Review of Ishura

Note: there are some minor spoilers

Although I have clear genres and type of entertainment I prefer and others I don’t and thus I don’t bother to check them much, I’m up to try different titles from time to time, especially if they have odd choices in storytelling, as I’m curious to see how they pull them off. That’s why recently I watched “Come and See”, which disregards certain elements and characters from its narrative and stretches some scenes for the sake of presentation of its crazy and horrifying view on war, and “My Dinner With André”, where the director just had the two actors play theatrical versions of themselves and write their own scripts and talk over a table for two hours.

Ishura is a title that stands out for a similar reason, it has odd narrative choices, though nothing as extreme or clear as those movies, and unfortunately it doesn’t do the best of jobs in its results, thus is more interesting than it is good or enjoyable.

-The series begins as the aftermath of the death of the major bad guy, kinda like the Virgin Soul sequel of Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis though differently and too bad Frieren was airing at the same time to take the spotlight with a similar setup, although also presented in a completely different way.

-The anime is an isekai where warriors from some other world get transported to the one we follow throughout the whole season, yet never shows their lives before that, and it’s also among the few in recent memory that doesn’t work like a videogame nor has otaku pandering in it. It’s a fantasy world with its own way of how things work without conveniently functioning in a way that benefits the characters that aren’t from there.

It has several types of energies and a language barrier, which are explained briefly and clearly in the first episode when a transported character asks about that to a native one. It doesn’t sound like much, but I don’t remember watching many recent isekai paying attention to such detail.

-The premise presents the anime as a battle royale yet not in a way where everyone needs to fight against all the other characters but rather form teams, like in Drifters, or Fate/Apocrypha or Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku. Yet unlike those series, characters don’t conveniently switch teams nor is plagued by awful comedy like the first, it does not take place in a contemporary setting on which its events don’t make sense and every common person inexplicably remains ignorant about the whole thing like the second, and it doesn’t betray this element at the end like the third, where suddenly and only because of the villain being a troll, only one of the participants could survive.

Heck, despite seemingly promising a battle royale tournament in the likes of many others, but most similarly like Record of Ragnarok or Tenkaichi: Nihon Saikyou Bugeisha Ketteisen, instead plays out in a slowly built war between two seemingly allied, or more accurately in a truce, nations that secretly confront each other in a way that’s not in the open and not many people know about, thus the whole thing doesn’t devolve into complete chaos. Basically, the major characters are part of an army of one of these countries, and they don’t fight in a closed arena nor do they follow rules, but rather on the battlefield or behind the scenes.

-The weirdest choice in its storytelling is that it presents a narrative similar to the one in Juuni Taisen or Bokurano, where a character would get an episode dedicated to themselves to flesh them out. Yet unlike those anime, which would interrupt the tournament in the first or the alien invasions in the second for the sake of characterization, repeatedly and predictably whenever a character was about to die, Ishura does it in the buildup, as it dedicates half a season to show a different character or two at most and part of the setting on each episode, and without being just one of many alternative realities, nor finishing everything with a time reset and amnesia that renders the whole show pointless.

On paper, this serves a purpose in detailed world building and characterization, on execution, however, the setting is not that original nor complex for that to be need to be done, and it meant following a series with a slow buildup and without a clear direction for half its runtime and number of episodes, something that at least nowadays not many would enjoy nor would be interested in to follow through to the end, which explains why this title was vastly ignored and received such a low rating.

At least, this meant that once the introduction phase was over and the characters got together on a same place, the action was not interrupted for the sake of characterization through flashbacks like that Tenkaichi manga I mentioned earlier, or an ideological debate like in Fate/Zero, probably the most famous battle royale anime of all times.

Despite the anime being about a war, and thus violent, and despite having some lighthearted moments here and there, visually and tonally is quite serious and not edgy and not very explicit, thus you more or less can accept its pretense of being mature. Oh, and no fanservice, that’s always worth the mention, as a positive.

Finally, another good thing in the show is that not every major character is a human or humanoid from another world, here you have wyverns or skeletons or mandrakes from the world we follow as well, thus the setting doesn’t feel artificial or limited to familiar designs for the audience, and the conflict isn’t limited to characters that are essentially an extra part of it and all belong to the same species.

The presentation itself isn’t very good however, evident on the mixed bag of exposition that this series has. Sometimes a character that doesn’t know about something or someone would ask of another to explain that, and the explanations are followed with simple and clear visuals, so that counts as decent to good exposition.

Other times, however, characters that are supposed to know certain stuff or another one from long time ago, would ask them, or tell the other, about said stuff or themselves in cheap ways, just for the viewer to know, or even the narrator himself would appear to tell us something about a character that could be shown instead, and that counts as plain bad exposition.

