Anime: Slap Up Party: Arad Senki

For all you RPG lovers out there, this anime is for you… well sorta…

Animation
The great thing about RPG/fantasy genre anime is that there is a lot of exploring, be it dungeons, cities, forests, worlds, etc., the viewer is able to witness different levels of creativity and Slap Up Party is no exception. Slap Up Party is true to the main concept of an RPG anime/game, which is exploration. This anime introduces the viewer to countless new cities and landscapes that allows the animators to be visually artistic.

The art style on the characters was great as well. The details drawn for each character was realistic and wasn’t blown out of proportion. For example, animators tend to go over board with males, always showing them as body builders on steroids. By far is this the best category to Slap Up Party.

I guess the only complaint I had for this category was the lack of blood. Anytime blood was warranted, either 3 things happened… 1) camera will shy away, 2) no blood shown… only the wound or 3) minor blood is shown. For me, blood is an important aspect to a RPG genre anime.

Other than that, the animation is solid. I felt that I was in a fantasy world because a lot of time was invested into the animation for this anime.

Sound
There are 2 different kinds of OPs and EDs. The OPs are average… both of them; however, I really enjoyed the 1st ED. The ED that has the 1985 Nintendo graphics and simple lyrics. I guess that reminds me of the days when I played RPGs back in the day.

The music in the anime was ok, nothing too exciting. What I found really funny, was that some of the sound effects, came from a 90s version of Gundam. Not only that, but some of the other sound effects sounded like I heard them in older anime series, like stuff that took place in the 90s or early 2000s. But overall, sound is good and does not take anything away from Slap Up Party.

Story
This anime is about a swordsman Baron (main male lead) and how he unexpectedly got a curse on his body. He goes on a journey to find a cure and along the way, makes friends and those friends join him on his journey. The curse deforms the body either slightly or noticeably, so its not just Baron that has this curse.

The beginning of this anime is great… this is when I truly felt like I was watching a RPG/fantasy anime, because Baron does a lot of exploring and people join his party and new characters are introduced to the plot. However, the middle of the plot/anime kinda deviated from its roots, showing filler episodes. I didn’t mind having a few filler episodes, but the entire middle section of this anime were filler episodes, so it kinda got boring after the 4th or 5th straight filler episode. The ending got more serious and back to the RPG/fantasy feel.

If it weren’t for the middle section of this anime, Slap Up Party would have been awesome, instead… the plot is good but not great.

On a side note, even though the anime ended happily, I wanted to see if a love relationship would pick up, because one of the girls started to fall in love with one of the guys, but nothing was shown after the last fight… kinda like nothing was going on between the two which for one side (the girls’ side) it was.

Characters
For once there weren’t any annoying characters or at least I thought so.

Baron – Swordsman that goes on a journey to look for a cure for his cursed arm. He makes friends on his journey and those friends join his party. Baron is a very serious guy and a great swordsman.

Ryunmei – She is a martial artist that is found in an underground fighting arena in the hopes of training to become stronger and to improve her martial arts. Baron meets Ryunmei here and it’s shortly after that these 2 team up.

Cabensis – Gunman that has great accuracy and a lady’s man… or tries to be. This guy is the funny guy cause we all know there is always a funny guy in every RPG group.

Ixia – Mage that at first wants to be alone due to bad experiences with other people, but warms up to Baron and the others.

When all 4 of these guys group up, it’s really fun how they get along. There really isn’t the annoying character that always complains about things, because each of them are going with the flow. Of course, each of these main characters do have their different personalities, but how these different personalities mesh is really well done.

Value
After watching the first or maybe two episodes for Slap Up Party, I was hooked and addicted to this anime. As mentioned, if it wasn’t for the filler episodes in the middle part of this anime, this would have been a solid must watch, but because there are filler episodes, this is still good. The animation is refreshing to watch because of all the exploration that takes place not to mention how all the characters really go well together.

Enjoyment
I enjoyed this series a lot. It’s one of those anime titles that you take a chance on because not many people have watched it and hope for the best. Well in this case, that chance worked out for me, because I enjoyed what I watched and wish there was a 2nd season.

Conclusion
If you are a RPG fan, then try this out. The one thing I can say about this version of an RPG is that it was intended for the younger audience (teenage years). In the end, this is a SOLID RECOMMENDATION.