This is more of a wave-off than a rec to be honest, but with the previous anime season hitting final episodes I finally got around to watching some. Among those was The Kingdoms of Ruin, a relentlessly ultraviolent (and occasionally edging into rapey territory, albeit with no actual nip slips let alone anything more explicit as more than implication or threats; also there's lots of dismemberment, a skeleton, and some eyeballs, but no other exposed/flying organs) environmental parable horror/drama that I nonetheless watched all the way through, more for how the the sake of wondering if any recurring character would actually make it through the season without getting killed on camera.
You know the saying about how some men just want to watch the world burn? This is a show where the MC is one such man, and it goes really hard to make you want to cheer him on from the first few seconds, where it explains the creation of the world and humans and witches to guide and protect them both, followed by humans turning against the witches as technology developed, and then a witch in black silhouette cursing humans as a noose is put around her neck and she's hung. On camera. Followed by cutting to a pretty blonde and a kid in a desert area fleeing from the witch hunt, only to be spotted by some hoverbike scouts and captured, where the pretty blonde has her top torn off and (after some populist dictatorial ranting) is personally shot in the head by the Emperor, right in front of the kid, who is of course the main protagonist. The female lead is introduced after a "ten years later" card where she almost gets sold as a sex slave but instead pulls off a prison break that also frees the other.
All of which up to the time skip is in the show's trailer, by the way, while the prison break spans the end of ep1 and beginning of ep2, which is why I'm not worried about spoiling it. The rest of the show keeps to much the same tone, except for a few jarring moments of comic relief (more toward the end of the season than earlier, IIRC) and a few actual character development moments. Just enough for the thing to actually be watchable, at least while in a very cynical mood that let me nod along and say "yeah, humans are assholes like that" and let the violence wrap around to black humor in its own right.
I doubt I'll bother with a second season if it even gets made, but if animated blood and the occasional severed head juggling act won't put you off, I guess it's got enough character stuff going on to count as being watchable? I don't resent then lost minutes of my life that I can never, ever get back like I did for Revenge of the Sith and The Farce Engorges, at least, and had a strong enough reaction to come and write a few paragraphs about it, unlike the three generic isekais I watched 3-5 episodes of before noping out on for lack of interest in the characters, worlds, or anything they were doing.
Rating, I'd say about three to four out of ten. I already covered the story and characters in general terms, there are definite arcs to both but no really amazing twists, and the finale does close them but is blatantly intended to lead directly into another season. The animation is usually well blocked out and drawn but occasionally has a pretty low frame rate or obvious corner cutting, but very rarely anything that makes you point and say "Oh, that's CGI added in" except for one late antagonist whose gimmick is having a ton of flying robot hands to fight with. It does NOT keep showing the same footage in flashbacks two or three times an episode, and when there are flashbacks it's usually just a tiny clip without the original dialogue, expecting the viewer to have enough retention to remember it for themselves instead of the time-filling all too many shows tend to use them as. The music and sound design are there without being notably good or bad. It's honestly probably a bit too tame to have horror aspects be the draw if that's your thing, there's lots of blood but the magic/tech-flavored magic and general power level would fit more in shounen otherwise.
Well, not the philosophy. MC-kun doesn't believe in friendship or anyone's good nature, and is repeatedly proven right, so very not shounen outside the loads of glowy FX, swordplay and punching, and a sprinkle of cyborgs, powered armor, and giant robots. There's a couple of other genre-clash elements thrown into the mix later as well, specifically to explore the world and character building, admittedly also a big part of what I stuck around for. Overall, it's not a feel-good show by any means, probably not even good by objective standards, but it's good enough to make you think about and admire some of the storytelling in its own right. If there's anything I can actually point to and say Kingdom of Ruins is worth watching for, it's those aspects.
You know the saying about how some men just want to watch the world burn? This is a show where the MC is one such man, and it goes really hard to make you want to cheer him on from the first few seconds, where it explains the creation of the world and humans and witches to guide and protect them both, followed by humans turning against the witches as technology developed, and then a witch in black silhouette cursing humans as a noose is put around her neck and she's hung. On camera. Followed by cutting to a pretty blonde and a kid in a desert area fleeing from the witch hunt, only to be spotted by some hoverbike scouts and captured, where the pretty blonde has her top torn off and (after some populist dictatorial ranting) is personally shot in the head by the Emperor, right in front of the kid, who is of course the main protagonist. The female lead is introduced after a "ten years later" card where she almost gets sold as a sex slave but instead pulls off a prison break that also frees the other.
![[+]](/images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
SpoilerAll of which up to the time skip is in the show's trailer, by the way, while the prison break spans the end of ep1 and beginning of ep2, which is why I'm not worried about spoiling it. The rest of the show keeps to much the same tone, except for a few jarring moments of comic relief (more toward the end of the season than earlier, IIRC) and a few actual character development moments. Just enough for the thing to actually be watchable, at least while in a very cynical mood that let me nod along and say "yeah, humans are assholes like that" and let the violence wrap around to black humor in its own right.
I doubt I'll bother with a second season if it even gets made, but if animated blood and the occasional severed head juggling act won't put you off, I guess it's got enough character stuff going on to count as being watchable? I don't resent then lost minutes of my life that I can never, ever get back like I did for Revenge of the Sith and The Farce Engorges, at least, and had a strong enough reaction to come and write a few paragraphs about it, unlike the three generic isekais I watched 3-5 episodes of before noping out on for lack of interest in the characters, worlds, or anything they were doing.
Rating, I'd say about three to four out of ten. I already covered the story and characters in general terms, there are definite arcs to both but no really amazing twists, and the finale does close them but is blatantly intended to lead directly into another season. The animation is usually well blocked out and drawn but occasionally has a pretty low frame rate or obvious corner cutting, but very rarely anything that makes you point and say "Oh, that's CGI added in" except for one late antagonist whose gimmick is having a ton of flying robot hands to fight with. It does NOT keep showing the same footage in flashbacks two or three times an episode, and when there are flashbacks it's usually just a tiny clip without the original dialogue, expecting the viewer to have enough retention to remember it for themselves instead of the time-filling all too many shows tend to use them as. The music and sound design are there without being notably good or bad. It's honestly probably a bit too tame to have horror aspects be the draw if that's your thing, there's lots of blood but the magic/tech-flavored magic and general power level would fit more in shounen otherwise.
Well, not the philosophy. MC-kun doesn't believe in friendship or anyone's good nature, and is repeatedly proven right, so very not shounen outside the loads of glowy FX, swordplay and punching, and a sprinkle of cyborgs, powered armor, and giant robots. There's a couple of other genre-clash elements thrown into the mix later as well, specifically to explore the world and character building, admittedly also a big part of what I stuck around for. Overall, it's not a feel-good show by any means, probably not even good by objective standards, but it's good enough to make you think about and admire some of the storytelling in its own right. If there's anything I can actually point to and say Kingdom of Ruins is worth watching for, it's those aspects.
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‎noli esse culus
‎noli esse culus