Anime: Arslan Senki (2015)

When this anime was announced, many expected the best show of the millennia. The reason was the story being written by the author of Legend of the Galactic Heroes and the artwork being done by the mangaka of Full Metal Alchemist. Both titles are exceptional and are even in my top 10. Unfortunately, Arslan is not even top 1000 material. Compared to its predecessors:
- It lacks the semi-realistic character designs of LOGH
- Its cast lacks the charisma and individual importance of FMA characters
- It looks bland compared to the ethereal artstyle of the 90s version of Arslan

Another way to view it is like the 2 Star Wars trilogies. The 70s trilogy was a space opera masked as a fairy tale, thus keeping expectations low and succeeding in the longrun. The 00s trilogy on the other hand was a fairy tale desperately pretending to be a space opera and self-imploded in the longrun by promising way too much. It’s the same thing with Arslan; it’s not as good as it wants you to think it is. It’s a silly fighting shonen that tries to present itself as a serious historical epic and fails miserably at it.

The general premise and overall plot are fine; it’s always cool to see a prince trying to gather an army and protect his kingdom from various enemy factions. It reminded me of a simpler Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The problem lies in how it was written in a very dry way since it was inspired by the famous contemporaries of that time (Conan the Barbarian, Erlic of Meliborne, Guin Saga) and as such it is a hard sale when it comes to a more modern audience. The storyboard planners didn’t adjust an anachronistic plot so it won’t be boring to Zoomers watch it.

As a result Arslan the protagonist comes off as the most boring character. Everybody around him is ten times more capable and interesting than he is. I understand that the show is the coming of age of a naïve prince, slowly becoming a capable king thanks to his interaction with all sorts of mentors. It still doesn’t make him an interesting lead. He’s completely worthless and passive to the most part, and even looks like a girl. Why does he even have so many loyal subjects? Ok, fine, he is the lawful heir to the throne, but in those chaotic times the moment you were showing weakness you were executed and the throne was taken by the strongest man available. The story is not plausible from the get-go because of that simple fact. In a more realistic scenario Arslan would be a puppet at the hands of his subjects, if not a decorative head on some pike.

Compare that lead to LOGH and FMA. You can never complain about the protagonists in those shows. They were capable, charismatic, and the story doesn’t begin with them being greenhorns. We saw how they improved in flashbacks and whatever happens in present time is the peak of their power. That’s what makes them compelling. To make an analogy, it’s as if you are watching Romance of the Three Kingdoms from the perspective of the Han emperor, a completely worthless ruler that was being manipulated by everyone. He sucks compared to every general and advisor around him, and that’s exactly what Arslan is in his own story.

Speaking of everybody else besides him, they are a fine bunch of cool guys and gals, each one usually specializing in some sort of skill. It’s ok as long as you see them as no more than rule of cool, but falls flat if you bring in a bit more realism. They are closer to the Avengers than masters of ancient warfare. It’s not like Romance of the Three Kingdoms had that much realism either; it’s just that it can be very immersion breaking when you are supposed to be watching historical events that happened in ancient Persia and everybody is breathing fire. I didn’t have this problem with LOGH, since that was taking place in the far future and most head scratching moments had to do with technology and physics that could be excused simply as futuristic science. In FMA it was a setting where everyone could use magic. Arslan has no such excuse. People fly and breathe fire in what is supposed to be our world.

Do you know what else LOGH and FMA didn’t have that Arslan does and can be very immersion breaking? CGI crowds! I can tolerate plastic looking cars or spaceships but not hundreds of Lego toys pretending to be fighting each other. It made everything fake looking and cheap; I didn’t care about anyone dying because of it.

I can go on bitching about a dozen other things, but you get the gist by now; it’s not a good show. It’s poorly animated, the protagonist is terrible, the plot is childish, and as a whole it was promoting itself as legendary when it’s just a throwaway mediocrity. Once again modern sucks and retro wins.

Review
Since my first years as a follower of the anime industry, I've seen many changes, many trends, many failures, and many successes. There were always, however, a constant growth in the fanbase, in the amount of shows released each season, in the neverending merchandise products produced every year.

Arslan Senki is a bit old. It takes us back to the very early 90's, when Tanaka Yoshiki's original work was adapted to a six-episode long OVA. Unlike his masterpiece, Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu, Arsland Senki was somewhat left to the sidelines, forgotten by old fans and unknown to all who came to appreciate japanese animation later.

