_[A quick clarification: If you enjoyed this anime, good for you. I’m not here to make you hate it or anything like that. This is a review, not an opinion (Yes, I want to clarify that because for some reason people often confuse them with each other). Also, I’m a human if you didn’t know, so I could’ve made some mistakes here and there. If I did, please feel free to correct me. Oh, and I’m gonna criticize the anime, not the original story. Mostly because when they were making the animation, they could’ve made some changes to make it better… Also I haven’t read the source material, and I don’t care to do so since in this case it doesn’t matter if it’s a “good adaptation” or whatever.
That’s it, enjoy… I guess.]_
Hello, and welcome to Ego’s storytelling corner. My name is Dr. Ego, as you probably remember, and today we are gonna be talking about disappointing your audience.
„Wait, you said you were gonna do a revie-‘’
YES I WILL, JUST LET ME GET TO IT FIRST.
So, what was I saying? Ah yes, storytelling is a very complicated subject. When creating a story it is important to always think several times about what you have written, and come back to it once in a while, to see if it still works after you’ve written the rest of the story.
I honestly have no idea what happened while creating „Finest assassin…”, but the difference between the first episode, and the rest is shocking. It’s like a skilled person wrote the first episode, and a beginner wrote the rest. Even though the themes in this anime are really good, it physically hurts me that they have been wasted in such a way… So let’s fix that.
Let’s see what could’ve been done to salvage this story so I can finally sleep at night.
What is that? No, I’m asking seriously. Anyone? No? IT’S A MISTAKE THAT’S WHAT IT IS.
By now you’re probably thinking: „Is he off his meds or somethin?”. Nope, I’m good. Thank you very much.
First of all, this title is way too long. I literally could fall asleep in the middle or reading all this crap. There is so much information in the title alone, that you actually could say it contains spoilers for the story! I mean c’mon, how absurd does that sound? For example: When you have „Assassination Classroom” you have „Assassination Classroom” ,and not „A Classroom of Troublesome Children is Forced to Assassinate Their Alien Teacher Otherwise He’s Gonna Blow Up the Earth”.
So, how do we fix that? First of all, let’s remove all the useless information. We don’t need to know that he’s the finest assassin, because we can see that by his actions in the first episode. We also don’t need to know that he’s gonna be an aristocrat since that literally doesn’t change anything.
So, what do we have left? „Assassin Gets Reincarnated Into Another World”. The current problem is that it feels very generic, like anything… Like, ever... What I’m saying is that it’s forgettable. So what you wanna do is to make it catchy and memorable, like: „Assassins Pride”. No, wait that one has been used already… So maybe: „Learn from your past”. No, the main character doesn’t do that…
OH, I’ve got it, „Assassins Sight”.
Alright, I know that sounds as cheesy as humanly possible, but think about it. Besides having his special vision, which is important to the story, we also watch most of the story from his perspective… And he’s an assassin so we are gonna work with it.
Alright point number two… What was it… Ah yes, the opening.
It’s actually pretty good, at least until you realize it isn’t.
“What do you mean by that? In my opinion it looked pretty cool.”
Good question Jeremy. You see, even though the music and animation are good, the problem is that it’s meaningless. I’m not gonna talk about the typical things like: “Characters striking a pose” because I don’t have time for this… Why are you guys looking at me like that?
“Because we know you are gonna talk about it.”
OKAY, FINE. I’m not gonna talk about everything, but I have to talk about something right? Now, let’s talk about these poses, or whatever I should call it.
Things like that can be either good or bad, it depends on how you use it. This opening somehow managed to do it both ways. This “striking a pose” at the beginning is okay, because the most important thing that decides if it’s okay or not is…
“Is what?”
I wanted you guys to finish the sentence.
“Oh, umm… Time?
Exactly! This episode lasts about two seconds, or half a second for each character, which is pretty good. One of the many mistakes that make it into the openings is that this “pose” thing takes way too long, like seven to eight seconds. I can eat a full freaking cup of pudding in that time!
