Review of The Heroic Legend of Arslan

Spoilers and a lot of them. Read with caution. How do you tell a good story? What defines a bad story? Who is the audience and what is the message of your story? These are questions an author must face when writing his story – the author must answer all of these questions beforehand in order to tell his story in an understandable way. I believe that every story, no matter what medium or genre it is in, needs a core message – a message that the audience can understand – that is, undoubtedly, what tells a good story from a bad one. We’re all familiar withdifferent stories; we’ve read, seen and heard countless of stories; stories that spark interest and evoke certain feelings and emotions.

It is commonly known that suspension of disbelief is something of very important nature in your story as it sets an accent and makes the audience immersed in your story. Suspension of disbelief plays a core role in your story and it truly connects the audience with the story you are trying to tell – the audience is able to follow the hero on his journey, without questioning the plausibility of events taking place.

One of the most popular structures used in storytelling is the three-act-structure. This divides the story in three acts. The first act is the expository act, where it introduces the necessary characters, establishes the protagonist, plot points and conflicts. A story needs a conflict. If there is no conflict, there is no meaningful story that conveys any sort of message to the audience. The second act is usually when the protagonist faces an issue and has to resolve it, only to make the situation worse. They usually make the situation worse by not having the required skillset in order to face the antagonist of the story. The third act is where the story ultimately comes to an end with a resolution, answering all questions and hopefully leaving the audience with a somewhat comprehendible message.

However, just by following the three-act-structure, won’t make your story good. In fact, it won’t. What you also have to account for is the way you’re telling the story. What are the stakes? What is the urgency? There has to also be some clever setups where they clearly pay off later on. These are all the things that distinguish a good story from a bad one.

How exactly is this related to Arslan Senki?

To be frank, Arslan Senki does attempt in telling a story – a story that we’ve already seen, read and heard in other mediums – though, it does it in its own unique fashion. I’m fairly certain that anyone who isn’t new to television, movies, books, anime and manga has at the very least heard of a similar story told in Arslan Senki. Arslan Senki tells us – the audience – a story about a young prince that is about to face the hardships of war. It does so by properly establishing Arslan as the protagonist and that he is whose journey we are going to follow. He is a kind and sweet prince, and searches for validation and love from his parents. His parents are the rulers of the kingdom Pars – a kingdom ruled by the tyrant Andragoras the third. Andragoras is famous for his relentless war tactics and is said to never have a lost a war. That is until another neighbor kingdom – Luisitania who are primarily known for their religiosity – declare a war with Pars and Andragoras. Thus begins the war in which our prince Arslan has to fight for the honor of his kingdom and deem himself a worthy prince and the future ruler of Pars. Unfortunately for Pars, the outcome of the war was already decided before the war ever began. The king of Pars was betrayed by one of his most loyal men and Pars ultimately lost the battle against Luisitania. Arslan’s duty now is to reclaim his kingdom.

I was excited by this premise only to be disappointed by the lackluster and generic execution of core elements in storytelling and world building. I’m actually a huge fan of these types of stories, namely Prince of Persia and other works of fiction alike. Other similar works have stakes, betrayal, strategies, realism and many other key factors which make them good. Arslan Senki did have some of these factors but none of them were particularly executed well. One thing these stories have in common is that they all introduce a sense of urgency. For example, in Prince of Persia – this sense of urgency is that the prince has to rescue the princess. This is a great way to drive your story in a natural way – the audience – knows what the end goal is, and know that it has to be done as soon as possible. The audience knows that there are stakes, being princess’ life among other things. You get to see how the protagonist struggles before he reaches that point.

Arslan Senki falls short almost immediately after Pars has lost the battle against Luisitania. Arslan knows that they’ve lost the war, he saw it with his own eyes. He saw many of his men die during the war. He was almost killed by a traitor himself. He’s left with nothing; a lost war and anyone in his midst can be a traitor. This is exactly what was interesting. Arslan then got rescued by Daryun, one of the most powerful warriors in the kingdom of Pars.

This is the turning point of Arslan Senki and how the story collapsed. After Daryun rescued Arslan, we are introduced many anew and interesting characters. Though, it is to say that many of these characters are questionable. I was raising my eyebrows most of the time because, figuratively speaking, any of these new characters like Gieve, Falangies and Narsus could be traitors. What have they done to earn trust and respect from Arslan or Daryun? They haven’t done anything except sworn on their name that they will be loyal. Unfortunately, this was not the case as the aforementioned characters and others are loyal to the point of unhealthiness. This obviously includes Daryun as well. I do understand that eras of kings and queens had some of the most loyal people but there was a fair amount of treason and betrayal.

