Review of The Heroic Legend of Arslan
If you've seen Yona of the Dawn and Tales of the Abyss you'd have a pretty good handle on how this story plays out. One thing that's different about either of those shows is that the main character isn't intensely unlikable in the first episode. The King and Queen are rather cold toward our Prince and indeed seem to ignore most of the time. He tries to live up to their expectations and do the right thing (which isn't always the same thing), which is a nice bend on the genre of deposed royalty trying to regain power. Another strong point of this anime isthat he actually LISTENS to his advisors to not do stupid, crazy things like charge at the head of an army because he will be killed (he really would).
The anime is nondescript. There is a lot of CGI when there are massive battles, but raging about that is a losing battle (heh). At least it gives you an idea of scope instead of just really close up still motion fights with lots of yelling.
What loses points for me is the worldbuilding was imperfect. Throughout the first...12 episodes of the anime it looked as if there was no overt magic aside from the generic "legends and prophecies" stuff they generally have in fantasy stories. Suddenly there's a guy who can teleport anywhere and attack. Then we find out that one of the main group is protected by a god and can calmly walk into a hail of arrows and none will touch her...and so can the person she designates.
Tension broken. At this point I'm just trying to reshape how the world looks and operates. It's a bit like if you're watching a noire detective story and suddenly aliens show up in the middle of it. Yes, you could have both a mystery and aliens, but it's kinda startling to have ZORG from BLXKSLJF be part of the mystery in the final few chapters. No, I don't accept it.
Also, the bad guy also has some Bond villain level of stupidity. He's on the cusp of winning or killing someone twice and goes "Eeeeh, no. It's not 'the right time' or 'you aren't scared of me enough' and just...DOESN'T KILL THEM. WHY?
This is lazy writing.
The other thing I hated about this anime was the sound engineering. I watching the anime and someone started to pound on the drums. The sound mixing was jarring, the sound of each drum began and ended fairly sharply, as if it wasn't an actual drum but a midi file being played in a loop and not properly overlapping the next one. That may seem minor compared to the rest but it really was jarring and distracting when the sound doesn't come together.
In the end, I'd say it's not worth watching yet as the second season isn't complete yet and there's no telling how silly this will go, but once the second season is out it might be interesting to see. The main character is a white hat who is supposedly not very good at fighting but is able to survive all battles as an untried warrior with no major injuries at all and has a near-invincible guardian who shows up at all times to save him.