Now, you are probably thinking: “Then what’s the bad thing about it?”. Well, the problem is that they do it AGAIN at the ending of the op.
“But it is supposed to give hints about the characters past.”
Very good observation Stacy. That is actually a very clever section, but why didn’t they just put this at the beginning then? It would made some space for something that could have some meaning behind it. Also, overusing these “poses” may be a sign of laziness or lack of creativity for some people, and that’s something you definitely don’t want.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention one thing. Almost half of the opening is focused on what happened in the first episode, and is mostly irrelevant to what the rest of the show is. This is in my opinion a very big sign, which says that even the animators didn’t know what to put into the opening, and I honestly don’t blame them.
Okay, so let’s talk about this frame. It’s just a typical case of “It looks cool, let’s do that”. The theme of people “putting masks on” is so unexplored it’s not even funny. Yeah, we have this nice aristocrat guy or whatever he’s called, who permits selling drugs behind the scenes so that he and his wife wouldn’t be poor anymore, but it’s just a very bad example of trying to make the audience feel sorry for the “bad” guy. Now, you are probably wondering why I used quotes for the word “bad”. Well, that’s because we don’t even see him do anything bad! We are just told that this guy is getting paid to allow these dangerous drugs to pass through the town, and that’s it. We never saw him pay someone to distribute the drugs or that the “kind guy” face is just for the public or anything like that.
I have to give them credit for showing the effects that these drugs have on people, but that’s about where the positives end. Also, why the hell would our protagonist need a fake identity to kill this guy, when killing him is just as easy as shooting him while he’s standing on the freaking balcony!?
“…”
That was a question to you guys. Anyone? Okay, so maybe… Stacy.
“I don’t know”
Okay, then maybe… Mia.
“It’s so we can feel sorry for the aristocrat”
That’s right! That’s also known as plot conven-… Wait, that’s not plot convenience, pardon me. I wanted to say, THAT’S BAD WRITING!
Okay, to fix these problems you actually don’t need that much effort. “The ingredients are here, you just have to make the soup” as some people say.
“But nobody says th-“
SHUSH! First of all, to make the audience feel sorry for this guy, you have to show that their life was actually bad. Since they never showed us them being poor, we – as an audience – are not able to know how bad their life was. For all we know, this “poverty” could just be the case of “Honey, that’s terrible, I don’t have the money to buy this new, expensive, useless cosmetic that everyone has”.
That’s why, for example, you could start the episode with the aristocrat’s wife waking up form a nightmare, where she dreamt that they were poor again. Soon after the husband would come into the bedroom to comfort her and you could start the opening. Then the rest of the episode could play out as it did in the original, to the point of meeting the couple. After that, you could make the main protagonists stay at the couple’s mansion for the night so that we could witness how the aristocrat is getting paid for the distribution. They could show us that by allowing the main characters to spy on him during the night. Then, through some dialogue you could reveal that he hates common folk and that’s why he’s distributing this drug without hesitation. After that, you could make the protagonist eavesdrop while preparing for assassination so that he could hear the reason why the aristocrat despises people from this town so much.
Here is an example: Because of the town’s residents, they lost all of their fortune and his wife almost died, because she got sick, and they didn’t have enough money to buy medicine. Then the drug deal came up and he accepted it to save his wife, and have revenge on the people who took away everything from them. This way we could see, that even though his actions hurt people, he has a reason for his deeds. That’s how you make a two dimensional side character, and not a piece of stale bread. Also you could make the protagonist kill the aristocrat by adding a modified version of the drug that he’s selling, and this way you could say that he made his own fate.
Oh god, I have been talking for so long, and we are still on the first two seconds, fantastic.
Since for the next couple seconds there is nothing interesting to talk about, let’s move to this shot. It’s actually very clever since it suggests that “The Goddess” has been observing the protagonist before he died, but there is something wrong with it.
Now, can you guess what in this shot pisses me off?
“Why would it piss you off? You just said that it’s clever!”
