This Review Contains "Spoilers" for Warlords of Sigrdrifa. I put "spoilers" in scare quotes because you'd practically know the plot of this anime before even watching it.
At the end of the day, the only person responsible for my supreme displeasure with this show is myself.
Seeing this image months ago was all it took — the beautiful promotional image of main character Claudia Bruford standing in front of a Gloster Gladiator. Just one image was enough to grab my attention with a vice-like grip. I've loved biplanes ever since I was a little boy and I've dreamed of flying through the expansive sky in a biplane of my own. How couldn't I give an anime about planes a chance? I'm normally pretty discerning when it comes to the anime I watch — time is money and in that regard, I'm a pauper. But you know what, I decided to take a chance. I judged a book by its cover and followed my heart…
...which led me straight into an open manhole. What I wanted was a visually stunning tale of urban fantasy dogfights. What I got was a vapid "cute girls do cute things" show with characters that either bore me or annoy the hell out of me. Warlords of Sigrdrifa just might be the second-worst anime I've had the displeasure of watching.
While I knew next-to-nothing of the show going in, discussion threads made me very aware of who Warlord of Sigridrifa's writer was: Tappei Nagatsuki of Re:ZERO fame. Yes, that Re:ZERO. His name was initially a pleasant surprise to me. After all, (even if it took me ages to review it,) I did love the second season of Re:ZERO. I had confidence that he'd make Warlords of Sigrdrifa as exciting as his other work. My confidence waned very quickly and his name soon became an annoying mantra. "Don't worry, things will get dark soon, Tappei Nagatsuki is writing this," members of watch threads would confidently claim. "Oh, that beach episode was just the calm before the storm, Tappei Nagatsuki is writing this, after all!" "We're at the halfway mark, let the suffering begin!" "Tappei Nagatsuki's writing this, so I know the final episodes will be a bloodbath." It was abundantly apparent by episode four or so that the dark, subversive war anime these delusional fans foretold of would never come. I'll be transparent and say that a big drive for finishing this show was just to be able to say "I told you so." And, now that I'm on the other side, allow me to say "I told you so." And my frustration from the show doesn't just come from having to deal with its inexplicable defenders. Make no mistake: Tappei dropped the ball even if without expectations from the much darker Re:ZERO — in and of itself, the show's story isn't compelling.
What is that story, you ask?
In July 2020 (since 2020 wasn't bad enough, apparently), mysterious creatures known as "Pillars" appear, terrorizing Earth. Soon after, a mysterious entity known as Odin (yes, in fact, the Norse God Odin, but no one in the world of Sigrdrifa knows of Norse mythology because Reasons) makes his presence known to the various world leaders. He presents them with a way to combat the alien force — magical aircraft known as "herocraft" which are modeled after real-world WWI-WWII aircraft but have technical specifications that far surpass their real world counterparts (for reference, these craft can keep up with an Mitsubishi F-15J). Those who pilot these herowings are named "valkyries.” The main events of Warlords of Sigrdrifa take place five years later as we follow Claudia Bruford, one of the Named, the ace pilots of the valkyries. She has a reputation of being an Angel of Death, for she's always the sole surviving member of every team she is on. She's transferred to the Tateyama Base in Japan where she joins a ragtag group of pilots. With dispositions so bright they make the Sun look vantablack and personalities so wacky they'd put a clown out of business, they might just make Claudia begin to open up once more as they take on the Pillars.
Oh, right, and Odin is revealed to be Evil All Along. The Pillars were under his control and he equipped humanity with valkyries so they could usher in the second coming of Ragnarok.
What? Was I not supposed to say that? After the idiocy that the show has subjected me to, after this lame excuse for a "reveal," I think it's justified. If the show doesn't respect me or my intelligence, I, in turn, feel no obligation to respect the show. Odin being an evil little gremlin was as telegraphed as the sunrise. He has an eternal evil grin and I'm half-convinced it's physically impossible for the guy to speak in any way besides a ominous tone that's only a few decibels.
Come on, just take a look at this guy!
