[SPOILER] NITPICKING: Shingeki No Bahamut
Entry posted by Redpanda
1691 views
NOTE: This isn't what I would call a review. More like nitpicking useless stuffs hence the title. I'm hoping that you people are intelligent enough to not take my work too seriously as I proceed. Also, massive spoilers.
Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis is an anime adaptation of a mobile game with the same name. The anime was produced by studio MAPPA who are mostly known for working on titles like Zankyou no Terror and Garo: The Animation.
The anime opens with an epic battle scene happening between a dragon and some omnipotent beings just to show you exactly what to expect from it in the future. While it succeeded in capturing many with gasp and awe, it wasn’t exactly what I would call a ‘good opening scene’ per se. The scene left me mostly in confusion rather than working as an establishment of a fictional world. I couldn’t figure out or even get a general idea of who was supposed to be whom and what was going on. Only on the later episodes it was revealed that Zeus and Satan apparently worked together to seal Bahamut.
Zeus and Satan? They aren’t even of the same mythology. It would had made more sense if it was Hades instead of Satan. Well, the mixing of pantheons isn’t exactly a con in terms of storytelling so….yeah, I’m just nitpicking.
The show evokes the feels and tones of a 17th century Spain with its arts, settings and music. A fantasy swashbuckler anime that draws inspirations heavily from other fantasy swashbuckler western movies like the Pirates of the Caribbean series. The big wheel scene in episode 1, the zombies, the pirates, the entangled ships, the fight on top of the mast, sea monster and tentacle all in episode 4 are some of the homage it delivers sweetly.
The orchestrated scores are just perfect for the tone. They don’t stand out much but, as a certain someone pointed out, it’s for the best since it immerses you to the story well without fail and that’s definitely a plus for me. The OP and the ED were the ones that I completely skipped. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that they were bad or even mediocre at best. It’s just that it failed to grab my attention for the first few minutes or I simply didn’t gave it a second chance.
It felt weird to see Amira’s personality change in episode 2. In the first episode, she was shown to be less talkative and gave an aura of a stoic person plus the badassery when fighting with the summoned demon (the cinematography used in this fight scene was excellent compared to all the later unimaginative fight scenes). But in the middle of episode 2, her personality changes to a childish one. A dojikko trait.
It’s not a matter of Amira opening up to the main protagonist Favaro because she acts childish and vulnerable even in front of strangers and mere acquaintance when staying in the Anatae city. It felt like the change to her dojikko personality was just there to appeal the otaku fans. Also, what’s with her imprisonment? The angels ordered the king to keep Amira under heavy guard (can’t they just send their own infinite supply of angels to protect her?) and the King swore to guard her with his life but where are is the heavy guard? Her room is kept on watch with only two generic guards with distorted facial features. Why does she roam freely around the castle for whole three episodes without anyone even noticing or objecting?
There were some little issues with the pacing like how quickly things were resolved when in episode 5, the demon Azazel manipulated Kaisar (other protagonist) into fighting Favaro.
The Anatae arc slowed things down distracting us away from the main plot. I think it was done so that they have enough material to reach the twelve episode mark in other words, fillers. But these things not only slowed down the pace, it also added new conflicts that only complicated the overall plot unnecessarily. Like the king being poisoned by paranoia or Jeanne D'Arc (the badass) transforming into a demon.
Also, the clichéd ‘most trusted guy is the one behind everything’ plot twist. Lavalley falls victim of this trope. This plot twist fails for me as it felt unnecessary and didn’t really shocked me at all and it also created unintentional plot holes which I’ll get into later.
Kaisar (other protagonist) also had some character inconsistency like how much is his vengeance important? At first, it seems like a running gag for him to chase and fight Favaro but later it is revealed that it’s much more serious than that and Kaisar (other protagonist) would never forgive him. But then again, he suddenly becomes very cooperative with Favaro for little to no reason.
