Review of To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts
tl;dr: A solid start with an interesting premise and unique setting, but a major decline in writing quality as it progresses. Due to various economic circumstances, the nation of Patricia broke out into a Civil War. The north created fearsome beast like super soldiers known as Incarnates in order to win the war. However, after that the Incarnates returned to their homes still possessing their tremendous powers. Furthermore, they all seemed to be ticking time bombs destined to lose their humanity and go on rampages. As such, the government decided to eliminate all Incarnates. Hank, the former captain of the Incarnates and one of the most powerful,plays a key part in that as he travels the nation hunting down problematic Incarnates. This quest ultimately brings him to kill the father of Schaal, who swears revenge upon him. However, she quickly discovers that the situation is more complex than she thought and that Hank is facing his own inner conflicts while carrying out his mission. She begins following him on his journey hoping to come to a better understanding of what is going on and why it must be the way it is. However, the vice captain of the Incarnates, Cain, is organizing the Incarnates to resist their impending demise with plans to reignite the flames of war.
The first episode and the second somewhat are a prologue that helps set this premise up, but after that it focuses on Hank and Schaal going to confront various Incarnates. I felt that this was when the anime was at it’s best. The insanity of each Incarnate is based on their own trauma’s and complexes and the writing does a pretty good job of conveying the nuances to how those result in them taking the extreme actions they do. In a way this is like an extremely exaggerated look at PTSD and other issues that soldiers often face when they return from battlefields. I wouldn’t say it’s easy to sympathize with them, but the core message that the anime is trying to convey of them being human being trying their best to live and not just mindless monsters is conveyed very clearly. Alongside that, it does a pretty good job of fleshing out Hank and Schaal’s characters and showing slow but steady character growth in Schaal.
As the story progresses the anime begins focusing more and more on an overarching plot regarding Cain and his Incarnate rebellion. I felt the story surrounding him was very weak, and thus the anime gets much weaker towards the end. The first issue is that it’s written incredibly bizarrely. Cain actually does seem to have a point that could be thought of as reasonable: that it was completely unfair that the government had turned them into Incarnates and used them to win the war, but now that them becoming Incarnates was making them hard to deal with the government was simply trying to get rid of them all. So there actually was a lot of potential to write a good villain with depth.
However, for some reason the writing completely glosses over that and instead just tries to make him and everyone on his side cartoon villains. This results in a story completely lacking in any complexity. I also felt that pretty much all the parts focused on him had a noticeable drop in writing quality. The pacing felt slower than it should have been. Despite that, characters changing motivations and emotional states weren’t properly developed. The ending is also at a point that’s pretty in the middle of things plot wise so it’s not a very satisfying point to end on, though the final battle was pretty great.
The art and animation are pretty good. The action isn’t especially amazing, but it’s pretty solid. I also really liked the aesthetic of the series overall. It draws heavily from Civil War era America, though with some steampunk elements. And the Incarnates are based on monsters and such from all sorts of western mythologies and literature. But even beyond that I really liked the character designs in general and the general design principles in regards to how it handled things like faces which gave it a pretty unique look. The soundtrack also worked really well and was quite epic at times. The OP is also pretty great in terms of the song and visuals. The ED is decent in both regards.