Anime review: Blade And Soul (2014)

 

 Alka is an assassin and the last suvivor of the Clan Of The Sword. After her village was wiped out by the Palme Empire, she sought revenge on the dark-magic users responsible. 

 Along the way she runs into a hard-drinking bounty-hunter, a strong-willed grave-robber and an enigmatic innkeeper, all of whom have their own plans.

 I picked this one up because it looked sort of interesting. (And if you haven't read this blog before, anything involving gorgeous women with swords is going to get my attention. I apologise for nothing)

 What I was expecting was fanservice-heavy fluff but Blade And Soul turned out to be a bit of a surprise. 

 While I was right about the fanservice - lots of seriously stacked female characters here - and there is a bit of fluff, the anime is more serious than I was expecting.

  From the bloody opening scene  there's plenty of  death and this includes characters I was expecting to be important. More importantly, some of those deaths turn out to have repercussions. Remember that our heroine Alka is an assassin and as the series progresses, previous jobs come back to hurt her. 

 As a general thing, things did not go the way I was expecting at all. A series with this much jiggling should not have got me so invested.  

  Blade and Soul does have some flaws.  Alka is essentially a blank-faced robot for much of the series and it's made even more noticeable compared to some of the dynamic characters around her.  Once the cracks start to show, she gets a lot more interesting.  

  Problem #2 is that with such a short episode count, a number of interesting ideas are either skipped past or don't pay off.  Example:  Villainess Jin Varrel clearly has an interesting backstory but we never get to see it beyond enigmatic glimpses.  Blade And Soul is based on an MMPORG so maybe some things are explained there. Doesn't help me much, though. 

 And did we really need that beach/hotsprings episode right at the end? It's entertaining and closer to the light-hearted anime I was expected but after the serious tone of the previous episodes it is a bit jarring.  I can't help feeling that the time and effort could have been put to better use.

 On the plus side, the art and animation are more than respectable, with some effort being put into the fights. Even more effort was put into the ending animation, where a certain character show off her dancing skills. I was genuinely impressed.

 Moving on to a pet peeve for a moment, I am always happy to see anime where female characters are obviously grown women, rather than drawn as 12 years olds who just happen to have tits. 

To sum up: Blade And Soul isn't ground-breaking but it turned out to be a pleasant surprise and I enjoyed watching it for all the right reasons. 

Here's the dance routine I was talking about. Enjoy. . 

That's all folks.