Warning: This review spoils ZENSHU extensively. To spoiler tag everything would be a fruitless exercise and turn this into a mess.

This review is part review and part rambling analysis of an anime I was shocked to adore as much as I did.

Anton Ego’s ‘The Critic’ Speech from Pixar’s Ratatouille is one of my favourite pieces of writing in any animated feature film. It is an ode to the creative and to creation and to the acknowledged and limited role of the critic as mere refiner and merely a judge compared to the disadvantaged yet freer creative. The recognition that in consuming and critiquing media we also must appreciate our position of power over the creator and yet also our inherent inferiority to not have the fortitude to withstand the slings and arrows of an audience and our own self-doubt.

ZENSHU is another take on the Critic’s point. That creatives vis-a-vis other creatives and this layer of commentary on the creative process, the relationship between creators and those they inspire, and our own creative processes infuses every aspect of the world ZENSHU inhabits.

On the surface, ZENSHU is merely another familiar ‘isekai with a concept’. …In Another World with my Pegboard Summoning Magic would be the quippy tagline to label this show with. Doubly so with its trickery of the audience from its first trailer that it would be a show about modern Japanese animation studios and their workers made by MAPPA of all studios that then transforms into an isekai in its first episode. Beneath the surface level however this setup takes on more meaning as time goes on.

ZENSHU takes us into the world of our main character Natsuko’s beloved and flawed obsession movie as a child - A Tale of Perishing - to explore the creative in as many ways as possible. Natsuko is both adoring fangirl obsessive and trained professional critic who can’t understand why she loves something so much she knows deep down is so fundamentally flawed.

A Tale of Perishing is a tonal disaster-zone mixing kawaiisa characters and traditional fantasy elements with dark fantasy, psychological torment, and nonsensical plotlines and characters. Yet like many flawed pieces of work it draws in Natsuko and focuses her and as we see inspires her to become an animator. The spark of her creativity is from watching A Tale Of Perishing at a young age. Her fate and that of A Tale of Perishing are tied together.

The show navigates its setting as essentially a fix-fic played out - Natsuko being an exogenous shock to the original storyline’s route and outcomes, trying to guide it towards her conception of a happy ending. Yet the director keeps appearing to remind her that ‘It’s no use’, that the storyline will play out to the end filled with despair and dread and destruction that she has crafted and nothing Natsuko can do will alter or change that.

In this we have the central dynamic of all the creative explorations at play - Natsuko, the talented fan attempting to craft her fixed version butting heads with the artistic vision of the original creator. We have an unspoken dynamic of authorial intent claiming superiority clashing with a creative claiming death of the author as justification for her changes. A dogmatic refusal to change one’s vision when one is convinced of its expressive merit contrasted with an interpretivist view of the merit of changes and critiques that they believe would make it better.

Finally, we see the culmination and fears of both of these creatives brought to their fullest in episode 11 - Despair. Natsuko experiences the deepest emotional pit of impostor syndrome and fear and judgement of peers as she imagines her movie to flop and its consequences for everyone else she is connected to in the real world. She is directly placed in the shoes of A Tale Of Perishing’s director who lived this experience herself and gave in to despair, her constant reminder that ‘It’s no use’ is her own pit and emotional stance. She checked out because of her failing in this movie and gave in to the despair that comes when our creativity is met with criticism and derision.

Natsuko meanwhile is saved from despair by praise from the most unlikely source - A person who personally finds her distasteful but loves her creative output and its effects on others. We see her able to push through to come out the other side with her creative spirit and drive. Her love for the medium and its spark from A Tale of Perishing being finally symbolised in the voice of her pegboard - Her childlike self, full of wonder and creativity and full of the love that she feels for both animation and A Tale of Perishing.

We can see their direct opposition to adversity and critique in the final episode - Natsuko’s creations when destroyed return to paper (future ideas; More potential), the original director’s are drowned and consumed and fade away into nothingness with nothing remaining but the potential they had, now ash in water.

This subtle conflict of how creatives relate to and interact with each other elevates this show and its contents in my eyes. Neither Natsuko or Kametaro (the original director) are portrayed as being more correct in their vision for A Tale of Perishing. We as the audience may have grown attached to the characters as their depths as real people Natsuko interacts with replaces the archetypes she had formerly seen them as and therefore support Natsuko’s attempt to save these doomed souls, or we may view the director’s vision, dark as it may be, as justified for her ends. I appreciate the maturity and skill to trust the audience to decide if it wishes the world to be saved against the director’s wishes with her still inflexibly committed to her artistic vision.

I would have appreciated if the show had an additional episode to truly allow Natsuko and the director to directly confront each other and their visions with each other. Not to try and convince the director to change her vision but just to explore her reasoning beyond artistic expression. It would have also helped the pacing of the final episode and epilogue which I felt was rushed.

Additionally, it would be remiss of me to not comment on other aspects of this show. It is beautifully animated, as one has come to expect from MAPPA’s productions but also uses animation forms as a means of storytelling. The ‘Voids’, the enemies within the series, are CGI creatures to reflect the usage by the studio animators of the original A Tale of Perishing (something I’m sure was one of the in-universe reasons it would be dragged down in critical and popular opinion given the CGI-aversion of much of anime fandom.) is contrasted against Natsuko’s hand-drawn imposed pencil animations which fight the Voids being full of passion and each showing a part of her formation as an artist, transitioning from classic anime references to her own work and then to the frustrations and turmoil of artist’s block and of overcoming it and the torrent of creativity that is driven by love (one only needs to browse how many love songs, poems, books, and letters have been composed by those driven by romantic passion).

It is easy to be turned away from ZENSHU based on it being ‘just another isekai’ but I implore you to give it a chance and see if it captures you. It is not a great show. It is a decent show. It is however a great exploration of creativity and expression and the conflicts inherent in the critical and creative processes. The exploration of such ideas and its themes are well worth a watch and the premise is a framing device for the story of creativity it actually seeks to tell beneath. A beautiful presentation of the emotional highs and lows of creativity and the creative themself.

Maybe I’m wrong though - This is all my interpretation. Perhaps like Natsuko herself it is my supposed ‘fix’ of a mediocre isekai elevated through some spectacular animation sequences that was a great missed opportunity for a self-reflective look at the anime industry in the style of a Shirobako. A potential handwringing apology from a studio that exemplifies poor working conditions for animators that was never said.

But it is our creative liberty and freedom to agree to disagree and to express ourselves that this show celebrates. It inspired me to write this review and analysis. I hope it inspires others in the same way it did for me. We may enjoy things because of and not just in spite of their flaws, and appreciate what someone wants to express without agreeing wholeheartedly with what they say.