Save for its quality (and even then, like I said, once I was actually on the boat, I saw the iceberg from a mile away), nothing in this show came as a surprise. The one positive that this holds is that I was as mesmerized at the planes during the show as I was before watching it, even if I wasn't mesmerized by the project the planes were attached to. The planes are animated and drawn absolutely gorgeously and I loved seeing them in action. From what I can tell, this show doesn't offer anything for actual aviation geeks. While I do wish this show could have been a vehicle to learn about planes, so far, I've made do simply gawking about planes in flight instead of looking under their hoods, so this aspect of the show didn't bother me too much. As the show is about museum pieces fighting magical monsters and keeping pace with fighter jets, I have to say that expecting a lot of realism is a bit foolhardy. The OST serves as a great co-pilot to the dogfighting. While I absolutely hate the bubblegum poppy OP, and the ED was unremarkable, I have to say that the general OST was pretty great and stays in my head as I write this. I can imagine taking off as the triumphant theme plays, laughing like a madman as I see the world below me. The song Claudia sings throughout the series is also pretty nice. If I could view Warlords of Sigrdrifa as nothing but an animated form of the poster that engrossed me so, then it would fly high, passing with flying colors. But I wanted a decent story, decent characters. The planes are unfortunately where Warlords of Sigrdrifa's positives begin and end.
Yes, that's really it.
The plot isn't anything to write home about. In fact, you're better not writing anything about it at all. Save your ink, save your time; I sure as hell didn't. It's not even that the premise seems formulaic — all that means is that they had a recognizable framework to play around with. But, Dear God, did they absolutely not play around with it in any notable manner. Having a formulaic premise isn't necessarily a death knell but having a formulaic plot almost certainly is. This is your standard action-y First Contact story wherein Mankind are the underdogs that manage to repel the aggressive force. The Norse mythology aspects don't matter at all. Odin may as well just be a nondescript alien — the "Pillars" practically are, after all. I'd like to say this is by design since, in the world of Warlords of Sigrdrifa, mankind has forgotten about the Norse Gods (for some reason that's never explained in the anime because of course it isn't), but that doesn't explain why there aren't more than surface level shoutouts to the mythos. For crying out loud, "Thor" appears, but no one else presumably because no one's popular enough (though I'm floored that they didn’t work Loki in there somehow). Odin talks about how Ragnarok came and went, with the Gods on the losing side, but without the appearance of other Gods or, indeed, the depiction of the war itself, this reference rings pretty hollow. Again, he might as well just have been part of an alien race that got defeated by humanity in the ancient past. This is among the worst examples of "let's-use-this-foreign-thing-because-it-seems-cool-and-not-because-we-have-any-understanding/deeper-appreciation-of-it" that I’ve seen. It's only a half-step up from the summons of Final Fantasy which will typically only reference a deity’s name. We're off to a great start when Warlords of Sigrdrifa's very title barely works.
The world of Sigrdrifa is very ill-defined. Would you believe me if I told you it took a long time to write my synopsis because I legitimately had trouble recalling details from the plot? I couldn't remember whether it was the pilots (valkyries) or the planes (herowings) that were magically enhanced. After figuring out that it was the planes (I think), I wondered what exactly were the herowings? How are they maintained? How many of them are there? What exactly separates a Named from a general pilot? Is it just a distinction given due to exceptional service like a military rank or is there something that magically or physically distinguishes them? I think you get my point. Many, many questions flew through my mind; some unanswered, others (probably) answered but framed as so inconsequential that the information went through one ear and out the other. The worldbuilding of this show is appalling — never once did I feel like this was an actual world since everything was so non-defined. It seemed like the creators didn't give a rat's ass about the world they created, so why should I?
The worldbuilding is so dismal that I didn't even realize I was watching an underdog story until halfway through the show's run. Nothing in the show indicates that the Pillars have humanity on the run. In fact, the main cast's largely carefree attitude and the fact that they seem to make quick work of the Pillars led me to believe that they were more of a nuisance rather than a serious threat. But no, during episode 6, there's this entire Attack on Titan-esque "mankind will regain its pride and repel the force that nearly destroyed us years ago" speech. This is among the most egregious examples of "telling, not showing" that I can recall. This is a pretty vital aspect of the plot, of the tone, yet it completely blew right past me because the show did nothing to cue me in on this aspect of the plot. If this speech didn't exist, I would have gone without knowing this basic plotpoint.