When falling down, Kaisar (other protagonist) can slow down time and talk at lengths in mid-air. In the last episode he gets his hand (the one where he wears the bounty hunter bracelet) cut off by Favaro to trick Lavalley and seal him off. Couldn’t they just pretend to fight and get close to him in acceptable range and simply seal him off there? Damaging Kaisar (other protagonist) seemed like an unnecessary attempt to make him look like a badass.
Jeanne D'Arc (the badass) was just cast off as a minor side character even though she had huge potentials and was shown to be someone really important to the main plot in the early episodes.
The CGI effects were surprisingly good when I expected them to be awkward except for the green dragon. That was awful enough. And let’s not forget the great Bahamut himself (or itself). CGI Bahamut stuck out like a sore thumb too.
They could have used more tweening for smooth animation flow but it was above good nonetheless. I would have expected more from studio MAPPA since they did some fantastic animation in Zankyou no Terror but I guess they were running out of money and manpower in addition to the dead line.
Plot holes left unanswered:
If Lavalley was the one behind everything, then why did he left the childish Amira all by herself to find Helheim? How in the world could he predict that some random afro would help Amira to get to Helheim at all cost? Couldn’t he just kidnap Amira by his own when she was roaming freely around the castle for whole 3 episodes? It seems like a much more logical and easy solution than trying to trick her with all the pendent stuff.
It was revealed that Amira’s memories were fabricated by Beelzebub and he recreated Amira from Nicole (Amira’s supposedly mother) as an imitation vessel to release Bahamut. It was showed clearly that Amira was a full grown adult when she was being separated from Nicole. Now the cocoon excuse falls flat. If she was an adult from the beginning then how come her personality be childish? She wasn’t grown inside a cocoon from childhood to adulthood so where did this clumsy personality come from? And keeping her inside the cocoon even when she was an adult (also making her a child when she was already an adult) would just seem like a waste of time and not logical. Her acting childish throughout the show felt like they underutilized her potential as a character just like they did with Jeanne D'Arc (the badass).
When Amira hugs Nicole, she calls out Amira’s name and dies in peace. How did Nicole know that her supposedly daughter’s (more accurately, her clone’s) name was Amira? And why did she lovingly call out her name if she knew that Beelzebub created the clone by force? Wouldn’t Nicole just hate Amira more for that?
Beelzebub and Lavalley released Bahamut by using Amira as the key. Then the Bahamut fatally wounds Beelzebub. Why was Beelzebub so sure that he could control Bahamut if he releases the dragon? Even if Lavalley lied to him that he could control Bahamut, wouldn’t he at least be suspicious because Bahamut was so powerful that even Zeus and Satan could barely seal him off let alone control him? Looks like Beelzebub trusts and gets tricked by people easily despite him being the devil.
Also:
I think the show would have turned out great if the plot twist never happened. If Lavalley really was the virtuous human who protected Nicole and Amira from the demons, if Martinet (Lavalley’s disguise or his other personality?) never even existed, if Nicole really did gave birth to Amira instead of cloning, all of the above plot holes could’ve been avoided and made this journey more emotional and satisfying than it currently is.
Despite me cherry picking all that stuff, I still enjoyed the show. It undoubtedly is in the leagues of one of the best animes of 2014 if not ‘the best’. Quality animation, great slapstick comedy that doesn’t gets old, an emotionally invested epic journey, almost no pacing issues, fillers (subplots) that tied to the overarching plot, good action scenes, Favaro, and the Dragon are just some of the many things that this anime has to offer.
I’m definitely hyped for when the next season comes out. And by that time, I hope that they had learned from their mistakes.
Q: Where are the review scores?
A: It's against my policy to give generalized metric values to a piece of art or literature or any kind of entertainment medium....actually, I just suck at math...I'll start rating things with numbers when I get a PhD in Mathematics or something.
- sanahtlig and Shikomizue
-
2
4 Comments
Recommended Comments