Anime: Ragna Crimson

The first episode, with double length, is worth watching. The main characters and their relationship are more complex than in typical action shounen. The cliché "work hard" is disparaged, and winning a fight doesn't bring joy. It's the only episode written and directed by the series' director.

After that, it's at best a run-the-mill modern action shounen. The comedy scenes are awful. Gore and torture scenes are meant to add depth. The scenario gradually turns to convoluted fights. A peculiarity is that, for some time, every episode adds a new ingredient: slimes, machine guns, time alteration, memory wiping, doppelgangers... It's a bloody mess. For fans only.

Definitely underrated. The story is great, the writing in general seemed mostly good. Some animations are a bit wonky here and there but it never looks cheap. The fights are great, the twists are great. There isn't much to criticize, I thought from the ones I have seen seen this is probably the best Action Fantasy show this season.

The manga behind it is good, but the anime adaption is extremely hampered by lack of budget and attention. If you like the first episode, do yourself a favor and stop there and read the manga instead. It's faithful, but too lazy to effectively get across the original narrative intent and setpieces.

This feels very familiar yet very exciting. A modern shounen series with clear & exciting aspects, amazing MCs, and overall great premise.

On top of that it has good production quality. I def didn't expect this season top (in its category) to be this one.

Unfortunately it drags A TON in the end. It's the series that you glad it has a long season, but, they ended up just taking too long. I don't care about the protags' sob story, or "battle of attrition" since bullshit always happen anyway.