What happens when the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist takes on a story by the creator of Legend of the Galactic Heroes? Let’s find out!
What They Say:
Crown Prince Arslan leads a sheltered life, but his curiosity leads him to seek out slaves recently brought back from a successful military campaign. When one of those slaves escapes and takes him hostage, he gets more than he bargained for.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
My reasons for choosing to review this series should be fairly obvious. It’s not only the adaptation of one of the few manga by Fullmetal Alchemist creator Hiromu Arakawa, but specifically that of her own manga adaptation of a novel series by Yoshiki Tanaka, who happens to also be the creator of the original novel series behind Legend of the Galactic Heroes. What could combining the forces behind two of the greatest anime of all time (and in the case of Fullmetal Alchemist, one of the greatest manga in its original form as well) yield? This is of course the point at which I would become disappointed, although in this case I could mostly have my answer from the manga that’s been around for almost two years now. At the very least I haven’t heard of many people being blown away by the quality of this manga, so I got to soften some of the disappointment that I imagined the anime would deliver.
When it was announced that the studios adapting this manga into anime form would be LIDEN FILMS, whose first full-scale solo project was Terraformars of all things, and CG studio SANZIGEN, I lost a lot of faith. What isn’t full of unnecessary, lazy CG would be of the caliber of Terraformars? Nothing of potential quality deserves such a fate. On the other hand, the series is being directed by veteran director Noriyuki Abe, who I think of most fondly as the director of GTO.
All things considered, I’d say this anime is off to a decent enough start. Yes, there’s more CG than I’d care to see, but not nearly as much as I feared, and generally limited to large-scale battle scenes which, if I’m being fair, is slightly more forgivable than a lot of CG usage even when there’s not a CG studio listed as one of the two animation studios. Granted, a lot of this series is sure to focus on war (between what we’ve seen and Tanaka’s work on Legend of the Galactic Heroes), but the more focused animation as well as the battle direction is compelling enough that it hopefully won’t be too detrimental going forward. The fact that, in general, the animation looks plenty serviceable if never spectacular indicates that LIDEN simply wasn’t prepared to do a full series two seasons ago, and are sufficiently equipped to do so now, albeit with some assistance for the bigger pieces. Abe has displayed diverse talent over the course of his career as a director, and this is a good showcase of his ability to introduce a medieval fantasy epic. And if nothing else, these characters sure do look like they came out of Fullmetal Alchemist, and that’s something that I can always appreciate.
The ending theme comes from Eir Aoi, who has enjoyed success beginning with Fate/Zero and carrying across many big-name series since, and her powerful voice closes out the first chapter of a series that should evoke such feelings appropriately.
The episode is a prologue to the story of fourteen-year-old Arslan that we appear to be following for at least the foreseeable future, taking place three years prior and covering an isolated incident that likely changed the way young Arslan thought about the equality of humanity in ways that should prove to come into play down the line. So far the concepts of accepted racism and the “enemy” (however long that remains the case) displaying far more virtuous worldviews are hardly different than what has been in countless stories going back far earlier than the story’s 1986 origins, but the hope is always that simple setups can spawn much more interesting storytelling.
In Summary:
This may never prove to be anything worthy of connections to Fullmetal Alchemist and Legend of the Galactic Heroes, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be good enough in its own right. Arakawa’s distinctive artwork is always a welcome sight, Abe has proven plenty of times to be a trustworthy director, and considering the studios involved, the animation could certainly be a lot worse, or at least more CG-heavy than it is. The story isn’t offering anything new just yet even considering how old it actually is, but it’s not off to a terrible start.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: FUNimation
Review Equipment:
HP Envy 14.
