#“Crimson” (Yes, there was another word before that but I’d like to forget that part)
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I was rather anticipating the binge of this series, a 48 min opening, a 24 episode season and “SILVERLINK” who have cooked up quite the resume of fantasy anime.
Unfortunately this is the first time I have absolutely hated a 48 min opening it was probably the worst I have ever seen. To give you a gist they decided to waste your time on some of the most unbelievably insulting writing imaginable. Who thought of this garbage? An example of Fantasy that ignores any sort of realism or structure so it just fails to captivate it’s audience. A childish mess stuffed with very eerie contrivances. What they were saying, what they were doing, I couldn't believe any of it. A forced conundrum to try and create some sort of impactful introduction but it lacks any wisdom and understanding. It's in essence an exhibition of mediocrity. I was ready to quit by the end of it but they gave a big hint that the source of that pathetic excuse of writing could die in the next episode so I soldiered on. I could fondly recall this inane sequence of the MC’s backstory which just made me burst out laughing. I will applaud that they are no stranger to death in this show which is refreshing.
You can map my experience of this show onto an isosceles triangle with the 2 base angles being white signifying the beginning and the ending and the middle vertex angle being red, “crimson” red. We start from nothing, ascending into an eventful and clever climax with very sharp and enjoyable moments but with a clear descent into a lacklustre ending.
We are introduced to a large cast of characters. I watched the show in the Dub and I was impressed, especially during the middle part. It had killer voice-acting and dialogue that left me almost in tears laughing. However the crown goes to Crimson, that character was pretty much the only reason i enjoyed these 24 episodes. Crimson just oozes with charisma, his motivations and actions are coherent and written with wisdom. You can really understand him and empathize with his decisions and the dialogue is ever livelier with his presence. Whilst he’s on the screen the show almost feels like a banger however this brilliance is unfortunately dwarfed and adulterated by the sheer stupidity of the MC "Ragna" who is utterly insufferable and embodies the worst of the unfavourable shonen archetypes, as well as being a massive simp to boot. You might say this is the counter-balance which is a good argument but the pendulum has gone past the middle and into an unfavourable direction. His motivations are very much mindless as his understanding. The problem is he’s less of an autonomous character but a tool for the plot. Apologist when need be, a crusader in other times and occasionally a clown, I couldn’t connect with this character. They explore a unique way to give the MC a case-appropriate power-up early on, however It’s just too abrupt for me, it’s not got enough drawbacks and it just feels like a cheat-code. The power-up in question, is comparing a crack in the mud from your back-yard to The Grand Canyon. Comparing your local park’s anthill to Mount Everest. Another thing is I hate the idea of people becoming strong all on their own. It’s complete nonsense, no one becomes strong on their own some of the greatest people you know all had experienced mentors at certain stages and teams willing to expend copious amount of effort to support them. It’s quite exciting the clear juxtaposition of the excellence of Crimson with the irrational, impulsive, ignorance of Ragna. My problem is that these flaws of Ragna’s character shouldn’t really exist to this degree and are rewarded rather than punished. What’s more infuriating is that the nature of this Power-Up should eliminate most of Ragna’s character flaws either immediately or slowly. While there’s glimpses of that early-on, this development is eventually replaced by “Shonen Main Character A” to my dismay, with a cabinet of plot-armour injected into his subsequent actions.
Another peculiar choice is the setting of the show, it seems it take elements of different time periods of history and throw them all together. There's no tact here and from what i recall none of it is explained. I won't say it ruins the immersion but the military strategy and soundness is in absolute tatters, sometimes you're left wondering why certain weapons are used when there are clearly better options blatantly available. Then they just end up scrapping all that in favour of a single weapon intimately linked with the MC.
As for the animation it had very good drawing but really lacked a true potency in motion that other shows of this genre usually hold them up. Something like Fate UBW with a story and plot almost as bad as this one i couldn't help but give a high score because the soundtrack and animation were the greatest i had ever seen at the time, it's impossible not to get goosebumps whilst watching that but with this show, we can only hope.