Jeremy, please don’t raise your voice if it’s unnecessary.
“I’m sorry…”
Okay, so maybe… Brian.
“I’m guessing t-that it would be the c-coin.”
Great job! Ten points for Gryffindor! Also, I know you’ve had a hard time but remember, you have no reason to be stressed here, just let your imagination run wild and share your thoughts, because that’s what we are about here.
“Okay…”
Now, the coin is crucial here. Everything in the frame is black and white. The coin is the only thing that has color. In art such thing is called monochrome, and it’s supposed to draw viewers attention to the most important thing in the picture.
So, do you think the coin has any importance? Of course it doesn’t! They just thought it’s a cool shot, so they did it. It pisses me off, because it’s such a waste of potential. With this coin you really could build up the main character, for example: Since he’s been a tool for the mysterious organization all his life, this could mean that he can’t decide for himself, because all the decisions were made for him. To show that you could set up a scene in which there are two good methods of killing a target, but since he can only choose one, he flips a coin to make it decide for him. The same way Kanao from “Demon Slayer” does. Then you could put him in a dilemma, where he has to decide for himself for the first time.
Here is a very simple example: The love of his life is in danger and in order to save her, he has to fight with an enemy stronger than him (just like in the twelfth episode). Since it’s a battle he can’t win, he tosses a coin to decide whether to save himself or her. The result is that he’s supposed to run away and save himself, but he ultimately decides to stay and protect what’s important to him, making his first decision and changing his life around. That’s what we call an arc, ladies and gentleman.
Here is a question that nobody has an answer for: Why the hell is she crying? Like seriously, why? There is nothing in the anime that would explain what she is sad about. I’m not joking. It seems as if the animators responsible for the opening didn’t even know what the story was about! Either that or it was just another case of: “Hey, that looks cool. Let’s do that.”
Alright, we don’t have much time and we still are on the opening, so let’s wrap up this section with this shot. This is only one of two instances where the main character shows any emotion, and it implies that he is going to be either enraged or in a tough fight, where he has to do his best. The problem is, that he doesn’t. Throughout the show everything is just easy for him, so easy in fact, that he puts in less effort than me, when I wake up every freakin morning! Why is that? Because plot convenience, but let’s talk about that later.
Okay, we are gonna have to talk about these segments at the same time, because half of the show’s runtime is their origin story, so it’s gonna be easier to explain everything while talking about them both at the same time. I won’t go into details about the protagonist's parents or side characters because they are flatter than the pieces of paper in my printer. Now, let’s start with Dia.
Dia is our protagonists love interest, at least according to the script. I mean seriously, Tarte has the most screen time out of all three, and despite this, Dia is the one we should be more invested in? I know the protagonist met her first, but come on, she’s gone throughout almost the entire runtime after she’s introduced! Yes, we have some parts here and there where she meets with the protagonist, and we also have the eleventh episode where they spend time together, but that’s not enough.
For example, when you watch: “Banished from the Hero’s Party, I Decided to Live a Quiet Life in the Countryside” – another “great” title by the way – you can see the chemistry between Rit and Red no problem, because they gave us time to see their relationship. We see them live together, fight together, and take care of one another.
Here we don’t see any of this. The only thing we see is the generic “Oh, they are smiling while [insert activity here], that must mean they love each other”, also known as LAZY WRITING.
Oh, I also forgot to mention, Dia is the protagonist's relative. I don’t know if you heard, but there is this anime called “Sword Art Online”, and if it has taught us anything, it is this: DO NOT PUT INCEST INTO YOUR STORY FOR GOODNESS SAKE. WHAT IS THIS? SWEET HOME F*CKING ALABAMA? GOOD LUCK AT RE-… Let’s move on.
The only way she can be fixed as a character is to not make her the love interest, and just leave her as a normal family member. With that, her relationship with the protagonist wouldn’t change much and he still would have a reason to save her. Now, let’s move to the next one.
Oh god, here we go.
