Alright, so while I work on some other projects that I actually care about I need some low
effort filler to keep my channel up with the stupid YouTube algorithms.
Hm, low effort, maybe try to ride on the coattails of someone more popular.
ah perfect.
Fellow anime YouTuber and Top 10 list person misty chronexia recently released the pilot
episode of his anime series.
It's based on his novel and took 8 months to produce, using voice talent from other
popular youtubers and with a budget of 60 thousand dollars for ten minutes this should
be amazing.
Oh, oh my, Ohhh, this is, like, obviously I was setting up for this to be pretty bad,
but I seriously wasn't expecting it to be THIS bad.
Unless the goal was to recreate the feel of garzey's wing, It's pretty safe to say that
you fell a little short of whatever it was you set out to do here Misty.
And look, I get that animation is an extremely hard and expensive thing to produce, and that
this is a first effort from someone versed in a completely different platform.
So if Misty or someone involved in this production happens to be watching, firstly my condolences,
but also please don't take any of my criticism or jokes too harshly, Keep in mind I usually
review good anime, so this is kind of a new thing for me and I need to be honest in my
opinion.
I'm going to limit myself to only three jokes about the animation, that mostly makes fun
of itself and can be explained away as budgetary constraints.
So, giving it a slide and just calling that null.
But I am going to call whatever this steaming pile of animation self identifies as on just
about every other aspect of the production, Let's start with the writing.
At first I thought it was just bad acting, you know, the kind of acting that gives dubbed
anime a bad name, or maybe even closer to a fandub level of delivery and that is very
true in some cases, but quite frankly, I don't think anyone could have delivered this drivel
coherently.
The inconsistent to nonexistent sound mixing isn't helping anyone's performance either.
Instead of introducing us to the characters through storytelling, we're given a huge setting
and plot dump from what I assume is the generic main character introducing us to this world
and other generic characters.
We're given their names and races but no real depth to anything.
Pretty much sums this whole thing up.
So immediately after that huge plot dump, we're thrown into the quote unquote story
which takes the form of another major plot dump through the medium of obscure characters
and references that weren't mentioned the first time.
So at least we know some random asshole named vince is trying to destroy the ball of vitality
or some random shit like that, and that there is a goddess of energy named Mana, real original
name..
"She's a goddess, we don't know how she'll react"
Also apparently there's a king who can send giant birds and "Everyone" is already on the
battlefield, I guess that's every single one of the plot dump characters from before.
Okay, we're about 3 minutes in and already I'm fed up.
There has been no attempt to give any kind of characterization, world building or point.
You can't just have people say random names, things and places and call it a plot.
Am I supposed to have read the book first for this to make any sense?
Cause the rest of the episode is literally just a poorly animated fight until the goddess
shows up...
I'd say this was a really unsubtle attempt at deus ex machina but judging based on the
level of writing shown here I'm pretty sure that's just a wild fluke.
I learned nothing about any of these characters or any kind of conflict except that Vince
is trying to destroy the orb of macguffin which leads to a fight scene.
And then, in the last minute, it just randomly jumps 25 years ahead to a completely new set
of generic characters which we know nothing about and have no relevance to whatever the
fuck preceded it.
Is this real life?
In 8 months none of the dozens of people involved in the production of this episode had a clue
and spoke up?
I feel kind of bad making fun because it seems on some levels there was a lot put into this,
but as a reviewer I have to be honest.
-breathe- okay fade calm down.
In it's current state this is only worth checking out for the so bad it's good value.
You can tell there was a great amount of ambition but everything just falls apart right away.
Again, I'm trying not to be too harsh on the animation there are some interesting sequences
in there but it's very inconsistent to say the least.
I'm sure there's a few memes we can salvage out it or something.
Some of the voice actors are clearly very talented, but aren't given anything worth
working with, and let's be honest here there are some line readings are just plain horrible.
While some of the characters aesthetic design is merely mediocre everyone just comes off
as an empty shell where a character should be, er shouldn't be in most cases.
I remembered like maybe one or two of the names and everyone else just kind of blurred
together in a generic haze of nothing being relevant or resembling a plot or point.
The only thing I don't really have a criticism of is the music, that is to say, I didn't
really notice it, but it was there doing the best it could.
Kind of like it was ashamed to exist in this form and just wanted to keep it's head down
and hope no one notices it.
So look, Misty this was your first rodeo, and it sucked, real bad, like maybe the worst
things I've seen in history.
As someone who's made a top 10 worst anime video yourself, you should maybe take a moment
to reflect on what you think makes an anime good, and then hire a writer who knows better,
limit yourself to no more than a handful of characters and focus on creating something
coherent.
This production was doomed the second you decided to not focus on characters or storytelling,
or being coherent.
So I don't think any of the issues with this pilot had to do with budget, I can tell it
clearly started with the script, maybe the story comes across better in the books, I
donno, but I think I've had my fill.
As a relatively small channel, I get crapped on pretty heavily at the mere mention of fan
funding, so this being the result of 60 thousand dollars just boggles my mind.
It kind of gives all of us youtubers a bad name.
Hopefully I wasn't too harsh, and don't get me wrong, whatever you want to call this really
does suck as much as I've stated.
But I encourage Misty and the crew to go back to the drawing board and attempt to make something
worth watching going forward, There is some potential here but you really skipped out
on two fundamentals, writing and audio as well as so much other stuff that's not even
worth addressing at this point.
In this case the visuals fell flat and it has nothing else to fall back on, and that's
really sad, because with an afternoon or two of writing, a day of audio work and a slightly
scaled back ambition you could have shown much better results.
I'm aware that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones and heaven forbid I've
made bad videos in the past, not 60 thousand dollar failures, but I've definitely tried
and failed to fan fund some more ambitious projects, so if nothing else I have to respect
the drive and resolve put forth to at least take on something this ambitious and get as
far as they have, even if the result is a horrible abomination that never should have
been unleashed upon this earth.
Man, this was supposed to be a low effort video, well at least it got a reaction out
of me, uhh ending stuff.
Make sure to send me your bad Chronexia gifs on twitter!
Also comment, like, subscribe, whatever you want to do.
Blablabla Fade Dragontear, peace out