Anime – B - The Beginning

Anime Nov 22, 2019

Overview:

All 12 episodes cover 4 different party’s that are intertwined and at times working together with their stories overlapping. Lots of deceit and betrayal that falls in line with a prophecy/scripture. A lot of the characters can be described as used and abused. Not a lot more that can be said without spoiling. Most things are not supposed to be known and they slowly tell you throughout since it’s a softcore mystery. At the end of the last ep, ep 12, there is a few second scene that I’m guessing will be the setup for the next arc/season if and when they release it.

Visuals/Music:

All the visuals are clean and look very good from the scenery to the characters style and movement. Along with the darker color pallet used on most things it blended well with the rest of the world portrayed.

Music was also very good. The ending theme song `The Perfect World by Marty Friedman` has the vocals from one of the members of `MAN WITH A MISSION` and just like their songs its hard to find something bad about it. The riffs and sync between the instruments are simply put another finely crafted song. While the OST was all great I don’t feel they used it to its fullest. At times the OST played in the background was not balanced out being too loud in some scenes (this problem could be the source I got it from where vocals were not balanced but it only happened in select scenes, so I doubt it a bit.). Something they didn’t use to the fullest is silence. At times there would be a scene that silence would suit the mood better to get the viewer more immersed, but they decided to try and amp it up with music. As to why they would do this, I’m not sure but it did break the immersion a bit towards the end. Placement is decent enough throughout though.

Final Thoughts:

It’s a good anime but lots of room for improvement from both a sound placement and story aspect. Those wanting to get into the mystery genre I think this would do well but don’t have expectations set too high. The mystery aspect by the end was a bit of a letdown, you think there is going to be a huge exposition and something major will happen but nope it stays pretty stagnant in its story telling and sense of tension throughout.

Something I found a bit annoying was their use of blood. Sometimes the use of blood didn’t add any sense of tension but was more there to add shock value to the viewers.

Also saw some people praising this as the best anime on Netflix… I would say no to that both objectively and subjectively. `Nanatsu no Taizai` has both a more impactful story and executes most of the things done wrong with better precision. The genre and sources are completely different, one being an original and the others source a manga. Due to being so different can’t directly compare but indirectly by breaking down each in how their music usage, characters, pacing ect. Some may consider this show their favorite which is fine, `Yu Yu Hakusho` is one of mine but I still recognize and can point out its flaws. Something that has flaws is still capable of being a top tier product, flaws does not equate to bad.