I’ve been trying to think of a way to jump into talking about this episode and how I think this series is going to go… but with brutal honesty, I think this episode was pretty darn generic. There wasn’t anything in particular that grabbed me, but I’m still hanging on to the thread of hope that the premise is going to give us something a lot more interesting than what we saw in this first episode.
Let’s talk the characters. So far none of them really stand out as unique, but I do appreciate the potential that they all have by being such low level. It’s not uncommon to have a completely OP protagonist or an absolute beginner protag with a team of people who can at least carry them until they are able to level up. Instead we’ve got three very weak characters who really need to focus on just staying alive. First, we have Yotsuya who is our token protagonist who has found themselves stuck in another world with the opportunity to return to his own if he manages to complete the task. But why would he want to do that? It’s made pretty clear he has some pretty edgy feelings towards being in the real world. He doesn’t have any friends, hates the city, and would honestly prefer to just stay home and play video games. So naturally, he gets to be the protagonist because he has at least a little bit of knowledge for how video games work. Then we have Hakozaki, the second person to get sucked up into the world, who is pretty much your typical scared girl type character. Just like Yotsuya, she’s pretty much a nobody at school because she’s consistently out sick. As of right now, she really can’t do much in this game, but she does have the potential to get stronger. But for now she’s just a liability. Then we have Shindou, the one who ended up bringing both of the others here. But unlike the other two, she’s super popular at school and a model! Wow! We don’t actually get very much detail on her (or Hakozaki for that matter) in this episode primarily because she’s… stuck in limbo until the other two can complete the quest. So overall, there’s potential with all of these characters, but we just haven’t started to see it yet.
Then there are the stakes of the Game. Overall, we haven’t unlocked too much about it. Basically, our crew has to complete quests for the Game Master and then they get the opportunity to head back to the real world and recruit a new crew member. Ah, but the catch is, if everyone dies they all die in real life. We’ve seen something like this before, but at least there’s some leeway with how many people have to die before you die for good. So honestly, completing more quests, the more lives you get. I have a feeling, later on once everyone is able to get through the Grind, that revive timer is going to get really stressful. You just need one person to hang on long enough for someone to come back – that would be a nail biter of an episode. I mean, I felt the PV for the anime was pretty intense and definitely got me interested to see what the stakes are… but uh no offence when we saw Hakozaki’s half body on the ground? I was pretty disappointed that we saw that so early and it wasn’t as emotional or intense of a moment that I thought it would be. But oh well, I don’t want to be too harsh too early. There’s plenty more content to come and this is only the first episode.
I really don’t know what to expect from this anime, it has the potential to be a real stand out in it’s genre or it could continue down a very generic road. And that’s fine, Some people like a certain formula so this may be the perfect show for them. And who knows! Maybe people who aren’t as fond of formulaic anime will also have a good time because they’ll do such a good job with the tropes and story. It’s really up in the air for what will come out of this series. I don’t think I have enough information, or enough of an impression to say whether or not I’m going to continue with this series. So I’m going to give it the good ol’ three episode treatment.
Possibility of Watching: We’ll see how the next two episodes go
Possibility of Blogging: Low to Moderate depending on the next couple weeks.
Someone who read the source manga says the story is like if you mixed Gantz and Konosuba together.
It does get a certain charm later on once it settles into things, or so they say.
an interesting combination, but I have to admit I don’t know very much about Gantz. I’ve also seen a lot of people say that it gets it charm later in the series, but I’m worried about how much later that will be. It looks like it will be a perfectly fine series, but I’m still kind of hoping for that wow! factor