Review of Blade & Soul

IncendiaryLemon

Captain Karen
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<b>Review of Blade & Soul by IncendiaryLemon</b>

Trained from birth to be the ultimate assassin by the Clan of the Sword, Alka has lived her entire life as an emotionless killing machine. Now, however, her clan has been wiped out and her master murdered at the hands of the Param Empire and their vicious leader Jin Varrel. The code given to her by her master now leaves Alka with her final mission: to seek vengeance on those responsible and take them down by any means necessary.<br>

<em>Blade and Soul</em>&nbsp;is an anime based on a popular Korean MMORPG that, despite its best efforts, fails on almost every level and is ultimately a show with very little merit.<br>

The overarching story in&nbsp;<em>Blade and Soul</em>&nbsp;is about as clich&eacute; and trite as they come. The &lsquo;Apprentice avenging their Master&rsquo; plot has been done a hundred times before and this show adds nothing new to the premise. Whilst there is&nbsp;an overarching story,it feels&nbsp;episodic, with Alka moving from place to place&nbsp;with seemingly little purpose, encountering new characters. There is a nice mix between the main plot and these side stories but neither are very interesting to watch. The exceptions to this are Episodes 9 and 10. I won&rsquo;t spoil it, but there is a payoff in Episode 9 that is hinted at a couple of times; it&rsquo;s well executed and leads the show down a different and unexpected path that is way more interesting than the revenge plot. Unfortunately, this improvement only lasts for a couple of episodes.<br>

The show is also overlong; it provides a natural stopping point at Episode 12 but then feels the need to deliver one more completely unnecessary episode that exists purely for fan service. I could probably forgive some of the story issues if they led to some good action sequences, however, even the action in this show leaves a lot to be desired. Granted, there are a few good scenes which are very kinetic and thus fun to watch; the highlight comes at the end of the second episode which is full of great choreography. Most of the time, though, these scenes are very brief, barely lasting a minute or two,&nbsp;and are just dull, which, for an action show is a pretty damning complaint.<br>

Unsurprisingly, the main theme of <em>Blade &&nbsp;Soul</em> is revenge, although this doesn&rsquo;t really come into play until Episode 9. Here it starts to focus on the consequences of revenge and it&rsquo;s really what makes these two episodes interesting to watch, especially in comparison to the rest of the show.<br>

Alka, the protagonist, gives Inaho from&nbsp;<em>Aldnoah Zero</em>&nbsp;a run for his money when it comes to the most boring, bland, personality void of a character I&rsquo;ve ever seen. Unlike&nbsp;<em>Aldnoah Zero</em>&nbsp;though, this is done very much intentionally and the reason why is explained through her backstory. Whilst I appreciate the fact that they gave her a backstory, &nbsp;it doesn&rsquo;t change the fact she is essentially just a super-efficient killing robot with watermelons stapled to the front, which doesn&rsquo;t make for a relatable or compelling character. She is given some development in &ndash; you guessed it &ndash; Episodes 9 and 10 and starts to show more emotion, but it's&nbsp;rushed and sudden when it should have been spread throughout the series. When her arc comes to a conclusion in Episode 12, it feels unnatural. If all the episodes had been like 9 and 10, it would have improved the show massively in both character and story. The supporting cast is underdeveloped and underutilised. With the exception of Karen, the proprietress of a local bar, none of the characters are given development or backstory whatsoever and even Karen needs a lot more as she is shown to have fighting ability to match Alka&rsquo;s, an assassin trained from birth to kill, but we&rsquo;re given no explanation as to why. It's the same problem when it comes to the antagonists;&nbsp;the bad guys have&nbsp;no depth or real motivation and seem just to be evil for evil's sake.<br>

<em>Blade &&nbsp;Soul</em>&nbsp;is animated by Studio Gonzo, best known for&nbsp;shows such as&nbsp;<em>Full Metal Panic, Strike Witches</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>Afro Samurai</em>. The action sequences&nbsp;are well animated and occasionally&nbsp;CGI is used to good effect. The rest of the show, however, tends to look sub par. Even at medium distances, objects lose a lot of detail and characters, especially faces, tend to become a muddled mess, reminiscent of an MS Paint interpretation. This can be very distracting. However, the backgrounds look fairly nice throughout and there are some decent character designs too, so I find the art and animation to be a mixed bag.<br>

The show is directed by Hiroshi Hamasaki (the director behind one of my favourite series, <em>Steins;Gate)</em>&nbsp;and he does a decent job here. However,&nbsp;I think that some better direction could have helped give the action scenes more impact. Despite all of the girls in the show having breasts twice the size of their heads, the show is actually quite tastefully directed, with little emphasis actually being placed on their boobs, which is either going to be pleasantly surprising or massively disappointing, depending on why you're watching.<br>

Animatsu&rsquo;s release of&nbsp;<em>Blade and Soul</em>&nbsp;is Japanese audio only with English subtitles. The cast here do a serviceable job but no one really stands out. The lead is voiced by Yuki Takao, a fairly new voice actor tackling her first lead role. She isn&rsquo;t given a lot to say and when she is, she has to deliver it in an emotionless monotone, so it doesn&rsquo;t really allow her a lot of range, but she does well considering the material. Taro Iwashiro provides a pretty good soundtrack. It isn&rsquo;t really memorable but it&rsquo;s fitting for the show and helps to enhance some scenes. The OP by Mimimeme MIMI is fairly catchy but I felt that the ED by LEGO BIG MORL was largely forgettable.<br>

This release by Animatsu contains a Clean OP, Clean ED and Trailers.<br>

<strong>In Summary</strong><br>

The first eight episodes of&nbsp;<em>Blade and Soul</em>&nbsp;are a trainwreck, with a generic, clich&eacute;d revenge plot, a painfully boring cast of characters and mundane action sequences. An increase in the quality of story and character writing towards the end comes too little too late and isn&rsquo;t enough to redeem this lacklustre show.&nbsp;<br>

<b>Final score: 5 out of 10</b>

<b>Additional screencaps</b>

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