'"Dragons"
They were utterly terrible both in conception and in action. They are divided in classes but the sense of unity and family is just a farcical formality. Those at the top share nothing in common with those at the bottom. They are suppose to give the collective impression of a great superior race but It could never be realized whilst they give off the stench of commonplace "bad-guys" and "jobbers". The only interesting "dragons" are those at the top and they were butchered for the plot, with motivations that are total headscratchers. These dragons have certain ridiculous limitations which are the limitations of other fantasy race/classes you've grown to love and they barely even keep the consistency of these limitations. The monster choreography is mediocre at best, it's littered with monsters just staring at characters and waiting to be executed. If you want to see real monsters go and binge the Chinese masterpiece "A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality" you'll never respect this average level of choreography again. They call dragons the strongest beasts at the start but you'll be hard pressed to not see most as chaff by the end. They show promise at some points but they aren't allowed to shine as the plot armour on MC is strong. They're obsessed with the need for massive beasts with the strength several hundred times greater than the strongest of men not to mention potent magic abilities, to be one-shot by beings 1/1000th of their weight. There's also hardly any coherent and interesting teamwork outside of boss class monsters. It's usually either you get one-shot or the monsters get one-shot ,sometimes they sponge but it never felt like proper cut-off-the limbs sponging, but a rather hollow depiction. I think the sheer number of these monsters forced this kind of writing losing it’s lustre very quickly. I must say at this point, I’m thoroughly disgusted seeing another group of strong warriors subordinate themselves to another shoulder-height, XX, giga-thanos, barely half their weight, half their age or lower, standing at a whopping 2/3rds of their height and 1/10th their muscle mass. This drivel is overdone in fantasy anime, I’m just taken a back, outright bewildered whenever I behold the empty farce of such a scenario.
There’s an art to depicting the act of “Dragon-Slaying”, and these guys are novices. There’s no nuance, there’s no specific anatomical points where the dragons are weak. The different types, natures and species of dragons are barely explored. I can’t help but feel we were robbed of the beauty of such wise exposition. Nightmares ensued features the main character and worst of all certain 5 foot sub 100 pound(45kg) girls sometimes not even older than 10 years cutting through them like a baked potato. These sub-elite class dragons are literally drone bots incapable of higher thinking which is in such opposition to how they are usually depicted. There should have been effective team-fighting sequences for these dragons. The problem with letting these individuals solo-kill dragons is that it's wholly ludicrous and dilutes how impressive a feat slaying dragons is supposed to be. There’s no weight to it, the grandiose idea of this Leviathan; this tremendous mythical creature is eventually brought to naught the longer you watch this show.
The disrespect spreads to the dragon-slayers themselves being total non-entities outside of the “chosen ones”. Where is this association of Dragon-Slayers? Where is the Ranking system? Where is the union, the political influence? The hierarchy of dragon-slayers? The fame of strong parties of them utterly non-existent, there’s just nothing of substance here.
This is a problem because it doesn’t any make civilization even possible, nevertheless one that has advanced to the level shown in the show. Where are those society can trust in to be safe? Due to the writing they were just poorly conceived plot devices because the only people capable of these feats are the ones close to MC at the right place and at the right time.
The last 4 episodes were a complete snooze-fest. I had predicted it’s ending by that point and in likewise fashion it turned out to be such a revolting conclusion. They of course, tried to make it all more believable by killing off more characters, but when millions have perished without much thought to it, nothing even hits any more. Here we have mighty villains who have sworn pacts with strong wills who then basically set the heroes up to win in the best scenario. It ends up being truly incoherent and in complete antithesis of their goals. What a shame, this kind of “tie-the-knot” , “let-the heroes-win” lazy writing is very much boring for seasoned anime consumers. The is final fight is consequently reduced to an anti-climactic mess.
So you’re thinking; How can you rate this positively after you complained so much? Well I made it through 21 episodes(one being 48 min) without stopping. If an anime can keep it’s audience entertained for that long whilst being rather endearing in some areas it deserves some praise. The bad moments never completely wrecked the experience for me.
If you've got alot time and enjoy the odd fantasy experience with good laughs jam-packed inside then this is your show but the quality of writing outside of general dialogue and communication won't impress anyone. The gold of this show lies within “Crimson” and those that surround him it’s painfully average elsewhere. If this Crimson character didn’t exist and we didn’t get 24 episodes, this would probably be another 5/10 seasonal. Perhaps the later events of the plot save the series, unfortunately, I have no desire to search that out but I wouldn’t mind if they conjured another 24 episode season.
I can only recommended to fantasy enthusiasts like myself.
