So, in spite of the groundwork being all there, an attractive central concept that appeals to a wide demographic, the manga hitting mainstream popularity as of recent, and the source material being critically acclaimed & commercially successful to a larger audience, how in the word does Netflix fuck this up? Well, I'll tell you how in this review!
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The Fights
This is the most important part to get right in a series such as this. For God's sake, the entire franchise revolves around essentially one huge tournament arc. You could literally fuck up every other facet of this anime -- as long as you get the fights right, people will be happy in the end. But, unfortunately, Netflix & Studio Graphinica fail miserably. The fights are lacking any meaningful dramatic tension & are horribly animated.
With respect to the dramatic tension claim, the fights are way too long. As an illustration, it took over an hour for the first fight between Thor & Lu Bu to wrap up, and they exchanged maybe five blows in total amongst one another during this period. To further illustrate this point, in the buildup to the cathartic finish of this epic clash, we learn the true nature of Thor's fabled hammer and learn of Lu Bu's "ace up his sleeve" attack rumored to split the heavens. This is undeniably a promising buildup to a final engagement. Lu Bu & Thor then rush towards one another to unleash their most powerful attacks against one another to end the conflict and, then, BOOM flashback occurs to show Lu Bu training for the move. What the hell, seriously? Not only can it be inferred that Lu Bu obviously trained to develop the attack, the vast majority of your audience does not care how Lu Bu developed the attack to begin with. We just wanna see the attack itself! Granted, the manga does the same exact thing. But, this is adaptation for God's sake. The goal of any great adaption is to elevate the source material while simultaneously being faithful to it. There is nothing more immersion breaking than taking me out of the immediate action.So, I don't like criticizing something without mentioning how it could be better. So, I will explain how things could have been better & how things ought to have been. The actual fight between Lu Bu & Thor should have lasted maybe five minutes with the vast majority of the animation budget being dedicated to this segment and all other fighting segments. The blows should have been heavy, solid, and most importantly quick & powerful. We should see Thor & Lu Bu receiving noticeable physical damage over the course of this exchange of blows. An easy & cheap way to portray this phenomenon is to highlight bruising on the facial features of both characters and distinguishable tearing of each participant's clothing. Maybe even chipping of the weapons during this series of blows as well, just spitballing.
As for the backstory nonsense, its fine, preferably I would have liked to seen it cut out entirely or downplayed to a large degree. But, if you are going to leave the backstory part in, put it at the beginning before the fight ever starts. For instance, the narrator, when mentioning the names of the participants to setup the upcoming fight, could have mentioned their nicknames & monikers so to speak. By this, I mean, the Narrator could have said something like this: "Now, introducing, the SLAYER of the World Serpent, exectuioner of 66 Jotunns, weilder of Mjolnir, the perfect GOD OF THUNDER, THOOORRRRRR". As the narrator exclaims Thor's introduction to the arena audience, the flashback sequence could be seamlessly initiated, which shows how Thor got these titles from his past exploits. The same could be done for the rest of the cast of characters. Overall, this method is just a much more coherent way of introducing backstory to develop these characters rather than literally stopping everything to commence a flashback at a rather inappropriate moment.
The Narrator
This is meant to be a sub-heading still within The Fights section of this review. The narrator is awful & immersion breaking. Here's why: Lu Bu and Thor in their final clash is narrated completely over. By this, I mean that the narrator does this "oh, what's this move, is Lu Bu about to unleash his ace up his sleeve" shtick. What would have been much better AND made more sense from a characterization perspective is the following: Lu Bu's legs break from the weight & might of Thor's legendary hammer attack. Thor demeans him saying something like "oh, is that it? that is disappointing. to think that i found you a worthy opponent mere minutes ago ..." & begins to walk away with his back turned. This is meaningful as even the Gods in the audience explicitly remark that Thor is showing Lu Bu an immense amount of respect, which is the complete opposite of his otherworldly kin's attitude towards the mere humans. Then, Lu Bu unleashes a thunderous battle cry, mounting his horse and says something like "out of respect for you, I will show you my ultimate move". Then, both parties get revved up, excited for their final clash to play out in the ultimate display of chivalry, respect, and power. This is a much better and seamless exchange that play on the two characters' personalities as opposed to the narrator interjecting himself into the conflict, resulting in the imaginary exchange i laid out above to never occur. Ultimately, the existence of a narrator breeds missed opportunities to build up not only the fights but the underlying dramatic tension from the fights as well. The narrator needs only to introduce these characters and maybe provide some "play by play" but definitely not outshine the participants' during the fights most crucial moments.
