Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis Review

This is review number four hundred and thirty. This anime is part of the Fall 2014 lineup, and it’s called Rage of Bahamut: Genesis or Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis. It’s a twelve episode anime about a guy with a red afro and he’s like the main character in a video game. It’s really cool. Let’s read on.

Story

Favaro is a bounty hunter, and he spends most of his days being chased by his childhood friend Kaisar. He also collects bounties, and one brag to some ladies at a pub actually got him into trouble. He meets a girl named Amira who wishes Favaro to accompany her to her destination. He refuses, but a demon cursed helped motivate him to do the right thing. This simple escort job is about to turn ugly though when his journey leads him to resurrecting a creature that once destroyed the world 2000 years ago.

Taking the Pants Off

This is an incredible anime. It’s one of those shows that don’t really need a review. I mean, just f*cking watch it. It is a very interesting show though for a lot of reasons. It’s interesting, because the show is really good. I could not find a single fault in it, to be honest. I’m going to find one, of course, but this anime is a celebration of a lot of things. It harks back to old school clichés  and blends it with top notch digital animation. It’s total fan service in the realm of a Cowboy Bebop or Samurai Champloo. If you like any show directed by Shinchiro Watanabe then you’ll love this anime. Studio MAPPA finally got something right by relying too much on ol’ Watanabe and the funny thing is that the man did not direct this show. A beautiful human being seemingly captured what makes Watanabe’s style great and stole it. Keiichi Sato seemingly gave Studio MAPPA the most Shinichiro Watanabe anime after Shinchiro Watanabe released two underwhelming work for the same gawd damn studio. It’s embarrassing, but it proves my point: Watanabe himself have no idea what makes him great. Cowboy Bebop is a fluke, and I can’t wait to just trash on him. But anyways, Rage of Bahamut is also interesting because it’s a video game anime. I knew that fact heading into the show, and the anime does boast a lot of video game elements. It captured a beautiful world that truly signifies a JRPG game. Seeing the familiar Bahamut and the old school cliches at work, I honestly thought the game is a 80s 8-bit visual novel or something akin to the first Final Fantasy game. I thought FF itself was giving a nod to Rage of Bahamut when they included the dragon as a summon in the game. It was a genuine surprise to know that the Rage of Bahamut game is actually very recent, and not the kind of game you expected.

Mobile Game

Rage of Bahamut is a freaking card battle mobile game. It apparently got around 20 million active Japanese users during its peak, and it was as popular as Temple Run or some sh*t. I said to myself though, “surely the card game has the same story and characters, right?” so I tried to find some reviews of the game. I found one from WIRED dated 2013 (HERE) and the review is laughably stupid. It was basically a dude thrashing the card game and everything it represents. It rejects the idea that tapping sh*t in your phone while beautiful artwork battle can be considered a game. I know its commonplace now to see card battle games, but I guess the concept was still new back in 2013. This stupid article kinda captures the feeling one has when he no longer knows what the f*ck is happening to the landscape he is familiar with. It reminds me of that famous video game review that hated the analog stick calling it awkward and a huge detriment to the game. Yeah, the power of hindsight is amazing knowing that analog sticks are standard now. But anyways, I read another review of the game (HERE) and it doesn’t really mention any semblance of story. The only thing it talks about is how a Japanese card battle game crossed the western seas and became commonplace. By the looks of it, I think the only thing that really came from the game is the character design. The devils wear bondage and looks like visual kei stars, and the angels are bathed in a gay orange light. I like it, but it should be established now that this anime is not a video game anime. For the most part, it’s actually an Original Screenplay. So the video game world building and the old school aesthetic of the anime is completely its own, and I honestly find that fascinating.

Of course, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen an anime adapt some weird game. Actually, there was a mobile game back in 2013 called Zettai Bouei Leviathan that kinda did the same thing. Leviathan is absolute garbage though, and it was one of the worst shows I’ve ever seen. That’s to be expected too, because there was no story, character or anything else to build off of. The studio is forced to create an anime out of vague stuff not meant to be an anime. The result is a vapid and regretful show where, I swear to gawd, I saw one girl squeeze a chicken and an egg popped out. It was an anime experienced that truly changed my life, and this is really the standard I expect from a lot of mobile games. I’d hope to get something decent, but I mostly get regretful sh*t. But, to be honest, I think I’ve only ever reviewed two mobile games in my journey to 1000. Girlfriend Beta being the only other one, and that show is enjoyable for the meme alone. Oh gawd, will I be reviewing more mobile game adapted anime moving forward? I hope not. I’d prefer reviewing anime adapted from pachinko games (HERE) or those from a line of gawd damn action figures (HERE). Yeah, I often hate myself for doing this 1000 review goal. Anyways, Rage of Bahamut is unlike any other show I’ve seen from dubious sources. It seems that MAPPA really put a lot of effort and work into making this anime outstanding. I honestly could not believe it, but this show captured the appeal of a video game anime despite having no references to one. It’s very new to me, and I really love discovering new things in the anime landscape. An original screenplay adapted from a mobile game that delivers a video game experience is really something new and exciting for me.

