#i just think they could've done more with it i think hank's death scene was kind of silly. sorry

[ophelia-thinks]

fuches leading john back to barry while ignoring sally screaming for her son... so he could see barry one last time and then scuttle back into the dark, forever. breaking the cycle but in an evil way.

[aj-anime-blog]

To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts - Review!

First review here we go!!

So, after being completely and utterly obsessed with Jujutsu Kaisen and AOT season 4, I decided to check out MAPPA studios and watch a bunch of stuff from their roster. My so-called "MAPPA binge" included this strange and unknown piece: Katsute Kami Datta Kemono-tachi e, or in English, To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts. An adaption of a manga originally released in Bessatsu Shounen (you might recognize this as the magazine that released Attack on Titan!), it looked pretty promising. I do have to admit that I didn't read a page of this anime's manga, though the art style on it looks gorgeous!!

The concept behind the show: A war has torn two halves of a nation apart, split into the North and the South. The Northerners, who were previously greatly outnumbered in battle, created a half-human, half-beast species known as "Incarnates" because of their God-like abilities. But the Incarnates begin having some issues when their beast forms take over their bodies, turning them into monsters. When the war ends, our protagonist, Hugh Hank, an Incarnate and previous captain of the Incarnate squad, swears to kill all of his mutating Incarnate buddies before they can destroy the world.

This review will not contain spoilers until the labeled "Spoiler" section at the bottom.

In general, what do I think?: 4/10, this show kinda sucked. Ouch! I hate being that blunt! Especially on my first review here! But To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts (let's call it TTASB from here on out!) had glaring flaws that, while it did hold up as a show, made it uninteresting and hard to love. Not only were the characters mediocre and boring, but the show seemed to contradict itself and its own opinion of the Incarnates all the time! Are they bloodthirsty monsters that need to be killed? Are they misunderstood humans who should be given peace? I don't know! Our main characters don't seem to either! Other than the "war bad" motif that gets shoved down your throat from episode one, the show felt stagnant in what it was trying to make the audience feel.

I hate being so cynical about it, though, because it does still earn those 4 points! Even though a lot of it falls flat, as a whole, it's still an ok show! Hank and Schaal have good concepts and their dilemmas are interesting in certain parts when the writers manage to nail pits and pieces of their development! The fight scenes were cool and I think that the concept for the world was neat! And the show does have a pretty cool title. Let's be honest, To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts sounds super metal.

So what about those characters?: 5/10! Hugh Hank and Schaal are our two main protags for the show, and they both have pretty interesting concepts! Hank is an Incarnate, he used to be the leader of the other Incarnates, and he made a vow with them that when they lost their minds, he would kill them himself. Schaal is the daughter of one of these Incarnates that fought under Hank. Interesting, right?! How could these two opposing characters get along with one another?

TTASB tries to give the two of them a sort of grumpy-old-mentor-teaches-a-cheery-youngster relationship (which, admittedly, is one of my favorite tropes) and manages to forget everything good about having this kind of relationship. To start, it feels like Schaal has next to no reason to be tolerating Hank, and vice versa. She follows him around because *insert some excuse about understanding the Incarnates?* and Hank lets her because *insert I really don't know*. It really feels like Schaal doesn't need to be there, and she's just a plot device to move along Hank's character development.

Then, the two of them never really interact in ways that really moved me. It never felt like they made a deeper connection that meant something to the plot. They interacted, sure. They spoke about their issues, yeah. But it never felt like Hank needed Schaal, or that Schaal was emotionally tied to Hank, until the show spoonfed it to you that they were.

In the end, neither of their developments felt compelling or interesting. There were a few scenes that maybe, if you squinted, hinted towards them growing as people, but for a 12 episode anime, it was very menial. It also felt like said scenes were fairly forced, with their development not really leading them to the point that they ended up at. Again, TTASB has a bit of an issue with contradicting itself.

The villain was so meh. He has a motive, yeah. It's pretty lame. He's not compelling at all. Nothing about him is interesting or kept me hooked on him. The show probably could've existed without him, to be entirely honest. I don't really have much else to say about him! I just did not really care about him at all.

