Review of The Outcast Season 1

It seems like everyone forgot that another anime about psychics existed that isn’t called Mob Psycho 100. This time it’s a Chinese-Japanese led project fulfilling our dreams of being able to called this anime a Chinese cartoon. OK all jokes aside this series does have something interesting to offer as it incorporates both martial arts and psychic powers to give us a predominantly action focused show. ***Note I’ll be using the translated names as I watched the Japanese dubbed version with English subtitles.*** The start of this show at one point led me to think that it was another zombie apocalypse show like High School of theDead but only to realise that certain people can manipulate the corpses freely. Our main protagonist Chou Soran in the dead of night, is making a visit to his grandfather’s grave only to find himself in a precarious situation with the moving corpses. Out of nowhere, he is saved in mesmerising fashion from a powerful women called Jo Houhou who is talented in every way possible. This is the first encounter between the main duo who later find themselves attending the same college, only to the dismay of Soran who was semi-traumatised from the earlier meeting.

Chou Soran is then made to be subservient to Houhou, after getting his ass handed to him while retaliating at the thought of being obedient to her. She then leads him to an organisation called the Express Delivery Company who are pretty much composed of psychics called ‘Outsiders’. The abilities between individuals vary from super strength, manipulating the elements to controlling the mental state of people through their emotions. The Express Delivery Company’s main objective is to act as the police for these outsiders who are a minority but nevertheless still need to be monitored to avoid engaging in criminal activity. This makes sense as the regular police would get battered by attempting to deal with the psychics, so it’s only natural that the Government made a subdivision to respond to these situations.

There are other groups who inhabit these individuals such as Zensei and Tengekai. The former is just a random collection of users with similar interests. They are the first group to provoke our main duo when it is revealed that they have possession of something close to Soran. The group are just bizarre and uncoordinated when they have a little kid in charge, a woman whose lust knows no bounds and some black guy (not race-wise) whose has no purpose despite having many cameos. Tengekai are more interesting as they at least have a proper hierarchy in place with its bureaucratic rules. The magnanimous leader of the organisation directly tries to recruit Soran, when it is known that he has acquired psychic abilities from a young age. His abilities obviously matured as he grew up around the presence of his grandfather who was a well-respected individual.

The characters in this show are not impressive by any standards when they don’t have any unique selling points. Chou Soran resembles another shounen protagonist who tries to get past every obstacle through sheer power, only to realise its futile when facing much stronger outsiders who have fully mastered their powers. He doesn’t really have any motivation whatsoever when all he thinks about is wanting a nice girlfriend, lamenting the fact that he is useless in that department. The girlfriend he desired for so long does happen only for events to change drastically.

Jo Houhou at first looks like another monotone girl and is a mirror for reflecting dreariness. The only time she shows any emotion is being violent towards Soran which is a feature found in most tsunderes but thankfully she does not follow that archetype. Her actions make me cringe at times when it feels like everything she does is robotic; to the point she is just a yes-man. The supporting cast of Jo San and Jo Yon don’t really offer much as they are insistent on abiding by the rules of the company. They do participate in battles alongside the main duo but do not get sufficient characterisation for me to talk about them adequately.

This art style/animation aspect is something I wanted to avoid because it is obvious that it will end up being me giving a scathing attack on it, hence sounding like a diatribe. The animation is not comparable to the anime produced in Japan when series from a decade ago have similar or in fact better production values. There were instances when the fights looked visually appealing, through good usage of special effects but it did look choppy at times with the in-between animation needing further improvements. The colour scheme used throughout the show is very basic but does it job when trying to complement the appropriate background such as the countryside in rural China. The only information on the staff of this show is that Komatsu Arisa was the colour designer. I really hope someone updates the key staff involved.

The sound here is quite lacklustre with nothing of the soundtrack being memorable or worth noting to the point it is just abysmal. Good thing, the sound staff are confidential which makes it difficult to expose them for their average work. The opening and ending have been dubbed over and were quite the delight to listen to if that means anything. The voice actors used in this show aren’t household names here in the anime community. The man who voiced Ayato from Asterix War is back to offer his voice for a complementary dull protagonist, truly befitting one must say. The wonderful voice of Hayami Saori is back, this time for Houhou which is a good match for her easy sounding speech patterns/mannerisms.

This series is not really a must watch in any category and is a very average show at best with mediocre production values. I would probably give it more attention if the production committee put more dedication into it.