From this, it should be clear that the show doesn't care too much about its plot. I don't think it's unfair to say that, for Warlords of Sigrdrifa, the plot is largely a set piece, something to flavor the things that the showrunners do care about. What they care about is of course the principal characters — Claudia, Azuzu, Miyako, and Sonoko. Make no mistake; compelling fantastical war drama this ain't. This is a Cute Girls Doing Things™ show and your reception towards them will be the determining factor in how you regard the show.
In my review of School Days, I said it was "impossible to be bored while your blood is boiling." Warlords of Sigrdrifa helped me make a new scientific discovery because throughout my watch of this show, I was simultaneously steaming fucking furious and bored out of my goddamn mind. And it's mostly thanks to the two hit combo of a dull world and absolutely insipid characters.
The show seems to think that having cute anime girls is enough to carry it. Those characters need not be compelling, mind you. There need not be anything in the gnoggin; all that matters is them being cute and distinct enough to push figure units. The characters need not be nuanced, they need to be just distinct enough that you could glean a preference. This leads to characters coming across as very shallow. After telling an acquaintance about Sigrdrifa's plot, they asked if it was an adaptation of a gacha game. With how shallow the characters seem — like nothing more than .pngs to collect after spending 1k on in-app purchases — I was surprised that this wasn't connected to a gacha game at all.
As an aside, let me just state that this "cuteness over everything" affects characters beyond just the lead. When we're introduced to Odin, he's briefly depicted as being the wizened old man that's more familiar to audiences. Then he reverts to a red-eyed, white-haired anime child for no better reason than "It's anime, he's gotta be a cute little guy! Can't have some weird old dude hogging up the screen! Let's make him cute!" I know it may seem like I'm nitpicking, but small decisions can go a long way. Odin seemed less like the cool God I'm somewhat familiar with and more some generic anime villain. Oh wait, that's because here he is a generic anime villain!
And "generic" is a great word for the characters. They absolutely can be distilled into one sentence and unlike last time, what you see is what you get. Claudia, the most component of the group, is a serious, somewhat taciturn pilot who gradually comes to love and trust her fellow pilots on Tateyama base. Azuzu can essentially be called a Diet Claudia — no-nonsense, but a bit less so; she seems like a bit of a jerk but that's really only because she has to deal with the insanity of her teammate. Miko is the embodiment of genki; always cheerful, ever friendly, and eternally louder than Mt. Krakatoa. Sonoka is a soft-spoken, friendly girl who's adept at modifying herowings.
Despite being as flavorful as fresh snow, the characters still ended up grinding my gears. A lot of that is thanks to Miko, who's always cranked up to eleven without an "off" switch in sight. Whenever she's on the screen, you can bet your ass she's screaming, crying hysterically, or making some dumb joke. It doesn't help that her voice is extremely grating. I know how mean this sounds and maybe it's just a conflict of personalities but I could not stand Miko's overly amped personality and I wished the show would stop focusing so much because her appearance was sure to make me angry. I told Miko to "shut the fuck up" more times than I'm proud of.
I will however, I wear my hatred of the Shield Squadron proudly on my sleeve. The Shield Squadron is a group of male pilots who support the heroines in battle. Simply put, they are creepy as hell, constantly talking about how much they love the teenage girls, how cute they are, how much they want to marry them, that type of stuff. This behavior extends to most of the male personnel at the base. This behavior was very offputting to me. For as much as the show seems to care about feeding viewers cute characters, I really can't fathom why they felt the need to put these dudes in here. I don't think the show's smart enough to use them as a critique of Otaku culture. If it was that smart, it would simultaneously be absolutely stupid because I imagine that guys fawning over cute anime girls is the main demographic for Warlords of Sigrdrifa.