That is not entirely the reason why Arslan Senki was bad. The problem wasn’t their loyalty, the problem was in the character themselves. They came off mostly as one-dimensional. Something that has been discussed and debated in storytelling is how certain stories come off. Let me elaborate – is weak characters and a strong plot or weak plot and strong characters better? This is an interesting question as talented writers and classics have strong characters and a strong plot and that’s generally what you should aim for. However, Arslan Senki has weak plot and weak characters which is exactly what makes, at least in my eyes, a mediocre work of fiction. But I digress. Characters were one-dimensional to the point of being unrealistic. Each character was good at everything, whether it be strategies, fights, or even talking. This is exactly what made characters feel one-dimensional and almost gave them the feeling of being demigods in a sense. It is never shown how any of these characters are ever in a life or death situation, it is never shown to us or even explained in the slightest bit as to why all of the characters possess the skills they do. Not to mention the leniency of the protagonist.

Let’s examine Narsus - the genius tactician who is able to win any fight without any effort at all. He seamlessly has flawless strategies and always seems to find a way to win any battle. He is the epitome of atrocious writing, mainly because when you introduce such a character to your story, almost all tension is gone. And to a certain degree, this is exactly what happens throughout the show. No matter what happens, or what you’re shown, it always succumbs to Narsus’ great tactics and flawless strategies. Essentially it means that you as a viewer not need to care about any of the battles or the war itself.

Likewise, we have Daryun who is able to defeat hundreds of men without getting a scratch on his armor. Daryun - just like Narsus - will never lose a fight. And even when Daryun is about to lose, he always seems to find his way through in the last second. My main concern for this isn’t how powerful Daryun is portrayed to be, it’s just the fact that he never gets hurt and even when he does, it’s never too serious or something you should worry about. What was said about Narsus can be said about Daryun.

We also have Gieve. I’d be lying to myself if I said Gieve is a bad character, he was the most enjoyable out of the bunch. Gieve is interesting because he’s barely given any backstory and sort of remains as a mysterious figure. His jokes and the way he interacts with Falangies is hilarious for most part. His entire character introduction was hilarious as we got to know that Gieve’s only intentions in life is to get money and to get girls who can reward him. Gieve is said to be, by himself of course, someone who can excellently challenge various weapon masteries, is a musical artist of sorts and enjoys poetry. This is for most part true and he is similar to Narsus and Daryun. We’re also shown his excellent bowman skills early on. The underlying problem of Gieve is that he’s lucky. He always seems to find a way to avoid problematic situations. It is also never explained why he decides to help Arslan in the first place. At first, he seems reluctant and is only accompanying Arslan because Falangies is there, however, as the “plot” progresses, Gieve starts helping Arslan and their team more and more. This is questionable because of the way Gieve was introduced. It sort of conflicts with his initial character introduction, whereas he was introduced as someone who could care less about people to someone who is ready to help Arslan and even give his life. This mistake was realized and Gieve was then removed from Arslan’s team. Arslan banished Gieve because Gieve was fighting characters that we really don’t care about. This choice is rather questionable but is somewhat explained. You see, it was Narsuss’ plan all along. He was planning to send Gieve to find something rather interesting, which we – the audience – don’t know about just yet.

Falangies…. Where do I even begin? Falangies is one of the, if not the, most atrocious character in the series. She doesn’t really have a reason to help Arslan in the first place and when she’s introduced, that’s exactly what she even says. She said that she was a maiden of whatever place and was sent off to help Arslan in achieving whatever he wants to achieve. She said that it was someone’s wish that she’d help Arslan and that's why she’s there. Evidently, she has the same problems as Narsus, Daryun and Gieve; she is good at everything. She always shows up at the right time, at the right moment, just then and there to help Arslan. Falangies also has massive pair of [redacted] which means that she’s just there for fan-service.

If there was someone who could singlehandedly ruin and remove all the enjoyment from Arslan Senki, it’d be Arslan himself. Quite ironic, isn’t it? As for the other characters that are good at everything, Arslan isn’t. In fact Arslan can’t even do half of what his demigod friends can and this is his issue. He’s useless. Instead of giving more fuel to the fire and developing Arslan in a natural way, Arslan barely changes throughout the story except for maybe the two last episodes. Other characters in the series, do not change or develop in any way either. How can these characters not grow when they’re exposed to war, death, and treachery among other things on a daily basis? How or why do all the other characters like Daryun, Narsus and Falangies believe in Arslan? This is a question that has been answered numerous times in Arslan Senki, albeit very vague. They all seem to share the same misconception of Arslan having the power of changing the world because he’s progressive. He has a progressive agenda. He thinks it’s bad to own slaves. He doesn’t believe in royalty, aristocracy, instead he believes in democracy to some degree. The concept of democracy isn’t new and it wasn’t created yesterday. It is shown that Arslan truly believes in “all people are equal” though he contradicts himself by wanting to become the king of Pars and rule that kingdom. He thinks it’s bad to own slaves but never expresses why it’s bad to own slaves. He just wants to free them. Why? Well, because all people are equal… This sort of circular logic is not exclusive to Arslan’s character only.