“Wait, what is wrong with Tarte? I mean, she’s got a quick origin story and a reason to stick around our protagonist. So why are you bringing her up?”
Stacy, have you’ve read what I asked you to on our previous lesson?
“Of course I did!”
No, you didn’t. Because if you did, you wouldn’t be asking that question. Everyone else knows why I’m talking about her? Brian? Mia? Jeremy?
See? Everyone else knows.
“Okay fine! I didn’t do it.”
Listen, you are not in the best condition right now and I get it, but if you don’t want to be here, the doors are always open. If you do want to be here, please at least read what I give you. Printing isn’t cheap you know?
“Right, right.”
Okay, so maybe… Mia, tell us what is wrong with her.
“It’s obvious, she’s as lazy as humanly possible”
Exac… Wait what?
“Woman, do you have some personal vendetta against me or something!?”
Girls, what I said earlier? No fighting in the classroom! Are we clear?
“But she-”
I SAID, ARE WE CLEAR!?
“… Yes”
Mia?
“Fine…”
Now, where were we… Jeremy, since they didn’t give us an explanation, maybe you will tell us?
“Her origin story doesn’t impact the plot or her character”
FINALLY! Yes, it doesn’t have any impact on both her and the story. When we meet her, we are fed with information about “How hard the life in the neighboring kingdom is”, or “How her family had to get rid of her, because there were too many mouths to feed”. There are several problems though. First of all, she tells us all about it, but we never get to see it. We never see her family, or this neighboring kingdom. Literally one of the basic rules while making a movie or an animation is “Show, don’t tell”.
I mean, for goodness sake, they have spent an entire episode on Maha’s origin story – to which I will get into in a moment – but for Tarte we only get what? Not even a half of that! And the only thing that we get is just the aftermath of what should’ve sculpted her into a character. Yes, I said “should’ve” because she isn’t a character, she is a shell as empty as my bank account. After cutting out her origin story, you could just replaced her with any “generic harem anime girl”, and people wouldn’t see the difference. I mean, when your character’s only defining tropes are that she uses spears, has twintails and is praising the main character about every word he says, it’s not hard to forget about her is it?
The funniest thing is, that it’s really easy to fix that. The biggest problem is that her origin didn’t impact the way she acts around other people. I mean, let’s be honest, when your own family has left you to die of starvation, you would not only treasure every meal, but had a lack of trust towards other people. So what does she do? The exact freaking opposite! She doesn’t store food for later or anything like that, and she believes a random boy that he isn’t gonna leave her, like her family did, just because he saved her from some wolves? I know she trusts him because he used manipulation or whatever, but if they would show us that he’s trying to earn her trust throughout the episodes, that would imply that he’s struggling with something and tries he’s best to achieve it. If they would give us scenes, where for example Tarte is storing some food for later, that would show us that she’s afraid of going back to how things were, which would build her as a character. Not only that, they could add a scene after, where she for example gives some of this food to homeless kids or something like that, which would build her as caring and compassionate, because she has been in the same place as them. We also could have scenes where she doubts that the protagonist would come back for her, or something like that, and after some time whenever he’s leaving she would have fewer doubts about him, meaning their relationship is getting better.
To put more salt into the wound, the “climax” for her character arc is, I never thought I would have to say this, not running far enough. What in the flying F*CK does that have to do with her past? BEING USEFUL MY ASS! SHE ISN’T FOREST GUMP FOR GOODNESS SAKE! If this would be a sport themed anime, it could’ve worked, but that is NOT a sport anime! I know her family threw her out because she was useless to them, but since we never see her struggling at basic tasks, or being too weak to do something, this just feels disconnected and pointless. Now, let’s move on before I’ll have to go to therapy again.
But before I talk about Maha, I want to say a few words about this scene.
