Truly a missed opportunity. A beloved manga finally got an anime adaptation, and while the story was genuinely very solid, the show was hampered by one of the poorest productions this year, with soulless visuals and terrible CG. With even average production, I believe this could have been one of my favourites of the year, and while animation isn’t the thing I find most important when watching something, when it’s abhorrently bad, it ruins the whole experience.

STORY:

What frustrated me the most when I was watching this was that the plot was very decent, but because of the poor production, it was hard to find anything really meaningful, even if there were some genuinely good moments here, especially in the second half. The story was quite simple, with Amamiya Yuuhi, a very despondent boy, meeting Asahina Samidare, a girl with hopes to destroy the world. Each character in the story other than Samidare has a creature accompanying them, which made for interesting interactions. There was a lot of potential here, just wasted because of the animation.

ART:

Need I say more? The action animation was laughable and soulless, with the CG being terribly done. It was truly the bare minimum of efforts.

MUSIC:

Surprisingly, I did find the music direction to be rather solid, with some of the music being quite catchy during the fights. The second opening was also quite standout.

CHARACTERS:

The cast was big and not many of the characters were developed well other than the main characters. Yuuhi was very weak to start, but with his experiences throughout the series along with the people he met supporting him, he became one of the strongest characters in the end. There was also some interesting stories about his family, which could have been fleshed out more, but to be honest, most of the characters needed more development. Samidare could have been another good character, but this adaptation just rushed things, so some of her impactful moments didn’t hit like they could have.

Some of the supporting cast had quite a few good moments as well, especially the younger kids, who I really grew to like in the second half.

ENJOYMENT:

I was sleeping during the first half, and I did minimally enjoy the second half of the story.

THEMATIC EXECUTION:

With the soulless production, nothing really impacted me like it could have. The sad parts did absolutely nothing for me, and some of the other themes that were explored could have been so much better. Even the comedy just felt cringe. Such a shame.

OVERALL:

I feel like I’m repeating myself over and over, but this was such an opportunity wasted. There was something potentially good here, but it just got ruined by the ugliness of the production. Once in a while, a manga gets butchered like this, and it’s always sad when it happens.