When the characters aren't making me groan in annoyance, they're remarkably bland. As I said, what you see is largely what you get — out of the four main characters, only two get any development and Claudia's is the standard learning-to-trust-others-again plot thread that you've seen a million times before. Adding insult to injury is that it's really resolved within the first two episodes. As a multimedia project (along with the anime, Warlords of Sigrdrifa had two light novels and two manga), I acknowledge that the characters and world might have been enhanced by delving into the other works. That said, the anime really should be able to stand on its own. The materials should be complementary, not supplementary. Just ask Final Fantasy XV how well locking plot and character beats behind different media platforms works out.
The tone is something else that kills the show for me — nothing seems to matter even if characters in the show will periodically try to convince us otherwise. As I alluded to prior, nothing ever feels dire. Characters never really carry themselves as though the apocalypse is nigh, and they're all so successful repelling the Pillars that they appear to be a non-issue. I'm not saying I want the characters constantly on the verge of mental breakdowns while they continually get defeated by the Pillars, but there really isn't enough of a struggle to make me feel like there are stakes of any sort. Not helping matters is the fact that there are extremely light episodes that buck against any notion that this is a serious anime. There's a comedic beach/swimsuit episode (because of fucking course there is) and later on, there's a festival episode (because of fucking course there is) right before the final battle and everyone treats the one person who objects like they're being a stick in the mud and not the only person who seems to be aware that they should be busy preparing and not having a festival. I was half expecting for Odin's forces to catch them while they're unaware, but that would have been too smart for Warlords of Sigrdrifa.
While you could certainly try to say that Sigrdrifa "just isn't that type of show," that doesn't really hold up. While it's true that Sigrdrifa isn't a serious show, it's not for lack of trying. From genuinely more somber episodes (at least until Miko shows up) to the setting, as ill-defined as it is, it's clear Warlords wants to be taken seriously in some capacity. But it desperately wants to eat its cutely-decorated cake and have it too, never really walking the walk of being serious because it's too attached to its cute characters. None of the principal cast dies. When someone does die, it's either a character carted in an episode before practically to die or the male characters that the show frames as dispensable. Somber moments are quickly dashed by Miko screaming something, making it seem as though the show is afraid its audience will be turned off if it commits to the tone it's dabbling in. It's not even that I don't like Cute Anime Girls doing things shows. It's just that I'm not interested in whatever half-assed chimera Sigrdrifa is.
I'd rather have watched a show about Claudia prior to joining the Quirky Qrew. It would have been a lot more somber, the dire state of the world would have been conveyed more effectively, and the heroes wouldn't have won nearly every encounter.
I planned on talking about how everything in this show is infuriating. I planned on talking about how I want the four hours of my life back. I was going to make a status post about how "Evil Pockey" from the School Days review is back.
But I can't.
This isn't the type of review that's fun to write, where I get so impassioned from my anger; it's just a slog. From the otherside, everything about this show is so supremely boring, so middle-of-the-road that it's hard for me to muster the energy to finish this review. Looking back, this feels like a silly show to hate since, on paper, it never does anything enough to hate. Be annoyed at, sure, but hate?
It's the type of show that can really only be felt rather than described. I can tell you how it's boring easy enough, but even I have a hard time articulating what infuriated me after the fact. I guess it's really just the act of watching it, the act of hoping that something, anything marvel will happen. It never does and you're left feeling bitter, wondering when exactly was it that you stopped liking yourself, when was it that you'd subject yourself to something you hate this badly.
The discussion threads on this show truly are bizarre. Having a different opinion on something is fine, but it really seems to me that its fans believe this show is something that it's not. This isn't an exciting adventure story with interesting characters — this is an anime where surface level characters fly planes. That's it. It's painfully average; the type of show that bores you just by talking about it, but actively enrages you if you force yourself to sit down and watch it.
There were a great number of shows that premiered during the Fall 2020 season and Warlords of Sigrdrifa seemed to slip through the cracks. You may wish to reach in to see if you can find anything of worth. Don't bother. All you'll find is the one of most criminally average anime I've ever seen. Even if you like this kind of thing, given the number of anime that exist, statistically speaking, there's bound to be something far, far better. Why would you want to waste your time on something this by the numbers?