Ambitious

Ok, let’s get into the meat and stuffing of this anime. In the very first episode, the one thing that’ll truly jump at you is the ridiculously crisp animation. The anime opens with a chase scene of two guys on horseback, and everything is on point. From the animation to the background design to the camera work, the show seems to be operating on a very high standard. It’s pretty insane considering it’s just a regular airing show, but the quality is almost movie-like. It is topped off by some orchestral music, and I swear to gawd, it really elevates the entire experience. While it takes a long while to get used to the fact that the main character is a guy with a red afro, it doesn’t take much effort to really be sucked into the beauty of the anime. I particularly love how the animation contorts the faces and how a lot of scenes are detailed rotoscope that just looks absolutely stunning. I love the dance scene in the second episode, and it is seriously just the studio and the director showing off. I’m actually a bit curious why they are showing off in such an aggressive manner.

As I said before, MAPPA heavily relied on Shinichiro Watanabe during their first outing. With the famed director, they produced Kids on the Slope and Terror in Resonance. If given the chance, I think Watanabe would’ve jumped on this project too but his absence is kinda interesting. If you looked at the guy’s list of project, Terror in Resonance is actually the last anime he directed. The bastard went silent for a long time until it was announced he’s doing a new directorial work in 2019. Why didn’t MAPPA want him, I wonder? I think the studio kinda realized Watanabe didn’t really have the talents he was known for. I’m just speculating though, but I honestly do not think he could’ve done this anime justice. Keiichiro Sato and all his Tiger and Bunny glory certainly found a new home though, and the result is just fantastic. One thing I truly loved about this show is actually the rich world building, and I think Sato is actually really good at that.

No Time for Exposition

An effective world building is done through the visuals. Sometimes, you don’t need to have characters talk about stuff to establish the rules of the world. In the anime’s first episode, the world building is just wonderfully established with very little explanation. We are introduced to two people that hate each other, the fame and stigma of a bounty hunter, and the unquestionable dominance of a knight. We are also introduced to a world that has quaint little towns, bustling pubs, monsters attacking people and a bunch of thieves and colorful characters to meet in a fun journey. I just described a standard video game, and this anime established all of that in just the first episode. I particularly love how the anime never explained who Bacchus is. He is just a guy that likes to drink, collects bounties and has a talking duck. If you aren’t familiar with the name, then you’ll never guess he is actually the God of Wine in Roman mythology. The anime never explains that. He would spout nonsense about being a god, but it’s a detail that just belongs in this world. You can learn in or not, but that just shows how rich the world building is.

This is honestly the best thing about Keiichiro Sato. The man knows how to build a world. If you’ve ever seen Tiger and Bunny, then you’ll know a lot of the stuff in Boku no Hero was done by Tiger and Bunny first. The whole thing about super powers being normal, the unification of the western superhero aesthetic to the Shounen japanese mindset and bringing to life a world where “comic book heroes in anime” exist is done extremely well by Sato. Here he is again, giving us a video game world that exists in anime. I swear, I’ve wasted countless hours in the same town in the first episode and I’ve hunted the same bounty that appears in the show. That’s how solid the world building is, and it really just ramps up from there.

A Hero’s Journey

So, what’s the anime about? It actually has a very simple premise. The anime is about a guy with a red afro escorting a girl to her destination. He once bragged that he knew a shortcut to get to her destination, and he promised the girl that he’ll take her there. The journey from point A to point B is as you’d expect. They’ll be travelling the world, they’ll meet new characters, the show will have a monster of the week format and it reaches a climax towards the end. Video Games are never simple though. FF7 started out by blowing a reactor and it spawned into a mission to save the world. Like, how do you go from being an activist to witnessing a flower girl killed at the end of disc 1? But that’s the beauty of a video game. It always ramps up in ridiculous fashion. While this anime has a straight forward point A to Point B story, it is littered with a lot of subplots. As you progress to the show, you realize the journey isn’t as simple as you’d expect and the girl actually has ties to demons, angels and a giant dragon that once destroyed the world in a blink of an eye. This would’ve been a wonderful video game, and who knows who’ll die at the end of disc 1. I’ll go over each subplot, but I’d like to talk about the main story first. The most remarkable thing about the main story is how it utilizes the hero’s journey archetype.

