owari no seraph guren
Sound 9/10
The opening is a banger without a doubt, Nana Mizuki did an incredible job with the song and left me listening to it for quite some time. The ending is also a great song Saji did very well and it was a perfect song to listen to after each cliffhanger.
There weren ́t many big shots in the cast but the voice
acting quality is unexpectedly excellent, Especially the Yuuichi one, that was an insane VA
performance.
Character 9/10
The characters are a fundamental part of the story and the
truth is that they are all quite interesting.
Yuuchi our protagonist is without a doubt one of the best protagonists of recent years at the level of protagonists like ayanokouji from Classroom of Elite. He is a totally unexpected character that you never know what he is thinking and manages to
solve the problems he faces without you knowing how. The interesting thing here is that in the whole group of 5 friends you can't trust any of them, they just all have something that makes you doubt them.
Enjoyment 10/10
I really enjoyed it, it is the anime that I enjoyed the most this season and the first one that I will dedicate time to write a review for, each chapter left me wanting to know more and I never took my eyes off the screen while I was watching it. Every day I waited for the time the chapter came out just to be able to see it, at that level I enjoyed it. And me being a huge fan of High Stakes Games even more.
To finish, I really recommend this anime for people who like to think about how to win or solve puzzles or find some way to find the loopholes in a game.
Moreover, it’s awfully convenient how the worldbuilding of this extremely
derivative medieval fantasy setting is fine-tuned to the MC’s tastes (whilst pretending it’s vice-versa), such as the low age of consent, society’s liberal attitudes towards it, physically ageless
lolis for him to obsess over (e. g. Roxy), etc. Getting killed by a truck was the best thing to happen to him because not only can he and does he finally act on his pent-up perversions with no repercussions, but he also immediately jumps from the rock-bottom of the social hierarchy to high-value with no effort and self-improvement whilst being a natural prodigy for everyone to revolve around. Rudeus is such a skilled badass that even while depressed, the leader of an S-ranked Adventurer party mistakes his low energy as him hiding his power level due to looking down on his peers and thus develops an inferiority-complex towards him. This is totally not a wish-fulfilment series.
A-1, and the anime industry as a whole’s main issue is that LN adaptations are usually just cash grabs and glorified promo material to get people to go out and buy the books. Usually large swathes of stories are left out or butchered. As a result, I was worried that A-1 may rush through the story and omit key aspects of 86. Thankfully, I could not have been more wrong. Not
only did A-1 remain faithful to the source material, they even enhanced it in many instances. With arguably their best LN adaptation ever, A-1 gave us the anime of the season.
86 is a very character driven story. Volume 1, which the first cour of the anime covers, is quite slow at time just because of all the detail that goes into the world-building. Asato sensei does a great job of humanising
characters and creating a connection between you and them. There may be times during the anime where you feel it drags on or it’s going a bit slow, but I can guarantee you there’s a pay-off coming around the corner. Every second you spend in this world and with these characters matters.
