One Mixed Bag Of Feelings For Blassreiter

Blassreiter overall is a rather very ambitious series. Its scale drastically increased after 1/3 of the course and didn’t show any sign of stopping its momentum in expanding the world-building that is also accompanied by a very diverse cast. Normally, that’s a very rare sight to see in anime as a whole and should be welcomed and appreciated, but as they said, don’t bite off more than one can chew, Blassreiter simply fell for that.

The recurring theme in this anime is probably the meaning and value of life, which is something I always enjoy regardless of the medium. Blassreiter almost succeeded in delivering it, but sadly for being too greedy, it made a whole mess on itself as the story progressed. The drama, in particular, feels very forced on many occasions, like they just threw in some sad and tragedy shit just to explain a character’s motive then QUICKLY snapped back to the current timeline, like wut bruh, at least treat it with care.

And really, they sure like to abuse the “reality is harsh” thingy, to the point that I can basically tell what the next flashback of a character is before it even showed up lmao. Not to mention that the whole deal with those tragedies didn’t convince me at all, I think it’s too absurd and convenient in fact. However, some moments were really well handled that I almost overlooked the flaws behind it, like when Joseph was made to falsely confess himself before the rich twat.

Plot-wise, to be frank, there are lots of dumb moments in the course of 24 episodes that basically confused me in many ways possible (the last episode, especially the endgame battle, is no exception LOL). That said, the more I watched the more comical it got and eventually I just didn’t give a fuck about the logical reasoning behind them anymore, it’s some sort of a “so bad that it’s good” thingy. While world-building is pretty interesting, there’re still quite some loose ends that haven’t been resolved in the end, it felt rushed to be more precise. That and relying too much on backstory is not really a good thing, but can be overlooked since it helped in building up a solid cast.

If there’s one thing that I can’t really tolerate then it’s the awkward pacing. Some scenes were really well made, but some just made me feel like “WTF” for a bazillion times LOL. Actually, I think I can somewhat agree with a comment above saying the script was written on an episode basis, so there’s no clear planning in the first place which explains the really messed up pacing LOL.

The cast is probably the most decent thing about this anime. Even though there’re tons of flaws out there regarding execution, planning and, well, like my little rant above pointed out, cohesion, I still enjoyed seeing the characters going out of their way to fuck shit up while not without having some tragic moments.

We got Al who went out like a G, my nibba Shido who fought till the very end like a boss, Joseph a cool looking badass motherfucker, Amanda a hot damn woman with a calm and very fair judgemental mind that is extremely rare in anime, even Gerd who got fucked over by almost everyone in the show really got some major highlight that managed to impress me, and many more that I can’t really list out.

Though this is quite a debatable element, I don’t think we have had that many anime that has the balls to kill off its characters in such a decisive manner. Whether it’s a good thing or not is all up to the execution and context behind that act, but disregarding those factors, not being hesitant in doing that is definitely a plus in my book.

And lastly, while there are tons of characters running amok, the creators did try their best to justify their actions, having more care to side characters than ordinary anime would do, which is also a good thing no matter how you look at it. It doesn’t matter if their motives are good or bad, as long as they have ONE, it easily increase their worth by ten-fold compared to generic anime that never give a fuck about supporting characters.

Now the art, LOL, I don’t really know what to say about it. The CGI looks really EHHHHH to me, I know it’s not really a modern anime but I just can’t stop laughing at how funny it looks tbh. If anything though, the design is lit. Lots of badass-looking Amalgon and tons of fancy military vehicles that rarely seen in action anime, so yeah that might somewhat compensate the wonky CGI.

Character design is also a plus, I like them overall, especially, sigh, SNOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. Why it has to be her of all the……okay I’m gonna stop. But really though, the Germany theme is really a fresh sight to my eyes, glad to see something cool after countless high school setting shit lmao.

On a side note, I know it is a bit out of place but Imma do it anyway, here’s my waifu (not character) ranking in Blassreiter:

Snow >= Pre-apoc Sasha (the blonde version) > Amanda >= Lene.

In any case, with this you should be able to see why I was so pissed at what they did in episode 19.

And finally, sound, can’t comment much on this since nothing really stands out to me. It’s not horrible either, but just meh. However, I do find the ED “Wish for the star” really fitting to the context of the story and the animation sequence for it was on solid as well.

In conclusion, Blassreiter was definitely an unforgettable experience for me. Sure it is not perfect. Sure it feels stupid at some point. But it sure managed to leave behind quite an aftertaste for me. With just a simple theme revolving around the meaning life and a serious tone accompanied by a likable cast, this anime really worth getting more attention and everyone should not cast it away just because of a relatively low mean score.