Characterization
You don't necessarily have to devote a great degree of characterization to the cast as the audience is likely already familiar with these characters. For instance, we all have some preconceived knowledge of the Gods represented in this franchise and the legends surrounding them. For instance, everyone knows Zeus is the Big Boss of the mythological Gods, Thor is the dude with the thunder power & hammer, Buddha is the human elevated to a God, Hercules is strong man, Poseidon is the water chad, etc. Conversely, the same underlying notion applies to the human cast as well, represented by historical figures such as Jack the Ripper, Adam (from the fable of Adam & Eve), and to a lesser extent Lu Bu & Kojiro Sasaki. So, why the hell are you telling me the backstory of these characters? Why is so much time being devoted to the backstory of these characters? Worse yet, why are you interrupting the present fight to conceive a flashback of the participants' past? The vast majority of your audience a) already knows this information or b) doesn't care in the slightest. Personally, I am in the latter camp. Moving on to something I hinted at in the previous statement ...
Art & Animation
Now, let's move on to the more technical stuff. As I alluded to before, the animation is awful. The over-reliance of smear frames to simulate movement or action is nauseating, the lack of actual movement in a high paced action packed series such as this is rather jarring, and it just generally doesn't hold a candle to similar fighting-oriented anime. Even other Netflix original anime properties that focus on fighting as a core element like Baki or Kengan Ashura look better from an animation perspective, which is disappointing considering the animation quality was a point of contention in the series aforementioned above. I'm not going to pretend that I have a technical knowledge of animation or how it fundamentally works, but I definitely know what looks good & what doesn't. I have also seen enough anime (you can look on my profile to confirm this if you doubt) to have a large body of work to use as a point of comparison. Point being, this anime fundamentally looks bad. It is just sad to see that more care & thought were put into the animation physics of Aphrodite's boobs than the actual fights and plot itself.
This anime is ugly. From an aesthetic point-of-view and beyond. The facial expressions are lacking any meaningful details to actually show how the characters are feeling. Something that was hinted at in another review is how expressive the facial expressions of the cast are in the source material. Take one character alone as an illustration, Brunhilde.
The expressions are extremely varied & easily convey how the character is feeling from a visual perspective alone. Now, juxtapose the vast amount of the expressions shown above to the resting bitchface Brunhilde has throughout the entire run of the anime series.
What is she thinking here? What does this expression convey? Ultimately, it doesn't convey anything. Its just yet another missed opportunity to actually play into the medium's strength. The difference is night & day. And her expressions alongside the rest of the cast remain generally lifeless.With respect to the color palette of the show, it is visually unappealing, with every art asset including the characters, weapons, settings, etc. all having this "washed out aesthetic". It is really hard to elaborate further on this, but I hope many see where I am coming from. The show is particularly dark and is missing moments of brightness to highlight the contrast between the dark objects & perhaps even convey emotion or a change in tone. For instance, Thor's thunder/lightning power should be the brightest blue I have ever seen. This should be the most pure lightning imaginable; it should be damn near white. But instead, its this weird darker version of "sky blue". It's disappointing and yet another missed opportunity to do something visually interesting.
Of course, I don't expect the show to be something ungodly bright & colorful like No Game No Life, but the series would be so much better if it had bright sparks protruding from the participants weapons and armor during the high octane clash in the fight sequences. As I mentioned above, the sparkles of brightness could actually be used for narrative purpose, ranging from displaying the almost alien aspects to the god's weaponry to marking a shift in tone. Perhaps, the darker color palette was intentional to match the darker tone of the underlying narrative? Regardless, I think believing so would give the producers too much credit with respect to forethought, and my criticism of it being too dark is still valid.Sound Design & Music
This is yet another category the mediocrity of this anime rears its ugly head. The sound design is awful. I am not expecting Fire Force levels of sound design, but the weapons sound generic. The sound effects are largely stock effects I have heard elsewhere many times before. And the audience cheers, boos, and anything in-between are just as common. I just want the producers of this anime to try a little harder. Think about this from a canonical perspective, the participants of the tournament are using mythical weapons far beyond any human comprehension. Yet, they ironically sound extremely human & familiar, so much so that it is immersion breaking.
