Arifureta anime

kino

Me when the first episode finished - 'What the fuck did I just watch?'.

On the bright side, maybe it will give the series a good sales boost in Japan?

Rahul Balaggan

@kino it might not, if it stays a confusing mess people may think that the LN is also a confusing mess meaning they may never say, “I have to read the LN”.

kino

Wasn't the anime delayed for a while? It seems like this was a troubled project since the beginning. Maybe they rushed too quickly to make an anime for it? What do the fans think?

Zing

@kino said in Arifureta anime:

What do the fans think?

I've been reading comments on MAL thread for a bit now. When the thread first started it was at 45% positive, now its down to 28% positive and 29% negative.

I was honestly confused, at first I thought that they must have done what shield hero did, had an episode 0 to start it off with. But that can't be it, being a huge fan of the series I would never have missed episode 0.

I would guess that the people who were calling the shots in the production did not have the balls to do things properly. They must have thought that if they don't go into action right away, people will lose interest or misunderstand what this show is all about.

Honestly, after they made the lightning purple, I have no idea what is going on through their heads anymore.

myskaros

I just watched the first episode. I thought it was fine. Yes, I've read the books, so I didn't get lost from the constant jumping around. I wasn't a fan of the in media res, and some of the design choices were weird (he says "red lightning" but they animated it purple?! The fight with the bear was really weird), but it's not bad enough for me to stop watching. Plus, the tone of the series completely changes after volume 1, so I'm more interested in seeing how the later volumes feel.

EDIT: To expand a bit more, I don't think this was a very good adaptation of the material, but I'd put it at a 4 out of 10, not a 2, which was the impression I got when I woke up this morning and saw all the complaining. Personally, I stopped watching Ragnarok after 2 episodes and Smartphone after 3, so I'll at least see how the next few weeks go. I might drop it because it's just uninteresting, but I don't foresee myself dropping it because it's bad.

Raitoiro

Whoa it's was terrible, I don’t really like the LN either but I remember the first few books to be enjoyable, that on the other hand...
I think starting with Hajime already at the bottom could have been a good idea, but the way they did the flash back was just confusing.
The worst part by far tho, was the animation and the acting.
At least the opening is good.

Also, I don't remember it, but is it explained later on how Hajime manage to be completly unhurt after falling in what looks like an endless hole among rubbles and a legendary monster ?

tgquan67

@raitoiro Nope, it skipped almost all of the explanations.
Skipping everything before him falling into the hole is something I very welcome, and the OP is quite good, but the arc when he is in Orcus is one full of self explanations, so in general this first ep is terrible. The fighting scenes are also subpar, with the explanations omitted they should have done that better.
With how things go right now, are they really aiming for 3ep/vol to reach vol.4?

Raitoiro

@tgquan67 the anime skip the explaination for how he survived the fall ?

Aren't they going for 2ep/vol I feel like they're going to finish vol1 in the next episode.

tgquan67

@raitoiro I feel that they don't know how to adapt his monologue/self explanation, so they just rush past it. The pace will slow down once he gets companions.

Eternal Wanderer

Watching this makes me glad I read the book first, if I was anime only I'd have so little context to what's going on and be hopelessly lost. I also feel it was a mistake to start the story when Hajime falls into the deep levels, after that point he quickly goes edgelord on us and I feel we needed a chance to get to know him before that happened.

Terabyte

Well, monologues aside, an anime-only viewer still doesn't even know the name of the world they are in, what is the Great Orcus Labyrinth, what they are doing there, and basically everything else. They totally failed to provide any kind of meaningful information in this first episode. Heck, I even saw someone on reddit asking if Arifureta was an isekai or not; they totally skipped the whole summoning/Earth prologue too.

lighthawk96

@terabyte This is what happens when you try to squeeze 24-26 episodes worth of content into 13 episodes. Too much gets left out and leaves people feeling like "What the heck am I watching?". They should have done like "Shield Hero" did and made it a 24-26 episode run and that way they could have included a lot more content. At least enough to where people who don't know anything about "Arifureta" aren't left confunsed. But maybe they're counting on that confusion to sell people on the light novels. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how this anime plays out.

Crey

Ok, this was quite bad. Granted, I didn't like the first couple of volumes of LN all that much either, but this first episode really turned me off the whole thing. Maybe I'll take a look at some episode from the middle to see how things are then but for now I'll switch to Cop Craft, first episode of which was surprisingly enjoyable although the gritty stuff is really not my thing.

cherrychez

I've read the light novels so I wasn't confused, but starting it mid-action really had me wondering why. The other thing that jumped out at me was that they really toned down on the violence. Seriously, all monsters have yellow blood and when he lost his arm, even though he said it won't stop bleeding, there really was no blood seen on screen.

Terabyte

Just one more thing I remembered: a lot of scenes actually were really dark to the point that it was almost impossible to discern properly what was on the screen.

custodes

Maybe I am not a person of culture...but I did not find the episode that bad.
As a reader of the series I do find certain aspects, like the loss of the inner monologue, saddening, but to say it is not watchable, I would have to disagree.

Slightly rushed, but we cannot always have a series for example Grimoire of Zero which has 12 episodes dedicated just to volume 1.Was watching it with a friend who has never read the series, and they seemed to understand the basic concepts enough.

It is evident that they are seeking volume 1 to be completed by episode 4 (it is highly unlikely that the raunchiness of the series will be carried or if it was, will be minimalistic and toned down).

As ever, following the 3 episode rule for anime series (it was not so bad that I needed to surrender after a single one).

sniper_samurai

@terabyte That is possibly due to Funimations encoding, Psycho-Pass was was ridiculously dark on their streams too.

stardf29

As someone who likes the novel series but isn't a huge fan of it, I guess it was an okay experience for me, but yeah, I feel like the storyboarding and lack of almost any explanation for events before the fall will just confuse those new to the series.

I must say, though: the music was kickass.

lighthawk96

@custodes I agree. But it was just do fragmented that it kinda leaves you scratching your head going "Well that's all over the place". I think its even worse if youve read and really like the LN, which I have and do. But I am still reserving judgement until he meets Yue. When all of tgat goes down and they clear this first labrynth, then we'll get a feel for how this series is going to go. We're just going to have to wait and see.

custodes

@lighthawk96 I am half hoping since they have chosen the "flashback route" of story telling that there will be a few more to fill in the gaps and complete what they have missed out.
Sometimes having an apparent fragmented and hodge-podge style is good, other times linear is better (and easier).
The "Yue arc" will likely make or break the series, as Shea will not matter if no one reaches that point to watch it.