Considering that the story is set around 320 AD, I am most certain that no great leader would be that progressive. Slaves were used in manual labor but aside from that fact, they could be employed at highly skilled jobs. Some slaves were even highly educated, if they were of a certain origin. Slaves in the Roman Empire were, however, not free by any means. And that was the norm back then. By introducing slaves to a story that predates most history and then have the protagonist say “slaves should be illegal” is implausible. It’s as if Arslan came from a parallel universe or another world, just to free the slaves. This makes the narrative seem contrived. A contrived narrative in this context would mean that particular elements of said story are forced, which they undoubtedly are.

What I mean to say is that Arslan is a fundamentally flawed character. Combined with the lack of development this character receives and how lenient he is, just goes to show terrible writing. His leniency and naivety are the only character traits he possesses. Naivety is one thing and we’ve all been naïve at a certain point in our life. However, not everyone is lenient. Given Arslan’s setting and how he has to deal with terrible events – that could potentially break the human psyche – he seems to be kind and forgiving. At times, Arslan even questions other characters if he is too kind. He’s very tolerant and this comes back to the progressive thinking that he has. Now, ask yourself this: would you forgive someone for betraying you time after time and say “no matter what, I can’t bring myself to hate that person, I just can’t” aloud? The answer to that question obviously needs context and you’d need to know who the person in question is. The person in the question is someone you know is from the opposing side. You know very well that at any time, your life will be in danger because of this person. You know that it can cost you, your life. Personally, I would not forgive that person no matter what and I’d have his head right then and there. The reason I bring this up is because this is exactly how Arslan communicates and interacts with other characters. He always forgives them, no matter what they have done or how they have hurt his friends, killed his men and so on. This comes off, not only as implausible given the setting of the show but also highly unrealistic. It is difficult to suspend your disbelief whilst watching Arslan forgive a traitor for the nine billionth time in the show.

As mentioned previously, suspension of disbelief is key to writing a good and entertaining story. Arslan Senki fails at this as well. Not only are all the characters demigods, lenient, kind and forgiving; the events that take place also seem highly unrealistic. The entire war between Luisitania and Pars was explained in a sentence or two in the beginning. The explanation is as follows “According to Luistania’s religion, they should have the best land and one of the biggest kingdoms in the world” or something along those lines at least. It is also explained that Luisitania’s religiosity is just a cover for their true nature; Luisitania being a cult of sick people who can justify any act in the name of God. This honestly felt like some meta-commentary on religion in our age, though this part of Luistania isn’t completely unrealistic. The reasoning behind the war, however, is unrealistic. What makes it unrealistic is that it’s never explained or developed in any way, shape or form. There is no sign of politics, alignments or anything remotely clever going on. There is a war going on, there is a prince and that’s all you have to know, as the viewer.

Apart from that, it is safe to say that Arslan Senki will have a lot of moments when you’ll question what you’re seeing on the screen. These occurrences are most prominent in battles but are not limited to them. Characters are able to talk with each other despite being miles away from each other. Characters are able to talk exposition mid-fight while their enemies just firmly wait for them to finish their dialogue. Characters are at times able to defy the laws of physics. A show that is all about war failed at portraying war in a realistic fashion, which it surely tries to do. Some notable examples of this is when a horse can gallop on an elephant with the character on the horse being able to fit 3-4 sentences of exposition while all of this is happening. Another example of this is when Daryun has a fight with a giant. This giant is like 3 times taller than Daryun and Daryun himself is very tall. Despite all odds, Daryun manages to win against this giant in the most anticlimactic way possible without getting severe injuries or being damaged at all.A mental note for anyone who will watch this show is to set your expectations as low as you can, stop thinking and just watch as Arslan Senki completely violates you. That is the only way to enjoy Arslan Senki – or, at least the way I’ve found to be the most effective.

Sadly there are no stakes and no sense of urgency in this show; something which is a must in my opinion, it is a story about a prince after all. While this is a story about a prince who is at war, at least it’s not the same regurgitated “prince saves princess”-esq story. The entirety of the story has no stakes whatsoever. You never feel that any of the characters are in danger. You never feel any tension. You never feel anything. Nothing is urgent in this show either, it seems that prince has all the time in the world to reclaim his kingdom and in the meanwhile he can just travel from place to place and ask if anyone would like to help him.

