A hero with destructive powers for which he doesn’t know the origin? A woman with a tragic past? Sounds like an anime based on a Japanese RPG to me!

Episode Summary

In a world of humans and beastmen, Kyrie is a young human lad who works for a beastman pub. That is, until a fire-haired woman named Morte shows up, trashes the place, and drags him off. While hiding in the woods, they’re discovered by a little girl and some village elders, who invite them to stay the night. Morte reveals that she’s out to destroy the world, and reveals the object with which she’ll do it – a small orb called the “Destruct Code” that seems to be filled with eyes and tentacles. In the meantime, the village holds a meeting and decides to use the two travelers as their sacrifice, rather than one of their own children.

A troupe of cat people descends their mountain looking to get their sacrifice, and they’re directed to the room of Morte and Kyrie. Morte is long gone, but Kyrie, having eaten food tainted with a sedative, is on the floor, out cold. Riman, the original sacrifice, tells Morte what Kyrie’s fate will be – sacrifice to a deadly creature in the mountain. Morte rushes to his rescue, followed closely by the authorities (Morte is a wanted woman, after all). The battle rages, and Morte threatens to use the Destruct Code, though in Kyrie’s hands it managed to trigger a cave-in burying their adversaries. The newly-formed duo in the World Destruction committee are joined by a tiny bear detective, making three.

Thoughts

Considering the Production I.G. pedigree of this show, I have to admit that, despite the premise, I expected something at least above-average. Sadly, this show delivers next to nothing as far as quality goes. The visuals are nice-looking, of course, with a very good use of color that adds to the feel of this being a fantasy world. The animation, however, which I generally expect to be high-quality when Production I.G. is involved, was sadly mediocre except for the fight scenes in this episode. I mean, I’d at least expect them to pump some money into the first episode to make it look spectacular, but with such dull overall animation present from the get-go, I hate to think how sub-standard it’ll become as time goes on.

The progression of the first episode was also way too quick for my tastes. Morte and Kyrie meet and suddenly begin traveling together for no good reason. It seems like Morte knows exactly what her goal in life is, so why does she feel the need to acquire a useless tag-along like Kyrie? What reason at all does she have to trust him? Oh, I forgot, just by chance he’s just the guy able to activate the Destruct Code object she possesses. What a convenient and totally contrived coincidence. It’s nice that they didn’t have to waste any time with, you know, logic or basic good storytelling practices to construct this opening episode, because that might have required some effort, and nobody likes effort.

The character designs tend to subscribe to the “belts and zippers” school of Japanese RPG costuming, with outfits that come in many pieces, most of which seem to serve no practical purpose whatsoever other than to attempt to foil cosplayers everywhere. Morte has a ridiculously short skirt which somehow manages to remain in place even while she’s jumping around and slashing guys in the face with her bizarre giant blade weapon.

Oh, and did I mention that there’s a stupid mascot character? Well, there is.

It’s probably obvious at this point, but this show is definitely not my cup of tea. I can forgive a lot of things if the show at least looks nice, but World Destruction didn’t even have that saving grace most of the time. Plus it just reeks of RPG, and while even cliché RPG plots tend to work well in the context of a game, they generally just do not translate well at all into movies or TV show, this being a prime example.

Pros

• Some nice background art

Cons

• Mediocre in just about every way imaginable
• Animation falls flat except for some select fight scenes

By Jessi – 08/31/08