WORLD DESTRUCTION
There are two types of bagels on sale today...
Review by: M.H. “King of False Dichotomies” Torringjan
Length: 13 episodes
Genre: Action, fantasy
Watched: Whole series, subbed
The first episode of a series is meant to draw the viewer in to the show and give them a reason to come back for more. I try not to use that as my guideline when picking series to watch, I base it on even less (a two-line plot summary; I’m a very busy person, dontcha know!), but it’s generally a good rule. This series had a compelling premise from the first episode: girl actually wants to destroy the world, but it turns out that carrying out the concept requires more than just a good idea.
Plot summary: In a world filled with SAND, beastmen rule over humans, making them a lower class through their grasp of higher technology and their opposable thumbs. The peace of the world, however, is disturbed by the legend of the Destruct Code, an item that has the power to destroy the world (hence the series name). The beastmen have formed the World Salvation Committee to recover the Destruct Code and prevent its use, but they have to deal with Morte, the sole member of the World Destruction Committee (who requisitions the formation of those sorts of committees, anyway?), who has the Destruct Code and will go to any lengths to figure out how to use it.
Artwork: The artwork of the series is passable, fairly standard for a fantasy series. The characters are all distinctive, with vivid colors and smooth animation. The artists, however, do take shortcuts and sometimes action scenes are cut, seemingly just to save some money on the animation budget. It’s a shame, too, because some of those explosions suggest that we’re missing a majorly badass fight scene just down the hill...
Music: Nothing special. The in-episode tracks are generic fluff and instrumentals, which I wouldn’t bother downloading for fifty bucks (unless you’re offering). The opening track is okay J-pop, but I didn’t feel the need to download it to add to my iTunes list. The closing theme is also pretty generic and very slow for an action series where the episodes didn’t inspire me.
Characters: The main characters are the three members of the World Destruction Committee, Kyrie, Morte, and Toppi. Kyrie is a server at a local restaurant who gets dragged into Morte’s quest to destroy the world. I know what you’re thinking, why the hell does he keep going if he knows that she’s trying to destroy the world? The answer, my friends, would likely shock you into a stupor and so I won’t do that here. Or else, they just didn’t give a very good reason. You decide. Kyrie is mild-mannered and useless in a fight, sheepish and acts skittish around Morte, likely trying to hide a crush that never gets explained or explored. Morte is the leader of the WDC, genuinely trying to destroy the world because her family’s dead. Why her family’s death warrants destroying the world, nobody knows. Maybe they promised her a pony when she grew up and she never got it. She’s a hot-headed tomboy who can show a soft side from time to time, but mostly walks around being a sour-puss. How they can have a world-destroyer-wannabe who isn’t dark and sullen (instead of just sullen), I have no idea, either. I just can’t see somebody who dresses in pink all the time and has red hair as a menacing character. Toppi is the chibi-bear who follows them around, the mascot character with the speech impediment-kuma. He has a deep sense of nobility, which he applies equally to humans and beastmen, and sometimes compels the group to get drawn into his quests for what is right-kuma. Why such a noble character sticks with a ne’er-do-well who’s trying to destroy the world just plain defies all logic. It’s stupid. No other way to say it. The main recurring villains-errrr, heroes... whatever are Lia, another hot-headed and proud dragon-woman, and Naja, a half-foxman, half man (so, what, quarter fox?) with an easy air and a logical way about him. These two play the series’ Natasha and Boris to the WDC, always showing up and trying to catch Morte and get the Destruct Code and failing in the most pitiful way possible. Lia has an inexplicable crush on Kyrie, which keeps her from killing him for some stupid reason, and Naja just doesn’t take things seriously (hey, it’s just the end of the world, not like that matters! I don’t live there...). While the characters are somewhat cookie-cutter, they’re also given painfully little development over the 13 episodes that would make anyone give a rat’s ass about them. The series really screwed up here.
Plot: I watched the first episode of the series, and I got a pleasing “Scrapped Princess” vibe from the premise. “Why, I’m supposed to be caring about someone who’s trying to destroy the world? I’m in!” Well, they did very little to make me care, as the episodes were episodic and little insight was given into the ill-conceived, under-developed characters until the last two episodes, when it was far too late for me to start caring. The characters were given very little real, believable motivation, and the resolutions were not very well carried out. Over all, this was a sloppy mess of a series that I don’t want to watch again. I will give credit for a single interesting plot development that they threw in at the end, but the fact that they waited so long to throw it in and then didn’t do much with it aside from a sappy, cliché conclusion makes me a bit bitter that I wasted this much time watching the series.
Chicks: The two female characters in this series seemed to be attempts to include strong female presences, but neither came off as particularly interesting or particularly strong. One (Lia) became a mewling lump of uselessness whenever the inexplicable crush came near her, and the other (Morte) wanted to destroy the world just because she felt alone without her family. And to top it off, both had incredibly bad attitudes that essentially nobody could peel aside for any appreciable length of time. Blech, moving on...
Summary: I was interested by the initial feeling I got from this series, and I was willing to handicap it about three episodes to keep my attention. However, its inability to follow through and resort to poorly written plot devices and its reliance on clichés was too much for me in the end. It’s not a horrible series, not deserving of the coveted award, but it’s just plain bad. I wouldn’t recommend picking it up unless you particularly like derivative fantasy series or you like cosplay (Morte would be a pretty cool outfit to see done). Regardless, this is yet another video game spin-off that probably didn’t work as well as the source material it was based off of.
In a nutshell:
+ Decent artwork
-Derivative, under-developed characters
-Poorly written plot
- Little motivation
- Poor conclusion
Final score: 3/10
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