Review of The Heroic Legend of Arslan

I'll be honest, I was somewhat reluctant to watch this show. I had just finished the amazing show known as Akatsuki no Yona (Yona of the Blushing Dawn) and was not particularly interested in watching another, probably not as amazing, show of similar genre and plot. In the end, I'm glad I watched it though. It's certainly not the most perfect of shows, but it definitely had it's high points. So, ladies and gentlemen, here is my opinion of the show Arslan Senki, aka The Heroic Legend of Arslan. Story: 8 The plot of this show was surprisingly satisfying. Yeah, it hadmany similarities to Akatsuki no Yona, but so did Zankyou no Terror (Terror in Resonance) to Death Note, and I still enjoyed that show despite the fact. While at first it may seem like any other story that we've seen thousands of times before, what sets it apart is where they take that plot. Other than the bare base of it, the show ended up being very different from AnY, which is why I was glad I didn't skip over it. The use of strategy blended with epic action provided an excellent presentation of the art of war. It was different enough to keep it interesting, but also familiar enough so that it almost felt nostalgic, like a storybook one would read as a child. And while I was a little bored in the beginning, as the series progressed I could feel myself becoming more and more invested and interested, to the point where I just couldn’t wait for the next episode to come out.
The only reason I didn’t give the story a 9 was because at times the battles seemed too perfect. I mean, when you have an expert strategist so all of your plans go perfectly and a warrior who might as well have been a Greek god, what more could a prince want? Throw in a couple other amazing fighters to the gang, and you’ve got the most convenient team of all time. Now sometimes this set up can work; just look at No Game, No Life. But unfortunately, Arslan Senki doesn’t pull this off as gracefully as No Game. While I was certainly enjoying the show, tension just wasn’t part of that enjoyment.

Art: 5
I’m going to give you one name to encompass my feeling of the character designs in this show: Arakawa Hiromu. Don’t recognize the name? Perhaps you’ll recognize her as the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist then? Yes, the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist designed the characters for this show, so of course they’re fabulous and gorgeous. They’re colorful and interesting to look at and simply wonderful. Of course I’d expect nothing less from Arakawa-sensei. The only negative thing I can think of is that Arslan looks kinda girly, but hey, little details.
So you may be asking yourself why I gave Art a 5 when here I am singing the praises of the design. Well, I’ll tell you. The animation. It. Was. BAAAAAD. Okay, BAAAAAD may be an exaggeration, but it was definitely not good. The movements were stiff and jumpy and unnatural, and watching those horses move physically hurt me. Now, I won’t fault them too much for horses because they are one of the trickiest animals in existence to animate, and finding a well animated horse in an anime is a rather rare sight. What I will fault them for is the CG. The horrible, horrible CG. In my eyes, CG should mostly be used on non-living things: cars, magic and effects, and other inanimate objects. Sadly, that’s not what animation studios use it for. They use it for things like monsters and large crowds of people, living things in other words. And looking at what they’ve given me, I’ve decided for myself that living things simply move too complexly and noticeably for CG to animate and still make it look natural within the rest of the series. Arslan Senki essentially did everything I DON’T want studios to do when they use CG. Not only did they use it on large crowds of complexly moving, fighting warriors, they had the gall to give us up-close shots of horrendous CG warrior faces as they awkwardly jerked around. Not even the beauty of Arakawa Hiromu’s creations could fix the terror that was the animation. Everything about it just screamed “low-budget” which is a real shame indeed.

Sound: 7
I’m a little conflicted over the opening and ending tracks. The songs themselves were great; I mean, you can never go wrong with NICO Touches the Walls (Hologram - OP 2 of FMA: Brotherhood) or Kalafina (Magia - ED of Madoka Magica), but I wonder just how well these songs really fit with the show. I mean, I guess they work, but sometimes I couldn’t help but feel like the creators just said to themselves, “Hey! These bands are popular! If we use their music, we’re sure to get views!” The only song I really felt went well with the series was the first ending, Lapis Lazuli by Aoi Eir, and then halfway through the series it was… well… replaced. As for the OST, it was pretty standard, though I will admit that it fit the show much more naturally than the OP and ED. It’s got your classic “we’re off to war!” epic battle music with lots of horns and brass, but nothing that really stands out from the ordinary. Then again, do you really want the OST to stand out all that much? It did its job, and it did it fairly well, so I’m not going to fault it for that.
As far as voice acting goes, Arslan Senki is pretty average in that regard as well. The voices fit the characters well, but they seem kind of… how to put it… flat. There just wasn’t a whole lot of variety to how the actors said their lines. One character would always sound like he’s shouting while another always sounds sassy while another always sounds apathetic while another always sounds growly. This made the characters themselves seem kinda two-dimensional, which is hardly a good thing. Then again, this isn’t exactly uncommon in the majority of anime out there. Does that make it forgivable? Maybe for some, but for me? Not really.

Characters: 7
As I said about 5 sentences ago, the voice acting puts a damper on the characters themselves. They seem kind of flat whenever they talk, like their manner of speech is their most defining feature. However, this is partially made up for by the writing. Throughout the course of the show, some of the major characters get their share of development, and you begin to care for them after a certain point. There’re two major problems here, though. One: only some of the characters get developed. The others are just kind of… there. There’s nothing wrong with them as a character, but we just haven’t been given a reason to really care about them yet. We get a bit of that in the sequel, Fuujin Ranbu, but this isn’t a review of the sequel, now is it? The second problem is the delay. You don’t really begin to become interested in the characters until a few episodes in, which makes the beginning a little slow. I think you’re supposed to like Arslan from the beginning, but even with him it takes a while to see what he’s really made of. As far as characters go as a whole, they’re enjoyable enough, but it’s a slow burn before you get to the real meat.

Enjoyment: 7
I’m the kind of watcher that can forgive a lot of sins so long as the plot and characters are good, because that is where my main enjoyment comes from. Arslan Senki was a show I was really quite interested in, but even with my forgiving nature there was too much blatantly wrong with it to fully immerse myself in the experience. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it; however, if it wasn’t for the underwhelming character portrayals and horrific CG, I might have enjoyed this show much, much more.

Overall: 7
You can tell that this show has a very solid foundation (if you didn’t know, the show is based off a very successful novel series) and a whole lot of potential. What’s a shame is that it just didn’t have the resources necessary to fully realize this potential. What we did get, however, wasn’t terrible; I’m sure the common anime watcher will have little problem deriving enjoyment from this show. Is it a masterpiece? Unfortunately, no. Is it still good? You bet.

(A note on my ranking scale: My average anime score is 7. This is because I rate on quality and enjoyment, not in comparison to other works. A 5 would be something I was completely indifferent to, and since I somewhat enjoy most shows I watch, my average is 7)