This scene gives me the biggest ass ache I’ve had in years. It features such good cinematography that I seriously can’t believe it was done by the same people that made the rest of this crap. There are no words said, every part of this scene is left to be interpreted by the viewers, which makes the realization even more impactful. In this case, they used a simple writing trick, which bases on seeing a character struggle to achieve their goal, and when they are really close to achieving it, it get’s brutally ripped from their grasp, and they land in a worse place than where they started.
Here it’s represented by the girls working hard to collect money, so they won’t have to live on the street anymore. When you see that they are happy, and almost have enough money to achieve their goal, the money get’s taken from them, and they are put into the orphanage. Here they actually go a step further, by making the viewers think that their dream came true, because now they live together in a house, and have something to eat, but then… You know the rest.
Rape, child prostitution and self harm are very hard and painful topics, so they need to be handled with care, and used only when it’s absolutely necessary for the story. Unfortunately, they didn’t do that here. It’s just-, yes Mia?
“It’s just another case of: “It looks good, let’s do that”?”
Exactly that. It has no relevance to the story. We barely see those girls after this episode, just maybe for a couple of seconds and that’s it. They don’t even do anything significant. They are just put in charge of a beauty supply shop, and that’s it.
“But if they weren’t there then Maha wouldn’t have a reason to come with him”
What do you mean by that?
“I mean, she came with him in exchange for their safety, right?”
Jeremy, have you fallen asleep or something while watching this? Because that’s not what happened.
“Just a little…”
Then please, do something about your sleeping schedule.
Anyway, what was I saying? Ah yes, Maha is a terrible character. We can forget about all that “reclaiming her father’s company” stuff, since it’s just a lazy excuse so she can have some kind of past. Because as I said earlier, it doesn’t bear any meaning to her character or the plot. You could argue that it’s because this way, she can be put in charge of finances etc. But this could be replaced by her just being good at math, or even better, they could replace that with her studying hard to learn math so she could prove herself useful to the protagonist… Yes, Brian?
“But it c-could be set up for a s-sequel.”
Oh, my dear foolish student. Saying “it may be a setup for next season” doesn’t change anything, because who knows if there is even gonna be a next season. If there would be, then not including this information in the first season would be even better. Mostly because they would have to waste time for repeating this information to the people that forgot about it, which would also bore the audience that has remembered it, since nobody likes to waste their time on listening to something they already know.
Remember how I said that they showed us the scene with the orphanage, because for some reason child prostitution, and self harm seem like a “cool” topic to them? It literally wouldn’t change anything if the protagonist found them on the f*cking street, just like at the start of the episode, which in the end makes it a waste of time. You could sum this episode up just like any other episode of harem anime: “Boy find girl. Girl like boy. Girl go with boy.” If you are writing a script or a story, and your characters can be summed up by these three sentences, then you have some serious rewrites ahead of you. It would actually be better for Maha to not be in this scene, since when the protagonist came to pick her up, the audience can find her uncompassionate and selfish. I mean, she has spent a couple years with those girls, saw what happened to them, and when a handsome young boy came to take her with him, she doesn’t resist or say anything like: “I won’t go anywhere without my friends”. She would just leave them to save herself and live happily while the other girls would suffer for the rest of their lives.
Okay, now let’s fix that walking pile of garbage. It took me some time to think how to fix this mess without changing too much of the setups that have been given to me, but I like a good challenge. The only change I made was to the age of Maha and the other girls. I made Maha the oldest and the rest of the girls the same age as she was in the original.
Here is how it would play out: If she was the oldest, and the other girls were too young for this "job," it would mean that Maha would be the one to “satisfy” the customers. After a few of these "jobs", she would be the one to injure her face, while the other girls would try to stop her. The "boss," or whoever this guy was, would say that since she was no longer pretty, one of the other girls would have to take her place. After realizing what she had done, she would insist that she would put on makeup and continue her “job”. Then the protagonist would show up and choose Maha to go with him, since he only cares about her mana, and not how she looks. Instead of accepting his offer, she would give him an ultimatum. Either he would take them all, or she won’t come with him. He would agree, and say to the “boss” that since they are a part of his family now, he will regret if he hurts them. After the protagonist left, the "boss" would try to "lay his hands" on one of the girls, and Maha would attack him to protect her. She is then overpowered and is kicked on the floor, almost dying. Then the protagonist comes to her rescue, and kills those who hurt her, because they broke their promise.