As an illustration, Thor’s hammer should sound like the coolest shit ever. It should be emanating the “Chidori” sound effect from Naruto to delineate the thunder & lighting at minimum, the metal clang it makes upon contact with Lu Bu should sound fundamentally alien to us as the audience, and it shouldn't even necessarily sound like metal once the true nature of Mjolnir being "alive" is revealed. Therefore, realistically, the weapon should have at least two different sound landscapes in essence as well as multiple sound effects. For instance, if Mjolnir were to clash with Lu Bu's spear, it should make a more metallic clang noise. It shouldn't make a more metallic clang noise upon hitting Lu Bu's body and should sound more thumpy if that makes any sense.
Alternatively, let's discuss the Adam versus Zeus fight. With Adam's weapon of brass knuckles being a lot more standard and familiar, the sound effect of each connecting hit could remain similar. However, the bass of the sound effect could change depending on where Adam connects his punches with Zeus. As an illustration, a hit upon the chest of Zeus, which is more fleshy in nature, should sound more like a thump, whereas a hit upon the face of Zeus, which is more bony in nature, should sound more like a crack. But instead, we are left with yet again the same sound effect no matter what. Very simple basic stuff like this is how this anime pathetically falls short & just isn’t that immersive as an entertainment experience.
With respect to the OST, the music of the series is just as generic as the sound effects. There is not a single memorable track, and all the music is stuff I feel like I have heard before in other franchises. A good soundtrack, ideally, should standout. It is hard to explain what makes Record of Raganrock’s OST bad without offering a point of reference. Take something from Death Note, universally regarded as having a fantastic OST. Any track from that anime is instantly recognizable – you know its from Death Note & nothing else. Beyond that, the music actually matches the tone of the series & the action happening on screen.
Conversely, take something like Record of Raganrock during Adam’s death. This is explicitly stated to give humanity hope for the first time in the fight against the Gods. This is a moment of triumph. This is a loss, yes, yet also a massive victory for humanity. Humanity can actually do this now. So what do the producers do during this moment? They play generic sad music. The music doesn’t match the fundamental message the of what the on-screen events & dialogue are trying to get across. Yes, Adam’s death is sad. But his death is outshined by the hope it illuminates. So, in essence, this should be a happy fruitful moment for humanity. So, if it were me, I would change it to a more uplifting track. It shows the dissonance between the material being shown and the message the audience is supposed to take away, which is jarring as my experience with this event as a viewer doesn't match the experience the producer's are trying to convey. Another example of this dissonance is Brunhilde stress eating right after Adam's death to cope with the loss. This is meant to be a comedic moment. A source of brevity after a serious, hard fought, and emotional battle. And what music do they insert? An evil organ/piano musical score. Seriously, wtf?!?! Ultimately, this further illuminates the producers lack of understanding of the source material.
Final Thoughts & Closing Remarks
Fundamentally, this anime adaption is a failure. As aforementioned, the goal of any self-respecting adaption should be to elevate the source material while remaining faithful to it. This anime adaption remains faithful to a fault to the source material with misplaced backstory & an interrupting narrator. And doesn’t elevate the source material at all. In fact, it is worse. Much worse.
There is just an underlying lack of care taken into the decisions made here from the production team. I alluded to them earlier in the segments above, but between the sound design, OST, art & animation, characterization, and the fights, there is not a single category I feel is better than the source material. Hell, I think I even made very valid suggestions on how to improve the series tremendously, and it took me about one hour of reflection & I am certainly not a paid professional. Ultimately, the production team doesn't understand the source material, the genre, or what makes fans resonate so strongly with this franchise. I think this anime is well below average comparing it amongst its contemporaries, and it is rather insulting to think that a franchise with such strong source material gets a shit adaptation like this.The Verdict
Go read the manga. Start from chapter one & pretend this anime was just a lucid dream. It is genuinely great, has excellent art, and includes one of the best fights in animanga history with the Jack the Ripper versus Hercules fight that was alluded to in the final episode of this garbage anime adaptation. Supporting the manga might even help to get it published over here in the West! fingers crossed
Anyways, if you made it to the end of this review, I would like to thank you for your time & reading this. Feel free to message me if you agree/disagree, whatever really, would love to discuss more. I generally follow back, so drop me a follow too! And I have some other reviews I plan on doing in the future, so maybe check out those on my profile when they drop. Thanks again. :)