The hero’s journey is like a very typical story structure that a lot of popular story utilizes. Even movies adapt the hero’s journey and for good reason. If you want a really good story then a hero’s journey is kinda the easiest and most effective way to do it. Clichéd, yes, but a good writer knows how to write a good story. Of course, I’m no writing genius and I don’t know the hero’s journey archetype in detail. You can go HERE (maybe after finishing the anime to actually see how the show uses it) and discover how beautifully textbook this show is to the hero’s journey format. The archetype has twelve stages, and the anime does each and every one of them. I swear to gawd, it’s beautiful how effective the hero’s journey is done here. From the inciting incident to the call and refusal of the adventure all the way to the last stage of the archetype. The anime utilizes each part to a tee and it really elevated a simple point A to point B story into one of the most effective narratives you’ll come across in an anime. This is the insane level the show operates on. With its rich video game world to its intense animation to its amazing use of the monomyth, we’re dealing with some high quality sh*t here.

Frenemies

This show has three subplots and they all kinda merged into one at the end of the show. Each subplot operates on its own story and characters though, but they soon connect into one giant pie along with the hero’s journey. It can honestly be messy at first, but each subplot stands out on its own that you can easily distinguish where one starts and ends. The first one is the story of red afro and the disgraced former knight. They’re the two dudes that chased each other on horseback, and the anime took its sweet time actually unraveling this story. At the start, it’s just our main character being hounded by another bounty hunter. It’s kinda comical and a bit lighthearted how the guy just doesn’t stop chasing the other. As the show progresses though, the relationship of the two is explored more deeply. Flashbacks and exposition gives us the reason why the two fights and why the other guy is relentless on taking down red afro. This subplot is wonderfully complicated and its real strength is really highlighting how deep the bond of the two characters is. Once the deep bond is properly explained, the show would now do its best to test it to see how far it’ll bend before it breaks. Will it even break? Or is the long years and deep past the two shares strong enough to weather any storm? I’ll tell you though, seeing two dudes fight with a fork and knife has never been so meaningful and heartwarming before. This subplot is complex and strongly written, and I actually love how it never really gets lost in the insanity of the other subplots. A huge storm might happen in the story, but the two characters and their subplot seems to always be at the center of it.

A Key to Unlock a Dragon

The second subplot is a brewing mystery concerning the girl. She is actually a devil and she stole something important from the angels. It’s very complicated, but the gist of it is that she has a key that can resurrect Bahamut. The mystery comes from how she obtained the key. Only angels can touch the key or something, and this demon somehow strolled into the angel’s domain and took something important from them. She, of course, doesn’t remember ever stealing the key, but the angels want it back. The demons want the key too, because they want to revive Bahamut. It’s a giant mess involving angels, demons and even the humans. As the show progresses, the plan to retrieve the key kinda blows up into something more insane. We discover a giant conspiracy surrounding the girl, her true identity is also shrouded in mystery and her actual journey from point A to point B seems to be a scheme by a puppeteer controlling sh*t in the shadows. It can actually get very overwhelming at some point, because the stories gradually expand until they all combine into one. The hero’s journey kinda ties back to Bahamut’s revival and we soon learn the girl herself is also linked to the giant dragon. To make matters worse, Bahamut is close to being resurrected and he’s ready to receive the key. The angels, the demons and the humans are now in overdrive because one girl seemingly has the key to everyone’s demise in her hands.

This subplot is honestly a mess, because a lot of characters appear late in it. It started with one Visual Kei inspired demon that was hunting down the girl, but then we discover another demon is after her as well and then one final twist kinda negates and complicates the entire demon chase. There were also a lot of useless characters that appear in this particular subplot, and it’s a very common symptom of an Original Screenplay anime. I have huge problems with the Cerberus girl that didn’t really do anything in the story. She was just there for fan service, and it’s not even good fan service. There were also some angels that didn’t really have any big role in the show. They were just there to kinda stare daggers at Archangel Michael for looking like a female character or something. I do understand that these characters exist for the world building as well, but they were absolute clutter by the end of it.