This setup would not only build Maha as compassionate, it would also show that she cares about the other girls more than herself, and that she will do anything in her power to protect them. It would also make her more cautious, and violent towards men other than the protagonist, since many of them have hurt her. It would be something that would make her stand out, and make her less forgettable. With this we would now have a memorable character, with defying characteristics, and not just some “stereotypical anime girl” that can be replaced with ease.
“How long did it took you to think of this?”
About two hours… or maybe an hour and a half, but something around these lines. It seriously isn’t that hard, you just have to remember one thing, that everything needs to have a meaning. It’s a simple way of thinking, but it helps a lot. And yes, do try this at home.
And so, here we are. The tip of the iceberg, ladies and gentleman, this guy. Jesus, do I have problems with this man. Okay, alright… Let’s start from the top.
Just when he arrives to this foreign land, he literally contradicts himself. He says “I’m not gonna be a tool anymore. I’m gonna live for myself”. You probably can guess what I’m gonna say, so maybe… Stacy, please finish my sentence.
“He does the exact opposite”
That’s right. The exact freaking opposite. In his previous life, he was a tool for a mysterious organization. We don’t see the people behind the organization, but by the way they killed the protagonist we can see that they had control over practically everything. After being reincarnated, he works for his dad to continue the family of assassins.
This statement already contradicts his words about “living for himself”. We never see him oppose his dad’s suggestions or anything like that, he just does everything his dad says. That is the base of the freaking story and they couldn’t even get that right! You could argue that this is because his dad is an experienced assassin and he wants to learn things from him. Unfortunately, that’s even worse! He’s supposed be the finest assassin for goodness sake!
Okay, let me get this straight. First of all, the protagonist in his previous life looked way older than his new dad, which would imply that he is a lot more experienced. Besides, do you really think a modern assassin, who knows techniques perfected over thousands of years, needs to learn from someone living in the Middle Ages? Exactly, that’s why these scenes of him training his body – the way his father tells him – don’t make any sense. Mostly because, let’s face it, modern training techniques are probably way better than the ones from the Middle Ages. It would have been much better if they just showed us how he tells his father that there are some flaws in his techniques. They could have even shown us how the protagonist trains in his own way, and that it makes him better than his father. That would be so simple, and yet, we didn’t get that.
By the way, did you realize that this guy, even though he’s supposed to be the best assassin is as dense as a brick?
“I didn’t”
“Me neither. I actually think he’s plans and stuff are okay. I personally found them average but I didn’t find anything wrong with them”
I understand, it was actually hard to spot at first sight so I’m gonna tell you what I mean.
What do you think is wrong with this picture?
“…”
Okay fine, I’ll answer it myself, since I can see that you guys are bit tired. I don’t blame you. It’s getting late, and the only thing you were doing for the past hour is listening to a guy wearing a weird mask, who’s talking gibberish about Japanese cartoons. So I’ll try to make it quick.
How can this man, be the best assassin when he only changes his appearance and not Tarte’s ,when they are undercover? Since these are somewhat medieval ages, it would be weird to make the same girl work for two different people as a secretary, wouldn’t it? Especially when he and his fake identity live in different kingdoms! Does he really think that people in the middle ages were so stupid that some monarch, or whoever, wouldn’t find it suspicious?
Still not convinced? Well, here is another example.
This cu-… I mean very, very bad man, was abusing children and forcing them into prostitution, just so he can earn some money from aristocrats. And after all he’s done, our “big brain” protagonist just let him go so he can be “judged by the law”. HOW DENSE IS THIS GUY!?
