Soul Buster???...more like Eye Sore! Plot-wise, it's a really simple Fate stay night plotline of "evil masters wants to kill the main protagonists with their servants" and "main protagonists tries to defend and defeat them"...sure there's character development but the plot seems more focused on their one-note fights than the character development themselves. Yeah, the main protagonists Shin Son, Yu Shuu and Un Ryou and Yi Barin do "get" what little character development they get but they shape more to their Fate stay night counterparts only in lesser detail. *Shin Son = Emiya Shirou only MUCH worse *Yu Shuu = Saber, only her development and backstory is rushedlike hell, but it can be excusable due to it being an anime short.
*Un Ryou = Rin Tohsaka, but less tsundere more "The Ace".
*Yi Barin = Probably the only character not taken from a Fate stay night archetype.

And yes because of that, their investment are quickly resolved through a battle and due to the length of the anime episodes (10 minutes each) or LA has NO investment to them and no, it's not because of it being rushed, the characters are this bland and ripoff-ed LA just didn't care. Plot-wise investments is even worse as the anime has little respite to it's own characters (and thus the audience) in development and plot, it's exposition is all over the place and cares more about it's eyesore of battles Soul Buster entails.

The minor characters are MUCH worse as LA's biggest problem is that there is one character by the name of Hakuanshi who is essentially the main antagonist of this anime short and he essentially brings nearly EVERY SINGLE HEAVY MOOK enemy towards the main heroes and yes, they are all servants, thus we don't even get to know the enemies/Chinese famous figures besides what their "special powers" are, it gets even worse when we get to the even smaller minor characters like the School Nurse, who comes in for one or two episodes then disappears for the rest of the anime...WHAT WAS THE POINT OF ADDING HER!?!??!!.

Really it's kinda troubling when you have an anime with LOTS of characters and you can't even remember the main villains NAME.

The animation was LA's biggest gripe in the anime, the animation is stock filled with MULTIPLE "stylistic choices" from colorful ink splots during battle scenes and mostly used when swords/ultimate attacks clash, shadows having this "woody" texture all throughout the anime, SHAKY CAM and dual to tri "shaky afterimages" outside and inside of battles...do you see the major problem with this setup?. The animation outside of all this is ok at best, however with these in place, makes the animation UNBEARABLE to watch, they put too much focus on these after-effects more than seeing the somewhat decent animation. Soul Buster really didn't need to do this and if it's for stylistic choice, they failed. It felt more or less they saw that SHAFT did these things, yet they utterly failed to realize that SHAFT used those in-tandem to it's plot and symbolism, they are also not in your face with these animation flairs, Soul Buster however is ENTIRELY in your face saying "LOOK HOW COLORFUL AND ALL OVER THE PLACE, ALL IN YOUR FACE THE ANIMATION IS". There's a fine line between stylistic and annoying. No joke, by Episode 10, LA got a headache by the combination of all four stylistic effects in one big battle lasting almost 5 minutes. The animation is that misguided that it caused LA to get a headache!?!?!??!. LA thought Qualidea Code had inconsistent animation, but Studio Pierrot for this stunt of an eyesore is SOOO MUCH WORSE.

Soul Buster, plot-wise is just another Fate stay night story just substitute them with ancient Chinese figures than the global scale Fate stay night does, the plot follows many of the plot beats nearly plot for point even to their main characters. But what becomes to the worst aspect of Soul Buster and what COULD have been an "average" score instead being nearly "HORRIBLE" is the misguided and in your face animation.

The ending really never resolves itself due to how little the main heroes has done and yes LA gets it, it's anime short, if they wanted to resolve the entire plot in a 10 minute x 13 episode timeframe it would be impossible, or rushed as hell, but still, the ending left completely open ended and worst yet, it felt like the main characters accomplished little to nothing by the end of it because of their rushed character development and coincidental incidents that leads them to the ending they got.

Soul Buster falls under the "the scenery is trying too hard to the point of being aggressively annoying more than the lackluster story" or "scenery chews the story more than the character themselves".

Soul Buster your drunk, go sit on the worst animation of 2016 corner!