I would like to praise the world building one more time though, because a lot of it is once again told through the visuals. The angels think highly of themselves and they consider the humans beneath them. Of course, the humans worship these winged miracles which kinda adds to the arrogance of the angels. Because, honestly, if it was such a big deal then they would’ve gone and retrieve the key themselves but they’re too hoity toity to do that. Their arrogance will cause their downfall, and a giant ass dragon is ready to stick it to them. The world building also does a great job introducing the demons. Besides being interested too much into leather, the demons are also untrustworthy, arrogant and manipulative. The traits of the angels and demons play a huge part in the ending, but the impact is really only felt through the visuals and the beautiful subtext of the world building.

The Saint of Orleans

Perhaps the most confusing subplot would be Jeanne D’Arc’s story. I actually love her introduction, because she is a knight called upon by the gods. Her presence is amazing and the camera work suggests how important she is. Seriously, the only time she was ever framed as a human was when she was almost burned at the steak. Oh yeah, spoilers, f*cking Joan of Arc is killed for being a witch. Her story feels the most unnecessary though, but I still like how it was presented. She was the chosen knight and she was kinda the main guy to become the champion to vanquish Bahamut. Her king is jealous of her though, and so he wanted her burned at the steak. Things took a sharp turn though when the same puppeteer controlling the girl’s journey from point A to point B also rears their ugly head in Jeanne’s story. In a plan to complicated matters, the champion of the gods went AWOL and her destiny to become the Bahamut slayer is axed. I mostly like this subplot because of Jeanne’s story itself. I’m a sucker for any Joan of Arc story in anime because she is just that cool of a historical figure. In the overall state of the show though, her subplot is honestly not that important. You can edit her out and the show would still be as epic. She was really just there to complicate matters and add a layer of narrative to Bahamut’s revival.

Her relationship with her king is pretty good though, but it is honestly outside the realm of the main story. She also doesn’t really impact the main characters in any ways. The closest she ever came to talking to red afro is when she was info dumping about the champion that will slay Bahamut. In the monomyth’s twelve stages, she was the sixth stage before red afro goes to his Innermost Cave. Despite being a very useless character, Jeanne D’Arc still has amazing presence though. As I said before, the visuals made her look important and the world building shows of its rich tapestry by having the Saint of Orleans in its video game world. If this was a video game, you can bet there’s a side quest where you can fight her, like when Sephiroth made his cameo in Kingdom Hearts.

Almost Perfect, If not for One Crucial Bit

I’ve honestly considered this anime for a perfect score. I look at how much effort is put into it and I evaluated the experience it gave me. It’s honestly top notch, and there’s barely any fault in it. There is one though, but it’s kinda stupid. You see, this anime is too good. One of its major flaws is that the story is relentless and a lot of stuff happens in one episode. It can really overwhelm people, especially during the latter half of the series. I remember how we saw the first subplot resolved, but then the third subplot appears while the second subplot is also happening in the background. There’s very little breathing room in this anime and it really drags the show down. It’s so effective at telling its story that it ruins its pace and high quality animation by exposing so much of it. As I said, it’s stupid but my main criticism of the show is that it’s too compacted. The four stories bump and clash at one another. You often have to remember a lot of things happening in one episode because so much is thrown at you. The regular audience would honestly have a hard time keeping up, and I don’t blame them. The show itself doesn’t really take into account the audience in its process, so it just moves on a fast gear requiring everyone else to keep up. Now don’t get me wrong, I love the show’s fast gear. It feels fine considering the action picks up from the first episode up until the explosive final episode, but it is still a massive setback for the show. The subtle nuances of the animation, the ambitious storyboarding and impressive cinematography, the powerful subtexts and the incredible balance of the four stories kinda gets wasted and not appreciated because of how much is thrown at you. I’m honestly pissed, because I want to give this anime a perfect score mainly because it did do too much in one episode. It is actually accomplishing something, and it has a clear direction on where it wants to go. I’m mostly pissed because a lot of Original Screenplays aren’t like this.