Another issue is the power scaling, since, as it happens on most other battle royale series, some characters are simply way more powerful than others. Over here you have some that are exceptionally good at using some kind of weapon or have deadly abilities alright, but there are two that literally can kill anybody passively or just by wishing it, how can anyone else even compare? I mean there is still tension and battle choreography, but no one would believe that those two would lose unless they fought each other, and the showdowns are usually quite short.

And since this anime is based on a rather recent series of light novels and/or an even more recent manga, both of which are still on-going, there is no ending, thus you followed a series that’s half a slow buildup with no clear direction, and half short fights with some characters that are clearly more overpowered than others, with some payoff but no ending.

And there are also a lot of characters, yet most of them aren’t very interesting to follow:

-Soujirou, a young samurai that’s basically a battle freak and somehow is able to fight against supernatural creatures despite being a human from our world.

-Alus, an ambitious light blue wyvern that ran away from the others with legendary weapons but otherwise doesn’t have much going on in it.

-Nihilo, a femme fatale type of spider-like artificial humanoid war machine that fights for negotiating its freedom, but doesn’t get much spotlight.

-Kia, a clueless young girl with one of the most overpowered abilities in the series, she is just unknowingly used by others.

-Kuze, a completely passive and chill dude with one of the most overpowered abilities in the series that’s otherwise uninteresting, even Kia is more interesting to follow.

-Shalk, just a seemingly immortal skeleton/undead in for the money.

-Dakai, just another battle freak but at least he is used as an assassin in hide and hunter of possible traitors.

The only fighters I cared about in the show were:

-Regnejee, a tsundere red wyvern that fights so his species can stay and live and eat in one of the nations at war, he maintains peace between his species and humans or whatever they are called in this series, and gets to care about a blind girl that later on is suspected of being a traitor.

-Higuare, a former gladiator mandrake that constantly learns about itself and others.

Ironically, I ended up finding the support cast more interesting for having secret agendas and wanting to use the warriors in one way or another:

-Hidow and Taren for being the people behind the war and the ones recruiting all the warriors, with the second being the more interesting for having more spotlight and being more proactive and wanting to establish her own nation and being ruthless enough to spark the actual war in the open past the middle point of the show.

-Curte, a blind girl adopted by Taren that befriends Regnejee and is seemingly being manipulated by a traitor.

-Lana and Elea for recruiting warriors and being secret agents that want to kill Taren, with the second one being probably the most interesting character in the whole show for intending to betray everyone.

-Yuno, a girl that loses her town and everything in the first episode and acts as a guide for Soujirou yet secretly is out for revenge and wants him dead along with every other powerful warrior. She blames everyone for her loss yet also herself, as she accepts her own weakness and the wrongdoings of her town as the series goes on.

There are more characters but they are only interesting or important when they interact with someone else and otherwise not that relevant nor fleshed out on their own.

Unfortunately since every major character is initially looked into when apart from the rest, whenever they finally encounter they just fight and otherwise don’t have any kind of interesting interactions or dynamics between them. Nobody truly develops besides perhaps Yuno and even then just very little, and there is no catharsis anywhere for anyone.

Aesthetically, Ishura is just as an oddball as it is in writing, since it combines characters with mecha-like machines or weapons and different types of clothes in what seems to be a typical fantasy setting. I mean look at Soujiro with his casual contemporary clothes despite being a samurai from long ago, or Kia who uses a hoodie. Like I said earlier, there is an explanation, but some people will probably find it unfitting for the setting or not like the mix.

The opening is a typical jpop/jrock song and the ending is unfittingly relaxing, while the background music combines typical fantasy-like themes, epic choirs and orchestras, and some metal and even some electronic music tunes, again, it’s weird, and I don’t find it to be that great, but it’s good enough.

Aesthetics aside, I don’t think the production would please many viewers. The artwork itself is fine and the backgrounds are good, but the special effects are of lower quality, especially the CGI, and the artwork looks…I don’t know, like there’s sand on the screen, I guess? Like, again, Drifters, or if any of you remember it, Angolmois, though it’s better here and it makes more sense because a big part of the series and setting takes place over places surrounded by sand.

The motions are limited and not very good most of the time, yet out of nowhere there can be a very well made and directed action scene, yet nothing on par with the fight of the first episode.

The sound effects are great, very impactful and immersive, and the voice acting is done by very famous and experienced or plain veteran voice actors and actresses, some of which surprised me with the unusual performances that they pulled here. As a whole I would dare to say that Ishura has one of the best audio departments I’ve heard in recent years.

Down to it, this anime was kind of an interesting experiment to follow and I definitely hold it higher than the titles I compared it with and most battle royale I came across with, but not one I enjoyed nor would be thrilled to watch more of, and even less one I would see becoming very popular or loved by many people, and not an actually good isekai like Twelve Kingdoms or The Vision of Escaflowne, but for those who want something a little bit different, this is not a bad choice even though it can be quite boring and require some patience.


5/10