While I would argue that Fall 2018 isn’t an especially interesting anime season on-screen (certainly not by historical standards), it has turned out to be kind of interesting in terms of the business and fandom of anime.  We have a mix of good shows that are being totally ignored (like this one), two highly popular LN adaptations with diametrically opposed world-views vying for supremacy (the wrong one seems to be winning), and then there’s SSSS.Gridman.  I noted last week that both it and Radiant were getting terrible aggregator scores, but the similarity ends there – Gridman is clearly resonating with Japanese fans, even if it’s often for what I would call the wrong reasons.  It’s divisive, yes, but unless pre-sale (I guess we can’t call them stalker anymore) numbers are historically whack, it’s going to be a major commercial success.

There seems little to no chance of that with Radiant, though without question it is being received better here than in most of the West (I’ll be interested in hearing how it goes over in France, but nothing much on that front yet) – it’s just not the sort of show that generally does well on disc.  There was a rather interesting press event with the mangaka, Tony Valente, in New York this week in which he shed light on a few aspects of Radiant’s backstory:

• Murata Yusuke (One Punch Man, Eyeshield 21) was instrumental in getting Radiant published in Japan in 2015 and the two mangaka are mutual fans.  Mashima Hiro (Fairy Tail) is also a big Radiant fan, which sort of fits as I see more of that series in Radiant than any other Japanese manga.
• Valente considers himself a huge Shounen Jump fan (duh).
• Valente wanted the story to mirror elements of European history, especially the Inquisition.
• Valente, while French, is not of fully French ancestry (his father emigrated from Portugal) and he wanted Radiant to focus on the scapegoating of those who are different from the majority (that could hardly be more timely, obviously).
• Valente consults on the scripts weekly, but does not provide any script material or drawings himself.
• The first half of the season contains considerable original material, while the second sticks much more closely to the source material.

We’re certainly starting to see some of the historical elements come out in the story with this episode.  In fact the Inquisition itself – not even the name was changed – makes an appearance, both by reference and physically.  When Alma reminds Seth that “Nemesis aren’t our only enemies”, it’s pretty clear that it’s this she’s referring to.  But Seth is nothing if not stubborn, and rather than accept that he’s going to be doing a thankless and dangerous job only to be reviled by most of the people he serves, he – in very shounen sense – determines to change the situation itself.

The last point above is especially interesting to me, because if I have any complaint about the anime side of Radiant so far it’s that things seem to be moving quite quickly.  I don’t know how much of that comes down to the changes that Valente refers to, since in reviews of the manga one comment I’ve seen is that the pacing is very quick right out of the gate.  But there are things that are happening that don’t seem to be fully supported by events on-screen, and Seth’s decision to leave Alma – and her’s to allow him to – are among them.

Given the clear inspiration for Radiant – classic manga and anime fantasy, yes, but also stuff like the Earthsea Trilogy and other YA fantasy novels – this development was pretty much a given to happen sooner or later.  But while Seth certainly held his own admirably with the Nemesis this time, he was still toast if Alma hadn’t arrived just in the nick of time.  And while the backstory was excellently done, what it did was cement the emotional bond between Alma and Seth as both real and deep – which made her decision to allow him to go off to search for Radiant (the legendary source of all Nemesis) on his own all the more seemingly premature.

It’s pretty clear that Valente has invented a pretty extensive mythology here, and things with the Nemesis and Inquisition are likely going to be more complex than they appear.  Alma’s loss of memory is a sure sign that Seth’s past (and parentage) are going to be important factors before the story is done.  I’m anxious to see all that play out, but I just with the story had taken a little more time to get us to this stage organically (and given us more time with Paku Romi, of course – though she’ll surely be back).  Be that as it may, Radiant surely isn’t going to get triple-digit episode counts like Fairy Tail, so the fact that we’re jumping right into the meat of what sounds like a very interesting story may not be a bad thing.