The show I was most excited for is finally here!
A/N: Part of Organization Anti Social Geniuses' Fall Evaluation
And... it's an okay start. I can see what they're trying to do here, since it's already been announced that the anime is going to cover the first two major arcs of the manga. They're freeing up some space by squishing all the introductory stuff together, and for the most part it works. We get the big picture driving forces for the characters before we get into the dungeon stuff. However, there are some awkward moments here and there, like Aladdin and Alibaba condemning slavery and then immediately going to a brothel (Elizabeth was glorious though). Also, the boob jokes were better paced throughout the manga, but since the anime is squishing for time here, they came one after another and felt more juvenile as a result.
So yes, there are some adaptation issues, but nothing so significant that I'm going rail against A-1 for not making a panel-by-panel anime of a manga I've grown to love. If I want the manga, I can just read it. What I'm more interested (and concerned) about is how this adaptation is going to handle the characters, which were what sold me on the manga in the first place. There are little moments in this episode that suggest the characters will retain their depth (ex: "I want enough money to buy an entire country"--if you've read the manga, then you know why this line is important) so I hope that the first episode will be the only part that we speed through.
There are no surprises here in animation from A-1; everything looks gorgeous and captures the style of the manga really well, right down to the blob chibis and flat reaction faces. Seeing the characters' teeth all the time when they talked bothered me more in animated form than I thought it would, though. The music is also solid, with the exception of the ED, which felt out of place. And, as a final note for anyone on the fence about this show: the advertising is a lie. This is not an adaptation of 1001 Nights, as awesome as that would be. This is a shounen show with shounen logic, powerups, undefeatable enemies, etc., etc. That said, I'm not a big fan of shounen either, but the manga kept me interested. If you go into this with the right expectations, it can be a fun ride.
Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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