Arknights: Prelude to Dawn is bleak, a series full of dead people walking. I don’t mean that only in terms of the world around them engaged in warfare, but also in regards to their bodies as living people. From our first long POV shot as the stasis-awakening Doctor, we are thrust immediately into the dreary atmosphere of unpleasant colors, sounds, and implications. The lack of warmth is aided by disorientation as though we ourselves have awoken from stasis and have entered a place that seems to leech the life out of everything around it. But there is one smiling figure to give greetings – the cheerful Amiya, expressing her gratefulness at The Doctor awakening at last. But plagued with amnesia, they do not recognize her nor recognize him/herself, effectively a stranger in a foreign land.

The problems have only just begun, however. As the grounding beneath our feet gradually reasserts itself, we learn more about this world and how longstanding its problems have been. The world has turned thanks to Originium, a precious mineral that unfortunately leads to Oripathy, a disease with a 100% mortality rate. Though there is no correlation between physical contact with a person who has contracted the disease, called “the Infected,” the Infected are nevertheless ostracized and oppressed for fear or Oripathy’s spread. It is a cultural stigma that even those who know better cannot divorce themselves from, as the governments and populace have spent so much time oppressing that changing the system or the culture is too cumbersome. From the Infected come two main groups: Reunion, which seeks to overthrow the world governments for their mistreatment of the Infected, and Rhodes Island, who seek to develop a cure for Oripathy, which The Doctor was researching.

At both a literal and metaphorical glance, there is no reason to hope for anything in this series. Among the earliest flashes of the story proper we see are gunshots and battling in expansive, empty corridors and spaces. Rhodes Island, both here and recurringly throughout the story, constantly find themselves running or on the move from Reunion. Although the factions each fight on behalf of the oppressed Infected, they do not meet eye-to-eye on how to do so. On the immediate level, Reunion is to blame – how could global justice be attained through such apparent violence when they drew first blood? But Arknights: Prelude to Dawn spends less time trying to convince the viewer which is “more correct” and instead encourages them to appreciate the sheer tragedy of it all, that presumably decades (if not longer) of not heeding the cries of dying people has led to the dying people not be able to agree amongst themselves. When resigned to such a life, what other option is there to believe in?

So, the split naturally arises among the people: the more militant option that might get attention more quickly, or the more peaceful option which requires patience and time? As we spend that time observing both Rhodes Island and Reunion’s methods for getting the Infected people to follow their cause, it becomes clear that Rhodes Island is horribly outmatched. Both groups know that the Infected are dying, and their support not only increases their numbers, but also the morale of their respective goals. Rhodes Island only has a gentle hand and the vague promise of a cure that may never come. In a dark time, the hand of sincerity can seem like a mockery, especially when that hand is, much like you, only given a short window of time left to live.

Reunion’s battling prowess is not merely demonstrated in skirmishes, but also in rhetoric. Horrible as their methods might be, their message is loud and clear – we are strong, we will fight, and we will win. They’ve produced results which have gotten attention, and the Infected who debate which side to consider more worthwhile are thus posed a question: take the short returns now in the hope that they rest of your life-ticking-away days are more comfortable, or take the word and leap of faith that everything will be okay? Even if all of the promises made turn out to be lies, or if civilians die as collateral, most would, I imagine, be hard-pressed to argue that delaying any chance of a better life is the better choice. In the eyes of Arknights: Prelude to Dawn’s Infected, they’ll all be dead anyway from Oripathy eventually, so what more do they have to lose by joining the more-militant Reunion? It’s easier to rationalize away the cost of life when your own life has been treated as subhuman, and any notion of life having salvation, even a microscopic amount, has likewise been relentlessly crushed.

(And that’s not even considering Talulah, a mistress of death who seems only too eager to see any violent action through to the end).

Like the overhanging misery of the show’s dilemma, the sun bathes the world in the murkiest tones possible, filling abandoned desolate buildings in white light that only serves to draw more attention to the crumbling walls, discarded syringes on the floor, and signs of the world’s decline. It’s as though the world itself physically is gradually giving up. Why would anyone want to live here? Would it in fact not just be easier to roll over and fade away instead? Such a question is no doubt pessimistic, but given the treatment of the Infected people, the thought doesn’t sound nearly so unpleasant given the active hellscape alternative. Arknights: Prelude to Dawn imbues pessimism into nearly all of its facets to paint the most-visceral picture possible.

And from that pessimistic state of mind thus presents the main hook that makes Rhodes Island, and the ensuing drama, worth following. In the midst of all this sadness, these are the Infected who choose not to give up to despair and take up the sword of salvation instead of blood. Theirs is a mission not only against the Reunion that actively seeks to kill them, but against the world that would sooner see them out of sight and out of the way. They’re struggling, but not helpless. They know that the dream they cling to is fragile, and that it may be a fantasy they’re chasing after all. I referred before to how their extended hand of sincerity can seem like a mockery, but buried under that assumption is genuineness. Amiya believes in her conviction, and seeks to act upon it by leading her friends and fellow soldiers into the fray. Their combative style (and the animation by extension) may not be the flashiest thing ever seen, but it and the cause keep moving forward, bolstered by a good, sometimes-bass-heavy soundtrack.

I would be remiss if I did not remark that Arknights: Prelude to Dawn stems from the Arknights video game, and that this adaptation is clearly meant to be more table-setting for future installments as opposed to rounding out a fully-complete story. In that sense, it does stumble in the execution of some of its expository elements and elsewhere. The Doctor is more a setpiece instead of an active player due to his amnesia (though his involvement does improve as the show goes on), some of the introduced characters are given brief moments and then vanish for most of the season—if not the rest of it—and the intrusion of the PRTS is an obvious allusion to an in-game mechanic that the anime replicates when it’s not necessary to do so. It’s an unfortunate circumstance of source material retention that works in a game format and less-well in an anime.

Overriding all of this though was that the immersion ultimately did pan out, that the resigned, crushing tone succeeded. Most of what I described could be labeled as “necessary evils” since the season is meant to be expository, relying on the “Infected Civil War” and the complexities of the overall scenario. The show does not relent for one minute, as even the quiet moments are tinged with melancholic smiles and reminiscence. It has no time for comedy (except for Ezusiai, which never sat well with me both in the moment and in the aftermath), choosing instead to indulge in morose, soul-draining affect. Perhaps for that reason, this series is a bit of a hard sell. In regards to how it stands as an adaptation, I cannot say since I have not played the original Arknights.

Arknights: Prelude to Dawn insists on knocking its characters and their hopes down every chance it gets. Each fumbled operation, each person who dies, and each time that Reunion and Rhodes Island either ideologically or violently clash reads like another page in a Sisyphean tragedy. No matter how many clashes occur or how many gambles take place, everyone is racing against their own personal clock. Whether it be due to Oripathy slowly killing someone over time, getting The Doctor to safety, or whatever scheme Reunion has cooked up, time is everyone’s greatest enemy. With the overarching dilemmas and quandaries, the show coils itself around its characters tighter and tighter. Yet, the promise that relief awaits still persists. And even if the promise turns out to be nothing more than a pipe dream, it’s a promise worth clinging to.

But then again, in a world like this, promises may be easily broken…