If he was doing shady business for the aristocrats, it’s pretty freaking obvious that they are gonna help him get out of jail, just because of the services he provides. By not killing him on the spot, not only is or protagonist letting this guy off the hook, but also he’s disappointing his audience. The sixth episode made the audience hate this guy to the guts, and by not killing him you are not doing what your audience wants, therefore disappointing them. Also, I just want to add one tiny, little detail. Our protagonist is an assassin, yet we only see him kill what? Two? Three people at most? Any other “isekai, harem anime” protagonist has a bigger kill count than a guy, who is a freaking assassin! Doesn’t that sound absurd? Let me answer for you : Yes, yes it does.
One of the key factors that made this anime a disappointment, is that in the first episode, it introduced itself as a high in action, assassin story. But what we actually got is: “Aristocrat Simulator”. For goodness sake, we more often see the protagonist sitting on chairs, and couches than killing, or preparing to kill, other people. The only time we don't see him sitting still is when he's riding in the carriage, which as you can probably guess, is not good.
Now, since we are at the point of disappointing your audience, let’s talk about the antagonist… Oh wait, THERE ISN’T ONE.
Now you are probably thinking: “What about this guy?”
This guy is so empty, you can’t call him an antagonist. Actually, you can’t even call him a character. He doesn’t have any personality or special traits besides “buff guy with big muscles”. This “antagonist” doesn’t even appear before the final episode. I know that Maha showed us his picture a couple episodes earlier while saying: “This guy is strong”, but do you really think that this is enough for the audience? He’s more replaceable than the batteries in my freaking remote!
Now, to fix that, first of all you should make him seem like a real threat. For example, you could show that there were other assassins that tried to get rid of him, but he defeated them without effort with his flying weapon. This way, you would introduce him as a threat to any assassin that tries to fight with him. But even then, he as an antagonist still wouldn’t be as hated as the guys from Maha’s backstory. To make sure that the viewers not only despise the man, but also to show that he is a threat to the characters, you can make the beauty supply shop – in which the girls worked – be located in one of the cities that he attacked. He could destroy the store, and intentionally hurt one of the characters. Let’s say Maha for example. Now this guy is a personal antagonist not only to the characters, but to the audience as well, because he hurt one of the characters that the audience has come to care about. You could also make it that the locations – which our protagonist previously visited – could be slowly destroyed by this guy and his army, one by one. By that not only you could see what he’s capable of, but this would also set a “visible timer” for the audience which would show that he is getting closer to our main characters. Finally, you could make him, and the protagonist fight somewhere else than on an empty field, because otherwise it’s going to be as interesting as watching grass grow. You could make them fight in some sort of big structure, a cathedra for example. By that time, the antagonist would be remembered as a brute force, and our protagonist as a stealth killer. Since the antagonist would easily overpower the protagonist, he would have to hide around the building while avoiding the flying weapon, which would be destroying the place, when it’s searching for him. This way our protagonist would be able to place bombs – that he could’ve crafted earlier – around the building , and then blow it up with the antagonist inside, killing him in the process.
In my opinion, this would be a much more interesting fight than watching two guys, standing in a field, talk pointlessly to each other, until the antagonist gets hit by an orbital cannon.
Ah yes, that reminded me something.
WHY THE HELL, SOMEONE WHO HAS BEEN INTRODUCED AS A STEALTH KILLER, USES A F*CKING NUKE!? That is the worst thing that they could’ve done!
This is one of the many ways that this anime disappointed it’s audience. When you think “assassin”, you think “stealth”, and not “nuclear warheads”.
Here is one great advice which I’ve learned while learning about storytelling: “When you meet a person who is blue, and then get more shades of blue every time you meet them, you’re not gonna forget that this person is blue. But if you meet a person who is green, and then red, and then orange, and then yellow, you lose the sense who that person is”.
I also want to point out that this anime is basically insulting it’s audience, by mocking the most important rule, which is called “Chekov’s gun”.
Basically, the idea goes like this: “For every setup, there need to be a payoff”.
Here, we don’t even get one setup that follows this rule.
