ORIENT

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA ActionORIENT
ANIME ActionORIENT: Awajishima Gekitou-hen

REVIEWS

• 

  Horipple

  45/100
  A very disappointing adaptation for a story with high potential

  Spoilers ahead.

  Orient is one of the three shows which marked my return to watching seasonal anime, and out of the three it might be the most disappointing.
  I wasn’t originally planning on watching this at all, however I am a big fan of Shinobu Ohtaka’s previous work, Magi, and I was thinking of reading the manga anyway, so I decided to watch this week to week instead. What a mistake this was.

  My excitement was high for the first episode of the series, the show looked like it had promise and I was interested in a story taking place in a world inspired by Sengoku period Japan, albeit with a unique fantasy twist to it. However even as early as episode one it became apparent this anime was plagued by all sorts of issues.

  

  The main offender among these issues is just how poorly the source material is adapted. The mystical quality that Ohtaka’s art gives to the world and characters is simply absent, there’s a complete and utter failure to capture the feeling of her art.

  The animation is sub-par, the direction is non-existent and the CG is atrocious, although I admit that without it, drawing and animating all those crystalline structures would be a massive pain in the ass.

  

  Even though the show adapts the first five volumes of the manga, it doesn’t feel like the story makes much meaningful progress, I’m not sure that this is simply a pacing issue though. I believe part of why this feeling persists is because the directorial style of the anime fails to contribute any tension or emotion to the milestones we reach within the story. Scenes such as Musashi’s backstory or Tsugumi’s struggle against the Kosameda band are completely lacking in pathos.

  Characters are also devoid of the vibrant style they possessed in the manga, instead their expressions are sterilized and their emotions are muted, this is an issue which extends to the world of the show at large.

  

  Despite all of my grievances I still want to believe that there is a good story buried under all this rubble. I refuse to believe that Magi was simply a fluke, that Shinobu Ohtaka captured lightning in a bottle with that story and is now failing to reproduce the same quality in this one. However, until I find that good story, I’m unable of recommending this anime to anyone. I’ll be trying my luck with its upcoming second season and I dearly hope something better awaits me there.

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• 

  SpiritChaser

  30/100
  A terrible adaptation that at least twitched a little at the end with some life before being left for dead by viewers.

  Orient belongs in that pile of plain and generic shonen that doesn't offer much of a good story among characters that at best remind me of Saturday morning kids cartoon heroes. There is very little to say about these 12 episodes, even much less that can be positive. At the end it teases the viewers by revealing that it just the beginning of a large story. And yet, I feel very little reason to keep going despite the announcement that this series will continue this coming Summer season. The first 3 episodes are easily the worst. Musashi and Kijorou want to create the best band of Oni slaying Bushi. As a result, they go on fighting some of the least appealingly designed monsters I'd ever seen. It's boring monster of the week episodes at the start.

  Finally, though most seemed had dropped it by then, episode 4 airs and introduces a new character that gave some life to the series with the story of her trying to resolve the trauma of her past. Tragically, she has slowly become more and more irrelevant, and stops having any real use to the series besides just the occasional fan service that gets shoved in the viewers faces. She has now been reduced to a background character that constantly gets scared, boringly explains what is happening, and embarrassingly breaks the 4th wall. She is strangely confused with how to make use of her sex appeal and tries her best to make her constant single frame presented sister proud.

  Afterwards, the series begins to focus on the development of Musashi. Here is where the series begins to get a little better. The mystery behind his powers and what hides inside them started to make this series at least a little interesting by then. Besides the Oni, new antagonists get introduced such as Shirou and his over the top facial expressions, as well as his socially awkward servant Nanao. There is very little development or story to them which makes them irrelevant to me.

  The fights themselves aren't interesting enough to make them unique or good besides sword fights that involve too much talking at times. This ruined moments that were supposed to be exciting. Other times the series decides to unnecessarily use over 2 minute recaps before the opening sequence. The character designs are nice, though it only applies to the main characters who are women. Some of the minor characters are drawn so terrible that they look as if they are dead. This is a shame because of the little I saw of the manga it looked so much better. I did see the constant disappointment of the manga readers and I don't blame them. The music I don't even remember because of how bad and unmemorable it was besides that one decent slow track that gets used to death.

  Orient's debut ruined it's chance to introduce viewers to a new, possibly long running series. Though it managed to pick itself up slightly towards the end, there isn't much going for it to deserve the viewers continued interest and time.

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