Arslan Senki will have a lot of pseudo-strategies that are vaguely described to us. We’re unfortunately unfamiliar with most of the situations happening as they are unfortunately not explained to us. We have to sit through and listen to a dialogue discussing pseudo-strategies with the final conclusion being that Narsuss is a true genius because he already planned for it. One thing you’ll encounter in this series that makes no sense at all, is the way they talk about soldier numbers in their respective army. You’ll hear a lot of characters say “oh they have an army of 50000 men”, “this army has 100000 men” and so forth. Obviously, that’s a lot of soldiers willing to give up their lives for a war that has almost no reason to take place in the first place. Regardless, I believe this to be stupid. Numbers don’t say anything, at least not when there is no actual strategy in how these army resources will be utilized. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think I’ve seen a single character hold a map in Arslan Senki and create some sort of tactic for where their troops are going, who they are going to attack and what the end goal is. What’s also baffling is that in some scenes, catapults and similar heavy artillery seem to be teleported right when it’s needed without even being shown in the first place. If someone can just create a catapult out of thin air, why doesn’t everyone do this?

There was an attempt at a three-act-structure in the first season. The first five or so episodes served more of an introduction to the world and its characters, though not all characters were introduced and not everything about their world is super clear from the get go. The world of Arslan Senki still remains for mostly a mystery; we only know about Pars, Luisitania and one more kingdom. We’re unfortunately not shown a map of their entire world with the respective countries. No one ever uses a map in Arslan Senki, because who would need a map when you have Narsus?

The second act is where the antagonist is properly introduced and the prince and his followers have to deal with the antagonist. They fail, only to learn nothing and continue with their lives as usual. The second act is usually also the longest of the acts and this was the case in Arslan Senki. However, this act also introduced some problems in the story. They thought it’d be good if they introduced a side-character from another kingdom and have the prince resolve his conflict and help him win his war. This entire subplot could be removed and nothing would change. This whole subplot or side-story was complete filler and amounted to absolutely nothing in the end. Everyone continued on with their lives as usual. Arslan even got betrayed but leniency is key, my friends and worry shalt thee not.

The third act was the most baffling in my opinion, because the tonal shift of Arslan himself was piss-poor. He transitioned from being completely useless to someone who’s ready to go to war and show Luisitania who he really is. He never shows any tendencies for change in character, he remains the good old Arslan. This transition in other works is one of the most important aspects of the story and of the character. To see such an awful transition of a character felt truly random. Not to mention the potential love interest and Arslan’s princess or whatever. They could have included at least one scene where Arslan had an inner monologue preparing himself for the war that’s about to come. Instead he gave a generic speech about what’s to come for his soldiers and called it a day.

As for the message of this story, well put simply – there was none. Nothing comprehendible or meaningful. One far-fetch messaged that one might have gotten from watching this show is that you have to entrust other people and come off as a freeloader which Arslan does. He has done absolutely nothing other than being stupid, useless and lenient, however others seem to praise him. He doesn’t have any sort of charisma or character that would deserve the respect he gets from Daryun, Narsus or anyone else from this show. So people, be freeloaders and be ungrateful to your people like Arslan, and maybe, you too, will become a prince someday!

Something that was boggling my mind for almost the whole show was the magic. Arslan Senki has chivalry, armies, monarchies and magic. Magic in this show was god awful. It seems like they completely forgot about it after they introduced it in an episode. Nothing is explained about the magic in their world and it can be anything. Teleportation, summoning, moving at fast speeds, defying laws of physics and so on. Magic in this show can be viewed as the antagonist’s plot armor for when he gets in trouble when fighting Daryun or anyone from Pars; he can just use magic and instantly win or get saved.

The animation of this show was good for most part. 1v1 or Daryun vs x amount of soldiers were animated fairly decent. However, you could see that many characters were off-model a lot of the times. The battles did not last very long. Some of the fights felt choppy. There was a lot of CG used to animate a large army. I’ll give credit where credit is due, animation was definitely one of the stronger parts of this series. I feel like that’s what kept me interested enough to continue with this show. Animation could have been done better, the fights could have lasted longer and there are tons of other things that could be improved, like the narrative in general, but you can’t expect everything.

Music was alright, nothing that was particularly memorable or that got stuck with me.

In conclusion, there are only so many ways I can call Arslan Senki a mediocre work of fiction about a prince who wants to reclaim his kingdom. I really did have high expectations with this show but the lack of proper execution and its astounding mediocrity made the show boring, generic and lackluster. What really didn’t help the show in my opinion was that there was no urgency despite there being a war between two kingdoms. The characters were demigods who were able to do anything and everything without you having to worry too much. There were no clever setups that paid off later on, no cleverly written characters, and no tension; to be frank, there was nothing about Arslan Senki truly made it special. Arslan Senki surely does offer and have some interesting concepts at play, but they remain just that. It never manages to portray the political struggle, warfare or anything remotely close in that which I would expect from a show that is about war. They also do absolutely nothing about the slavery which is a huge problem according to Arslan himself. This show was mediocre and that’s all I can say.