Oh goodness gracious this was not what I was expecting. Well, it kind of was but the execution of it all was downright horrendous. My excitement for this anime just…went down the tubes.
First off, I have to say that I’m quite surprised that an anime that delves into Christianity this deeply exists considering the population of Christians/Catholics in Japan is very low. Of course there have been anime that have had many religious references (Death Note, Evangelion) or anime that have their own versions of religious figures whether it be angel, devils, etc (Trinity Blood, Rage of Bahamut). But no anime has taken the Christian religion this seriously before without having to add some supernatural element to it or bishies to change things up or change things completely. So this anime was a surprise, but I’m not sure how well it’s going to do in Japan, especially when there’s no comedy in it. But, let me get straight to the point.
This was bad, and I didn’t like this. The premise was really promising. The mystery element interested me, and the actual plot of two members of the Vatican investigating miracles to see whether they were true or not struck me strange but fascinating. Because usually members of the church hear of miracles and believe it. Though of course with some cases, like a virgin pregnancy, warrants an investigation because of how strange it is. And maybe it’s because I’m atheist, the investigations of these miracles was another reason for interest.
But wow this was bad. The pace was way too fast. It was so fast that I couldn’t take my eyes away from the screen for one second or surely I would have missed some crucial information to the miracles and clues of the case. The characters kept talking and talking, and then we’d suddenly transition to another scene with more fast-paced talking, then some strange scenes that happened in seconds where I just didn’t understand where they fit or what they even meant, such as Hiraga’s nightmare of his brother. It was going by so fast that I got a little disoriented. It wasn’t too hard to keep up with what was happening but it was just annoying. And the worse part was that it was just so boring. So many things were happening but none of it caught my attention. I just have so many complaints about this first episode, so excuse me if I sound nitpicky:
- The animation was below mediocre and I can see production values getting worse.
- Again, the rushed pacing of this was a huge turn off.
- I’m confused as to what time period this takes place in? It gave off the vibe that it was set in maybe the early 1900’s, but when they whipped out the laptops it completely took me off track.
- The fact that about four or five “miracles” happened in this episode was just ridiculous. The virgin conception, the stigmata (twice), the Virgin Mary crying. And then we had the demon summoning. Again, too many things happening at once that it just became sort of laughable. They should have just stuck with only the virgin conception.
- Who the HELL drew that map??? They went to South America? No, I’m pretty sure that’s Central America…I think, because the borders were so strange but I knew for a fact that it wasn’t South America. The archbishop said the south of America but it looked like they went to Honduras but again the borders were off or just nonexistant that I had no idea where they went (I’m Central American so I know). Also, none of the characters had Latin American names except that Sebastian kid and Carlos kid. Johannes, Klaus???? Could they not come up with Hispanic names?
- There is no flow, the transitions were bad or there just weren’t any that it all just felt awkward and weird.
Okay I know the second to last point was nitpicky but whatever. This anime was just bad in many places and I’m not that interested. I can at least check out the next episode but I won’t have high hopes. After watching anime for so many years, you just know when a show is not going to improve and I have a bad feeling this anime will follow that path.
Possibility of watching: Very low
Possibility of blogging: I’m going to pass.