Empty and Vapid

I’ve seen a lot of original anime that is just gawd damn awful. It often breaks my sanity, it tears me apart from the inside and these shows often make me want to abandon my 1000 journey. The thing that hurts the most is that people defends these awful shlocks. Now, OK, taste is subjective but I often have to restrain myself whenever I hear people praise an empty and vapid show like Glasslip. The anime had no clear direction, a lot of the episodes are empty and the entire experience feels like a waste. I’ve seen twenty four episode original mecha anime present an empty and vapid experience, and I still hear people liking it. I feel sorry for shows like Rage of Bahamut that clearly tries to fit as much in its twelve episode run knowing it can’t cut anything out. Each aspect is important and each overstuffed episode is by design. To see it fail because of how much effort it puts out really breaks my heart, because there are a lot of original anime out there that barely does even an inch of effort this anime has presented. I’ve seen people defend vapid and empty shows like those, and here is a legitimately outstanding show not achieving a perfect score for being too damn good. I hate it. I hate myself. Some of you would argue that I should just shut up and give this anime the ten. I’m honestly not like that. I’m not a lazy reviewer that believes “scores doesn’t matter in a review” because they do. I’m also not a reviewer that believes in a decimal point system. I’m not going to give this anime a 9.9 just because. No, f*ck that. I take my reviews seriously, and that’s really why I can’t give this anime the perfect score. Believe me, I want to but I can’t. It’s just one of those things, really. But I guess it also gives you an idea how great the shows in my All Tens are given how they have been given the perfect score. I’m sorry for ranting, but I’ve been doing this for six years now. Give me a break.

A Bloated Cast of Interesting Characters

As I said before, a lot of the characters are useless. They don’t serve any real purpose but they often add depth to the world building. Sometimes, the world building helps them become more interesting. It’s a wonderful give and take given how cluttered the show is. Also, no, the bloated cast is not a flaw of the show given how it adds flair to the video game appeal of the anime. I may not know why these angels exist, but seeing them part some clouds and appear before humans is pretty cool. To see these humans then bow to them is just gorgeous to look at, and that’s a very good example of the wonderful world building we have here. I can’t stop gushing about it.

But, anyways, in terms of the actual important characters, I think they’re all pretty great. I won’t go into detail over each one but I do trust that they really made their subplots special. They contributed a lot to the narrative and their inclusion to the overall story is really well done. I particularly love the zombie character in this show, because she does very little in the actual story, but she still had some impact in how the narrative turned out. The same goes for Bacchus and his weirdly Miyazaki-esque inspired duck and the bunch of leathered demons that appear in the show. Perhaps the best character to both be useless and important, but somehow enriches the world but also gets a lot from the world building, would be the famed dragon itself. Bahamut did nothing in this anime. For the most part, he’s just a very cool McGuffin that the heroes must reach. You could replace him with any other plot device and it wouldn’t matter, and yet he does matter. How he stands over everyone, how his revival was given importance and how a lot of characters are breaking their backs to prevent/make his revival come to fruition makes him a very important character. I assure you, his revival is something to behold and yet he is still not that important of a character.

Sato, Hasegawa and MAPPA

I’ve already praised Keiichiro Sato in this review. I just know he is an absolute genius, his style is remarkable and he should do more anime. He seems to be picky with his shows, and that’s fine. If they’re as banging as Tiger and Bunny or Rage of Bahamut then he can take his time. I think he prefers being an animation director more than an actual overall director and I think that’s also fine. The man has mad talents and I’m sure anything he works with will come out as magnificent. Sato is actually heavily praised for his animation direction for The Big O, and it seems he had a quaint reunion with its writer when doing Rage of Bahamut. Keiichi Hasegawa is a very talented writer. I mean, he did an original anime. Mari Okada can’t even do that, and she is seemingly doing directing work now. I say good for her. Hasegawa is known for his scripts for tokusatsu shows though, like Ultraman and Kamen Rider. His wiki page is full of talks about being ambitious and pushing the limits of the medium, and I think that’s how he really operates and he brought all that good stuff in this anime as well. It’s still bloated in some areas, but the two Keiichis seemingly worked together to cover each other’s flaws. The cluttered writing is elevated by the visuals and the world building is elevated by the characters and the narrative. It’s a beautiful marriage of two talents giving us one hell of an experience. MAPPA is an interesting studio. Right now, you all know them as the studio that did Yuri on Ice. Back in 2014 though, they’re struggling for relevance. This small time studio bet a lot of stock on Watanabe, and the risk kinda failed. For their new direction, it’s kinda cathartic to see them succeed without the famed director. It seems the studio is going back to its humble Madhouse roots, and I do hope their following shows are as good, if not better, than this anime. I mean, people still won’t shut up about Yuri on Ice, so that’s something.

