focus on the good here.
We get two sisters who have some great chemistry even if the older one is carrying around way too much guilt about the younger one getting injured. I can see that exploding and derailing their relationship any time now, but at least the sister dynamic is pretty solid.
We also have a slave who used to be friends with the sister but thinks they are dead who gets into some trouble but do to extreme plot armour ends up getting a promotion to a noble rank in the empire that is responsible for all the drama in the first place. Yeah, that’s not going to end well considering the sisters just got attacked by the ‘constructs’ of the empire and used some magic scroll thing to destroy them.
There’s definitely magic and martial arts flying around and while the animation isn’t particularly impressive it has so far been entertaining. And yes, the empire already suffers from every cliche imaginable for evil empires including the idiotic subordinates who decide the best way to find out if someone is hiding in a village is to burn it down. Honestly. We get we’re supposed to dislike them without the over the top idiotic decision making.
Basically, there’s potential here. There are ideas that could become good and characters who might entertain. I want to believe it might do something with that potential though having been burned many times before I’ll sit on the fence until I see what the next couple of episodes bring.
- Episode 1 – A Rough Fantasy With Some Potential
- Episode 2 – Not Entirely Convinced We Needed To See Any of This
- Episode 3 – The Plot Thickens
- Episode 4 – Rising Tension
- Episode 5 – Attack of the Poor Animation
- Episodes 6 + 7 – The Sword, The Confession, and the Betrayal
- Episodes 8 – 10 – Great Heights and Great Falls; It All comes With Ambition
- Episode 11 – Give In To Your Hate; Embrace the Darkness
- Episode 12 – Everybody Hurts Sometimes Even If You Want to Forget
- Episode 13 – The Small Victory and Loss Within a Greater Battle
I am on the edge with this one… Major complaint. This guy losing his village and friends but is excited that he got to learn to read from the people who killed off his people? Hmmm not going to buy that story in this lifetime.
BUT I really hope that the story lines come together. It seems like it could be an interesting story.
It could be interesting and I really hope it does something with it. i also kind of hope they sort out their animation and pacing issues though generally speaking those tend to get worse as a season progresses rather than better which could be a problem given how rough some of this episode was.
Hmm…this one sounds pretty good actually. Like you I love fantasy, and I have honestly not seen many animes in that genre. So: this one I think this is going to be the first show I will watch for the new season😊
I don’t have super high expectations but the first episode was fun enough.