I Loved The Arknights Anime But You Might Hate It...

so about a year ago I reviewed the first season of The Ark Knights anime and I wasn't terribly insane about it as a fan of the game I still loved it but I knew it could be better I knew based on the source material just how much potential the anime had however I felt that it didn't achieve that and going into season 2 I had similar concerns especially considering the fact that it covers chapter 5 and six and six is where the story of Ark Knights gets good when everyone glazes the story that's the point where the praise makes sense so naturally my expectations were high and then I saw this scene [Music] to put it in the simplest words possible this right here is everything I wanted to see out of an Arce anime the game music being used fitting even more so as Frost Nova was the one who sang the song to we know and Sasha Frost Nova's power is being shown in full force she is one of the strongest ice based Arts users and we easily see that here with how she deep freezes a building with just one projectile and the the tone seeing the expressions of the characters mixed in with the amazing voice acting easily portrays just how dire of a situation it is the only flaw in it is how Frost Lea was able to disrupt Frost no his Arts like ain't no way you're going to tell me miss his unfinished combat kit made before freeze and in desperate need of it afterwards is going to be able to do that to my goat no way C minus on the game press tier list over there would be able to hold a candle to literally her but better okay okay okay I'm joking nobody actually pays attention to the game press tier list though yes to give the long short of It season 2 was quite honestly season 1 but better it improves on the Flies I had in season 1 and gives more of what I loved about it the animation across the board has got better season one had many scenes that looked like an episode of Sesame Street that is to say we had a handful of characters just standing there with their mouths flapping and yapping but in this basic talking scenes are much more lively there's actually movement for the characters that does a good job of displaying their emotion and it's visually interesting now I'm not saying the first season was devoid of that or that the second season keeps this level of quality in every single scene I'm just saying that there are more moments with that level of quality and times like that are when I feel as though the anime has surpassed The Source material from frost NOA showing why she's a goat to just simple dialogue scenes displaying more of the character's personality it may be small but I'd easily take this over this anyy day of the week hell another example the anime surprise in the game story is in episode 4 when misto cast his Arts that [ __ ] is way more intimidating than the original granted I still think misto is a [ __ ] I still hate that [ __ ] from having a rock Loi him to Lugia this [ __ ] deserves it all so that's about the only compliment I'm going to give him in fact let's talk about I mean mainly roast but let's talk about misto so this season focuses on two chapters five and six it gives four episodes to each of them so the screen time is evenly split now one problem with this and you can straight call this bias but I don't give a dam when it comes to chapter 5 and six easily chapter 5 is the weaker one of the two it's not even close and I'm not saying that just because chapter 5 focuses on Fisto a lot more straight up the word count difference between chapter 5 and 6 is 20,000 words I'm not even capping the two chapters are not equal so I don't feel the two deserve the same episode count chapter 6 should have more time allocated to it but I don't bring this up to say that the season should have spent only three or two episodes on chapter 5 as when you take into account later story beats what they were able to show in just Eight Episodes was amazing if they had spent three episodes on chapter 5 then some stuff that appears in chapter 7 or 8 will not have the proper context so the anime did a great job and use the time it had to its fullest despite being at a Breakneck Pace it's like have you ever taken a can of Red Bull 5 energy stimulate couple lines of cocaine and then proceeded to use that energy boost to get work done in a very fast way it's exactly like that so I can't say they should have cut one of the earlier episodes as they are all needed for the greater context of the story but man do I wish we got another episode or two some of the scenes near the end feel much shorter than they should I'll go into more detail in the spoiler section but just take the beef between Blaze and greth throat as an example in the game this is what Blaze says to grath she is very very direct and immediately upon seeing them interact we know greay throat said some whack [ __ ] some uncor Ruckus type of [ __ ] but in the anime they literally don't even speak to one another in this scene they barely look at each other and the doctor just goes like damn yo Amia you feel that tension God damn it felt like the cat was about to Maul the bird and bring you back a present and the audience has just left wondering Le n what the [ __ ] happened and that's because it wasn't given time to really breathe now is that seem the most important thing no it isn't but near the end we can see more and more examples of scenes being cut short and I'm just left wanting another episode so we could have more time to flesh out these chapters but then comes in a new problem budget now I really like the anime but when you break down its importance it only fulfills two purposes one to get people into the game and help them experience the story as the beginning chapters are so as to reading them bestows the same feeling as dry humping burning sandpaper and two it's for the fans to enjoy love and I'm going to take a shot in the dark and say most people watching the anime fall under the second category so with that being said it's a poor financial decision to invest a lot into to the anime as the return may not be the greatest but at the same time I'm a gotcha game player you poor financial decisions are what I do best I want to see more I want to have 12 full episodes of [ __ ] Jutsu kaison level animation hell I need them to pull a rezero and make the episodes 30 minutes long with no opening or ending but yeah that's probably a stupid ass decision and we could see some choices being made to help with the budget like using CGI and I wouldn't say the CGI as bad as it's really only used for unimportant [ __ ] to where I'd say it's is greatly ignorable and doesn't take away anything however some of their moments feel like the budget ended up hurting it like in episode 3 Chen has a hero moment but right before she slashes an enemy it cuts and she already won the battle now that [ __ ] is one toone with how it is in the game the cut exists there too granted it more so cuts into a stage so it's meant to make the player feel like they're fighting but still the story is the exact same in that aspect but I wanted to see more where the game would have us play to Showcase a story beat I want the anime to go