Sight and Sound

Again, the character design is really the only link the anime have to the actual game. To be honest, it’s not really that stand out of a design for a card game. Some of the cards look generic and Girlfriend Beta honestly has a more interesting design style. But again, I guess back in 2013 the whole card mobile game concept was still fresh. I can’t find the credited artist for the game designs, and I’m guessing there are a lot of them. For the anime though, the design is credited to Naoyuki Onda and he is also the credited animation director for the series. In terms of design, I really love the aesthetics of the anime. It’s very western and that’s really why I kinda thought the entire project is done by Shinchiro Watanabe. He loves western stuff and his visual style is kinda prominent here. I mean, a guy with a red afro is pretty unusual and there is no nod to anything Japanese in the show. Even the monsters have a western flair to them. I’m guessing Sato is more of a western nut than the guy who made jazz in space and Sato was really aiming for the western market to respond to this show. Anyways, the designs are great. I love the demons in their sexy leather outfit, I love the angels bathed in orange light and I particularly love the facial features of the characters. The anime doesn’t shy away in contorting the faces, so I was always drawn to it. The facial expressions are always so strong and reactive, and it really adds to the already strong visual storytelling of the show. Coupled by the video game aesthetic and the ambitious storyboarding, then the design really fits perfectly in this well-crafted anime.

Animation is outstanding. This is the first thing that’ll greet you and it just never lets up. The action is always on, the incredible attention to detail is always front and center and the animation features a lot of fascinating styles. It has standard rotoscope, but it also pushes the frame by frame style to its limits. Certain facial reactions can only be done in detailed frame by frame, and certain movements can only be achieved through some insane blend of digital animation and cell animation. The movements are crazy by themselves, but the camera also flows with the scenes. Certain fights don’t have a steady camera. Sometimes the editing is actually a bit too fast, but it often just hurries into an incredible sakuga scene to make the moment memorable. Sato’s style is incredibly complex, and you can tell his years as an animation director is used to its fullest here. But it’s not just the animation that is impressive, because the cinematography is also top notch. There are certain scenes that are just brimming with artistry and incredible amount of detail that literally translates to “every frame a painting”. Sato would often use blocking and camera framing to deliver something truly amazing. It kinda excites me every time you see the storyboard just get a chance to show off the stunning visuals. I often have to pause and just be in awe at what I’m looking at. It should be noted that I HAD to pause because the editing is really fast and the painting like frames often pass by unappreciated.

It’s also not just the visuals that really elevate the experience, because the music is also pretty top notch. There is always an intense orchestral background in some of the epic fights, and it truly brings the video game aesthetic of the show to life. Sometimes, even a simple chase scene has so much emotion and stakes because of the effective music playing on the background. Every bit of this anime is truly on point, and I actually plan on revisiting this one to see if it can go full ten. I personally believe it’s a ten right now, but I dunno, not quite there yet.

The anime’s OP is “EXiSTENCE” by SiM. I f*cking hate this song. It’s just loud, and I personally have a pet peeve of songs forcibly using English lyrics. I love the rhythm and the rock out appeal of the song, but the song itself sucks. It’s hard to listen to, and I honestly can’t learn to like it even after listening to it eleven times. The OP sequence is hella cool though. It’s a fast montage with some sloppy editing, but the rock heavy tune of the song kinda complements the heavy montage. It features all the characters, some of the stiff CG and a lot of cool shots of Bahamut just looking insane. I freaking love it.

The anime’s ED is “Promised Land” by Risa Shimizu. This is a ballad, and it’s a nice cool down song for the show. It’s mostly about unending love and all that sh*t. I still hate the forced English lines, but this is a better song for me. The ED sequence features the stunning animation of the show as it highlights Amira just dancing in all its impressive animation. If you love the ED sequence then you’ll love all the fun things in the anime itself.

Overall Score

9/10 “This is a video game. You’re watching a genre defining video game anime, and I assure you it’s the only one out there.”

Personally, this anime is perfect for me. Sure, it has its flaws and some messy story elements but I freaking love this anime. The visuals, the characters, the story and even the music are just really well done. The video game aesthetic is also amazing given that this is an original anime with very little elements of the mobile game influencing its product. It kinda blows my mind that the most video game anime I’ve ever seen isn’t really a video game anime. This show is rare, it’s good and it’s one hell of a ride from start to finish. I highly recommend it.