There is, however, a certain air of nostalgia in this past ten years or so. While the school-based shows are still king in terms of audience and adaptations, some guys are trying to bring back values long lost, when flat-chested girls and cuteness were used to please children and not sexualized to reach teens and adults. Yamato 2199 made an effort to bring back a 40-year-old show and succeed with one of the most outstanding works of recent years. Kiseijuu was also crafted from an old treasure chest and was one of the best of its season. Now it is time for the forgotten Arslan Senki to made a return... can it succeed?

Arslan is a young prince, heir to the powerful kingdom of Pars, a land surrounded by enemies and threatened by eternal warfare and schemes. It is up to him to retake his kingdom when it falls to the hands of the enemy, leading a group of loyal friends, learning the hardships of ruling, and gathering an army strong enough to achieve his objective.

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1. The old was not reinvented
   Yamato 2199 and Kiseijuu were both old shows adapted to today's standard. They, however, had quite a deal of work on their narrative and even some changes on the script to make sure they fit the current standard. Those two were already superb pieces of their time, but they still needed some make up to stand in the current age.
   
   The people behind this rework of Arslan Senki, however, were only worried with making it look beautiful. They simply forgot to make it feel modern. The result is a show with random timeskips, a boring pace, unexciting character development, and of course, a narrator from ancient ages. Damn, people could learn one thing from Hunter x Hunter and NEVER, EVER use a generic narrator more than necessary. Anyway...
   
   It's a true medieval setting
   Arslan Senki's world is perhaps its main hero. It is a dark world, something insanely rare in the japanese industry, and it is filled with shady occurrences, scheming, betrayals, and fortunately no room for stupid generic modern lolis and busty girls. Well, yeah, you have the sexy priestress and the annoying bard, but they are more fit to an RPG party than to anime tropes, which is a good thing.
   
   Yet...
   Although the party and the setting try to be from a medieval fantasy world with middle-east inspiration, the ending result is something completely different. All of Arslan Senki has something of the eastern culture to it. The strategist, the strongest man of the world, a priestress that is weirdly similar to a typical miko, even Arslan behave more as a heir to a japanese dynasty than being a boy in the middle of a place inspired in the Holy Land. If you ever played a Dynasty Warriors game or saw works based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, well... there you have it: Lu Bu, Zhuge Liang, Zen Ji, and everyone else. Should I say this is one of the most overused setting of anything using medieval worlds in the eastern culture? Nah, everyone knows it by now.
   
   And it is ultimately boring even if it tries hard not to be
   There are many twists in Arslan Senki. Betrayers, foreign enemies, religious fanatics. There are many episodes, especially the early ones, where the show can get absurdly addicting, making you think this will be one hell of a ride. However, as the episodes go on everything start to feel dull, lifeless. The surprises by the tactician wear quickly, the Lu Bu guy is boring when not fighting, the time skips are terribly used, and...
   
   Arslan...
   He is boring, insanely boring. If the show was more about the violence of Daryun or the charm of Farangys, it could surpass the overall bland atmosphere and become something awesome. But when Arslan is the lead there is little hope to it. He inspires no confidence, he evolves zero even with everything happening around him, he is a frail boy that for some magic reason people flock to his side. "But oh, he is so good and generous!!" To hell with it, he must lead an army to WAR, his generosity can be explored so much before it transforms him in the dumbest leader of his world. Damn you Arslan.. you spoil what could've been much better... let's hope the next season transform you in some magical way.
   
   You can watch for its quality though
   Despite Arslan being a chicken and the narrative turning an epic tale into a boring presentation, Arslan Senki boasts an amazing production quality. The art style remind me of Full Metal Achemist, the color palatte is amazing and one of the rare cases where it fits the dark world it presents, the animation is also top notch when needed, and everything else is backed by an epic soundtrack that only fails in the later part because few things could be done at that point. Add that to a solid voice acting and you have one more of those shows that are amazingly well done but fail to deliver the epicnes it proposes.
   

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Comments
Sadly, Arslan Senki fall short of doing what it could've done. Tanaka Yoshiki's masterpiece, Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu, shared many of the shortcommings that we can see here, but there it was saved by a depth that was truly explored, by timeskips that were smartly inserted, and by protagonists that were truly outstanding. When you don't have that, what you are left with is just a boring show that tries to reach epic proportions with the wrong tools.

If only Arslan was an interesting guy, this could've reached the higher echelon of the few medieval fantasy shows around. But well... that is not the case. Join that with a world that seems interesting on the paper but feels as something we are all tired to see and you have just another failed attempt at the genre.

Anyway, considering these last few seasons, fans of medieval fantasy can at least see many average or above average works of this kind. Arslan may not join the very top, but it is also not part of the low area.