Review of 7 Seeds

Amateur is the word of the day. This show could have been great, had it only come out a decade ago, when its concept was fresh and original. But in this day and age, with so many shows holding similar storylines and executing much better, 7 Seeds simply looks amateur. A masterpiece can build suspense and drama by feeding misinformation to the audience and even the characters, an amateur production on the other half, stumbles to do so properly, making twists look like retcons and story-beats seem meaningless, random, and at worse poorly thought through. Yet somehow, I was not able to stop watching this show tothe bitter end, when I caught myself shouting in exhasperation as its first (and likely only) season ended not with a bang, nor a whisper; not even a cliffhanger, but instead a dead cut in the middle of a scene. No build-up, no send-off, no tease of anything else to come. Just a sudden and abrupt sense of meaningless finality. But it didn't have to be that way.

It is clear there is both passion and talent behind this show. Its platform is big, and its source material is not half-bad. It was just that the talent on board was not capable of pulling through with their vision. It was painfully clear at several times that a more experienced director could have done wonders with the effort the art team put into painting and animating, but with the shoddy editing and framing of an amateur, all that effort went to waste. The same could be said for the work of the voice-actors, not only in japanese, but also in english and spanish, which really brought life to the characters, or at least as much as the rigid script and tactless direction allowed them to.

If Carole & Tuesday from the same season was a passion project helmed by a beloved and trustworthy star, making the best of the talent and resources at his disposal, then 7 Seeds is the first shot at a serious production from an amateur director who didn't know what to do despite the backing of his staff and producer. My only hope is that this amateur can come back for a second round after listening to the (likely too harsh) criticism of his work, so that he can prove himself and make things right for the source material he now represents.