all out and show us how the characters deal with a th right on their own it's the benefit of the medium and I'm not just saying that as an excuse so we can possibly see a scene of Chen stepping on someone granted I'm not saying I wouldn't like to see that but I'm saying that yes it would be [ __ ] Peak wait what was I talking about again oh yeah all in all I can see many moments where choices were made for the sake of the budget at times it detracts from the overall experience of the season but I can understand why these choices were made granted I would have much preferred the spent a billion dollars as a budget for this season but I could also admit that it wouldn't be a smart choice voice it would be Peak though now with all that being said let me glaze the anime this is going to be the spoiler section where I talk about all the hype [ __ ] that happened so if you don't want to get spoiled then skip to this time stamp by the way it's only going to be anime spoilers now the scene of Foss death was amazing the music and its sudden cut to display how he was putting on an air of Bravery in front of Maisto the character's expression showing all the emotion on their faces and above all the voice acting this all comes together to make such an amazing scene you know when you're reading a book and you get so immersed in it to where you can Envision how the characters sound what they look like how they're feeling in a scene how close they interact with the environment around them this scene is entirely what I envisioned it being honestly it's more than I could have hoped for and an even better example is Frost noa's death you have this important music building up like Amia is strengthening her resolve to fight against the enemy it conveys that Amia will stand against the threat that is Frost NOA beat her make her join rhod's Island and then go against tula and the second Frost NOA resolves to go all out her music is cut short Frost NOA immediately takes over with her incantation and covers the entire arena with her arms now the objective has gone from fight her to Bear her attacks and fight back if possible and we see the attacks have no effect now we can't even hear the sounds in the scene only her singing we went from Amia strengthening her resolve to the only thing we hear being Frost noa's incantation whilst we can only see her arts and how it is freezing everyone nothing is working against her the characters are assuming they're dead and at the height of her Victory we hear her break down her infection killing her only when she stopped could we start to focus on other sounds showing that rhs island did not beat Frost NOA they survived her if it wasn't for her infection taking her life there was no chance of Victory they took this stage from the game and evolved into what we see now and I love it so yes there are flaws like the pacing not being able to Showcase all aspects of the stories anime only probably won't be invested in these characters as they don't get the time to really flesh them out but it's for moments like this that I think the anime is phenomenal this is what I need to see more of it's the highlights of the anime either from the emotional last moments of the yetis which we just came to love or seeing Kel's cold and moving expression as Monster gives Crown Slayer PTSD this is the potential of the anime and I wish every episode could deliver this level of quality in it the ark Knight's anime is far far far from perfect but as a fan of the game seeing those moments where it heighten the story from the game to even greater levels makes it worth watching however I say that as I really love the game hell I've been playing it for more than 3 years I wouldn't have done that if I didn't because of that though I find it hard to rate as on one hand I know what happens in these chapters I know how the characters are their personalities I know why specific decisions are made in the importance behind showing certain SC as they will have relevancy later but someone who has never played the game obviously won't know that so when the pacing really accelerated near the end I was good I was already invested in the plot and the characters due to the game but if I didn't know that it would easily be a worse experience however that's not to say that the anime is only for the people who played the game I'd say if anyone is interested in getting into the story and they don't want to spend the time reading through chapter 6 then two things one [ __ ] we call that [ __ ] a short chapter lone Trail is about to give your ass conniptions if you think think 30,000 words is a lot and two this would be better than a summary it gives a great laydown of what happens in those chapters and then more it's basically the agal discussion book versus movie which is better the book will give you more but take more time once the movie will have more to it like voice acting cinematics music Etc but it will not cover as much so whichever the two medium seems more appealing to you go with that though in my personal opinion the game is better overall now it's time to review it and I'm going to give it two different scores as rating [ __ ] based on numbers is really restrictive and since I played the game my Outlook on the anime will be much different to anyone who hasn't so my personal rating as someone who loves the game is an 8.5 out of 10 it doesn't have the best animation you've seen in anime the pacing near the end is unfortunately really quick and you can definitely feel where the budget held it back hell if someone said the characters in the anime were underdeveloped I personally feel inclined to agree but it fully delivers on the scenes that matter the most to fans moments that make Ark Knights one of the best stories I've ever read it adapts those perfectly and surpasses the game so in spite of its flaws I like it due to that however I need to be objective and acknowledge how those flaws impact the story just because I love it doesn't mean I should automatically think everyone else will be completely fine with these shortcomings so if you're someone who's interested in getting into Ark Knights then if I had to give a rating your enjoyment would probably be closer to a 6.5 or a seven a show that's good above average but not one of the must watches of the season I mean [ __ ] Jutsu Kon and freen came out this season I could easily recommend watching those first I ain't even going to cap so the anime is is not perfect or the thing you should be watching now its flaws are very apparent and I wish to acknowledge them as hopefully if we get another season they can be addressed honestly if we get season 3 that better be Eight Episodes just dedicated to chapter 7 as pacing was the biggest flaw here I want the anime to be something everyone can Love and Enjoy especially since if I love something I want it to be the best it possibly can be and in this season while it may have flaws it fully makes up for it by bringing the story to life and making me say this is why I love of Ark Knights

Channel: Tsunul

Views: 8,702

Keywords: Tsunul

Id: TaQsu9QLnwc

Length: 12min 6sec (726 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 28 2023