

The attention to detail when it comes to backgrounds, character motions, and dynamic music, is enough to make even the dullest of episodes fun enough to watch. As much as I don’t care about pretty colors, I can’t deny the effort they put into the presentation. Studio Mappa did a splendid job in making it stand on its own, and at the same time being far superior to its source material. This is not a lifeless adaptation, made solely to advertize a game.

You want even more than that? The protagonists are not beta males and sexualized lolis but dynamic men and women you can show respect for, since they don’t constantly act like horny sluts. You want more? There is a plot, and there is a finale, which is solid.

A strong sense of adventure, really high stakes, cheesy dialogues, random enemy encounters, unexpected plot twists, emphasis on character fleshing out, and epic showdowns with dragons, gods, demons, or all of them at the same time.ĭespite being based on a virtual card game, not only it doesn’t feel like it promotes it by using its gameplay mechanics, but it also does not use cheap tactics like fan service, in order to simply sell, and doesn’t even resort to an episodic structure, so it can be nothing more than an aimless adventure with pretty colors. So here comes this show to finally break this curse by capturing exactly the magic of what high fantasy is all about. And of course there are also light novel adaptations, which are complete garbage, regardless of what genre they deal with, high fantasy included. Most others that claim to be high fantasy are more like slapstick comedies set in a pseudo-medieval setting, thus they do close to nothing when it comes to capturing that 2nd edition of Dungeons and Dragons I grew up with, back when everything are great because it was retro. Berserk and Claymore don’t count, since they are dark fantasy, Attack on Titan doesn’t count because it is a typical zombie apocalypse with shonen characters, while Lodoss War that counts is as dry as the chamomile leaves we gathered last year for tea. One of the genres anime never seem to get right is high fantasy.
