Sometimes it’s much harder with shows that don’t really do anything to make you dislike them. Saihate no Paladin is frustrating in that it’s giving me no reasons – not to drop it, nor commit to it. It’s just kind of puttering along in third gear, waiting for the turbo lag to run its course, and sometimes it never does. The lack of really good takes on traditional fantasy in anime is a point in its favor – but that only carries you so far.
One takeaway for me is that lawful-good paladins don’t make the best protagonists. That’s not news for someone who’s sponged as much fiction as I have, especially in the fantasy realm, but it is pretty relevant. Will is so one-note that I’m just not getting anything off him. Not only is he never less than totally nice, but he seems pretty much infallible. I mean, the half-elf is amazed by how easily he takes out opponents too strong for him to face head-on himself – that should tell you something. OP and saintly is a rough combination for a main character to overcome, and that’s a pretty big problem for Saihate at the moment.
The other main concerns I have here are how neatly everything always seems to play itself out – fantasy is more interesting when it’s rough around the edges and a little messy – and the incessant monologuing. Adding Menel to the mix is nice in that he’s a tonal break from Will, but now we have two characters prattling on about their life stories incessantly. Marple made a nice change of pace – she had a little salt and vinegar to her. But Marple is gone with the wind along with the rest of the demons’ victims, so no long-term help there.
So, summing it up, for me at least there’s no sense that anything really bad will actually happen, or that the protagonist is beatable or flawed. The lack of dramatic tension resulting from that is like a mute placed on the end of a trumpet. The series is going to have a recap ep next week, apparently, which at least postpones any final decision for me. I’ll take the break to think on things and see if absence makes the heart grow any fonder in two weeks.
Elia Notari
November 22, 2021 at 9:16 pmEh, at this point you could keep it.
OT: Which fantasy series/saga would you like to see in anime form? Do you have any preference?
Me personally, I’d like to see something like Mistborn, it’s not a long read and an animated version would make more justice than a live action one.
I guess you could say the same thing with any Sanderson’s series with the exception of The Stormlight Archive, a beautiful series that is bound to become the next classic on par with LotR and WoT yet a single book is SO long and you’d need to find a studio willing to throw away lots of money.
Guardian Enzo
November 22, 2021 at 10:03 pmMemory Sorrow & Thorn by Tad Williams (though it’d have to be looong). Or his Otherland series for sci-fi. Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss (though that has a stalled live adaptation already). Just to name two.
Elia Notari
November 23, 2021 at 12:22 amDidn’t know the first one, I’ll take a look and decide whether buying it or not.
Kingkiller Chronicles would be perfect, but I’d wait the third book first, that unless Rothfuss finally decide to stop pretending and admit he’s not written anything since 2014
Magewolf
November 23, 2021 at 4:27 amI like Memory Sorry & Thorn but any adaptation would be in danger of truncating the story into something very tropey just to get a manageable runtime. Even just doing The Dragonbone Chair would take at least two cours.
Guardian Enzo
November 23, 2021 at 9:05 amYup. that’s the problem. But it’ll never happen either way no we’re just spitballing anyway.
Magewolf
November 24, 2021 at 6:09 amBack during the days of ADV(the Mutineers’ Moon ovas that never happened) some friends and I discussed what SF/F books would make good anime and about the only thing we ever agreed on was that it would be better to go back and look at older, shorter works if you wanted anything like a faithful adaption. The doorstops would end up cut to pieces. I thought mining the Poul Anderson back catalog would be a pretty good idea. He had a lot of short, fun single book stories. So Three Hearts and Three Lions, A Midsummer Tempest, and Hrolf Kraki’s Saga for fantasy and say Brain Wave and The High Crusade for SF. The one book we did agreed on was Lord of Light which would be great if given enough animation budget.
Lurk-chan
November 23, 2021 at 7:32 amI remember, when the series was announced, I heard on multiple fronts from people who read the LN how Will is supposedly different from your regular Isekai protagonist, claiming how “he is absolutely not OP!”
I honestly don’t know if those people were trying to pull my leg or not, because so far Will has:
– unmatched physical combat prowess and skill in the usage of multiple weapons (sword, spear and shield)
– been personally chosen and blessed by his Goddess of Light as her Champion
– access to a wide arrange of high level spells (just casually casting Haste, Invisibility or Power Word Kill like there’s nothing to it)
– obtained the magical Sword of HP Absorb, literally owned by the previous Demon King
– on top of it all loaded with an unspecified amount of riches
Back in the day we would’ve called a character OP if he had just one of those things!
Also, it sure is convenient that people in this world are allowed to linger around after their deaths to say their last goodbyes.
But hey, The God of Undeath is supposed to be the evil guy here, am I right?
Guardian Enzo
November 23, 2021 at 9:06 amLike I said – way too neat.
Derrick
November 23, 2021 at 9:42 amwe need MC like rincewind, but it needs skill to write like that
Guardian Enzo
November 23, 2021 at 12:22 pmNot a lot of LN writers on the Terry Pratchett level, and that may be the understatement of the century.
Kinai
November 24, 2021 at 7:28 amRest in Peace. :'(
Guardian Enzo
November 24, 2021 at 8:54 amWell, at least Neil is bringing his legacy to new fans with Good Omens.
Actually, a Gaiman anime sounds like a great idea.
tsurugi87
November 25, 2021 at 8:12 amYou say that like you’d put a single one on his level