The closest thing that we got, was the scene with the magical mana balls or whatever. This was supposed to be a setup for the “orbital cannon”, which the protagonist uses in the final episode. We also get a glimpse of the deserted island, which Maha “magically” found, just so our character can practice shooting “the cannon” behind the scenes. The problem is that the audience can’t see any connection between the balls, the island, and the cannon. If you want to do this correctly, you must first establish that one thing is related to the other. Instead of wasting our time on useless exposition while doing nothing, they could give us that exposition while the protagonist would – for example – experiment with these balls by putting them in a container, and blowing them up. After that, you could show that since he isn’t from this world, he destroyed his room while experimenting with magic. That would at least show us some of his characteristics, since throughout the entire runtime we don’t see anything interesting about him. Oh, while I’m talking about that, I want to mention a certain scene.
I hate this scene so much. Let’s be honest, seeing 14 year old girls offering “special services” to our protagonist is, well… F*CKING GROSS. I know the age of consent in Japan is 14 – or whatever it is nowadays – but for goodness sake, is it so hard to make the characters a bit older?
WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!?
But as much as I despise this scene, I have to give them credit for one thing. You were probably wondering, what was the second instance in which the protagonist shows any emotion, as I have mentioned when discussing the opening. It’s this one, unfortunately.
Here we can see that the character is embarrassed, after well… Wetting the bed, because he had a “nice dream”… Let’s leave it at that. Seeing him behave in a way that we have never seen before, would imply that he had never dealt with a situation like this before, and did not know how to react. It could also imply, that he is not used to living in a young body. Unfortunately, in the end it doesn’t matter since it’s just another… Well, you get it.
Throughout my chit-chat, you could’ve noticed that I have always called the main character: “The protagonist”. Here is your answer why: Because he doesn’t deserve to be called by his name, since he is an empty shell, and not a character. Also one of the reasons was the character’s name: “Lugh”.
You could’ve given your character any name you want, but why give him the name of the mythical king of Ireland?
Creating a clever name for a character is difficult, I get it, but at least try to pick one that is easy to pronounce. When I hear the voice actors struggle to say their characters name, it just makes me feel sorry for them. I know that giving characters names from your country of origin isn't always the best idea, mostly because then characters' names could repeat with the names of some popular characters, making it easy to confuse one with the other. But that’s why clever names make the characters more memorable. Everybody remembers the name “Zero Two” not only because there is only one character that has that name, but because it only works for her, since it’s relevant to her story and the anime’s plot.
Also, fun fact: They don’t even pronounce the protagonists name correctly! In the anime, they pronounce it the same as it’s written: "Lugh", but in both Ireland and the United States it is pronounced "Loo". Just imagine how much easier the voice actor's job would be if someone just did a little bit of research.
I think I’m getting a sore throat from all this talking, so let’s end this here.
There are a lot more problems that I haven’t mentioned, but listing all of them would be impossible, so I have touched on only the most important mistakes. When you combine all these setups, character introductions, and writing mistakes, that is how you achieve “a disappointment”.
So, to sum it up, here is Ego’s moral of the day: “You can’t rewrite the past, but you can rewrite your F*CKING SCRIPT”.
Now, let’s get out of here. You guys probably have some chores ahead of you, and I have to get home before my wife almost burns the house down… Again. A couple days ago she fell asleep while the potatoes were boiling, and after that, I didn’t even try to clean the pot. I just bought a new one. Also I have printed out some more material for you, so everybody take one copy from the desk while leaving. For next week, you are gonna have to watch an anime called “The Fruit of Evolution: Before I Knew It, My Life Had It Made”. I’m just gonna warn you, it’s pretty painful to watch. But as people say: “Learn from your mistakes”. So let’s learn from this… Very big mistake.
That’s it, have a nice week!
[Quick note: Even though I typed that it’s gonna be next week, it probably won’t, since writing this stuff took me about 2-3 weeks so… For lesson 02 you are gonna have to wait a while probably. That’s it, have a nice day, or night.]
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