The best characters in the show are hands-down the supporting cast of Incarnates. Each one has fairly interesting motivations, and even though they're only given an episode or so to tell their stories, they feel the most genuine. My biggest qualm with them is that the show doesn't build their connection to Hugh Hank at all, so when he gets emotional over them, you're kind of like "uhhh u know this guy??". More about this down in our spoilers section, as I'll go over a scene where this is prominent.

So characters were meh, but what about the story itself?: 4/10, just as meh. Again, very interesting! Lots of potential! But it fell flat where it mattered. To be clear, just before we dig deeper: the 12 episodes of TTASB isn't the entire story. It's clearly intended to be continued, though, as of writing this, I haven't been able to dig up any news about a potential season 2.

I don't really mind if animes aren't completely original, as long as they're fun, but TTASB didn't really do that. A lot of the episodes felt boring and reused like it was a watered-down copy-paste of other material. Some episodes were repetitive and seemed to be trying to hammer in the same themes, only to be later contradicted by other episodes. TTASB will spend a few episodes showing you how misunderstood and sweet the Incarnates are and then have an episode where an Incarnate murders a bunch of people. I would love it if it was, in any way, shape, or form, sarcastic, but it is not. TTASB just thinks it can get away with the blatant disregarding of its own morals. It only ends up feeling disconnecting and frustrating.

It follows an almost monster-of-the-week style format for introducing the Incarnates, which does them a bit of a disservice, in my opinion. I really would have liked it if there was a bit more overlap between the Incarnates and their stories! We know that they're all very close (or, at least, the show tells us that they are without really showing us) so seeing them interact with one another outside of their respective episode would've been fun!

The story tries to be darker and grimier than it actually is. I didn't end up caring much for the nation itself and much of the politics that the show tried to utilize felt boring and, again, watered-down. It felt like the show wanted to make it a political drama about war and human rights and only ended up shying away from what makes those genres impactful. Again, this isn't to say that TTASB's story is bad, it's just not as good as it could've been.

But it's MAPPA, so the art has to be good, right?: Yeah! Art was cool! Nothing golden, like MAPPA's newer stuff, but a solid 7/10! The fight scenes were nice, and even though a lot of them felt redundant to watch, they were still smooth! I have some qualms about a few of the Incarnates' beast forms (especially Hank's) looking like they belong back in 2001, but they still looked cool nonetheless.

I don't really have much to say on this front! Nothing really blew me away, but I never looked at the screen and winced away.

Ok and finally, pacing!: 4/10. 12 episode animes always have tricky pacing to them. I like to think about the show being pretty much only 5 hours long, which isn't that much time to cram in as much story and plot as they might want to. Overall, TTASB actually had pretty decent pacing, with a long enough build-up that led to a final showdown. If you ask me, I do think there was a pacing problem in the second half, as it felt far too stretched out, but that could've just been my perception of it.

My biggest issue with pacing loops back to the characters again. They're never really given time to explore or build up relationships. Especially not Hank and his prior team of Incarnates. I think that there should've been more screen time dedicated to their time in the army, to better explain the emotional distress that he's going through as he's forced to hunt them down. Instead, TTASB relies on a throwaway line or scene to deliver this emotional blow, and it nearly always falls flat.

Music!!!!: 6/10, The soundtrack in this anime really wasn't memorable and I don't remember much from it. Whoops!

I did like the opening a bit! It was done by Mafumafu, who I think has done a Pokemon intro song? Either way, it was energetic and fit the theme of the show well! The ending is also a bop, now that I'm thinking about it! It manages to be nostalgic and sad without being too slow! So good music on both fronts!!

OK, now we're in spoiler territory! Be warned!

I don't have too much to say regarding spoilers. Nothing in the show really feels important enough that I have to mention it under a spoiler tag. A few small notes, I suppose.

The show treats Hank like the more important character but then throws him away in his "death" to focus on Schaal, which was a very frustrating episode. Schaal felt so bland and useless in it, even when she faced her father again. Bringing him back to life felt like a sad excuse to force her into character development. I did like it when she found the courage to shoot him, but I also thought that it wasn't really as emotional as the show wanted it to be.

Hank's connection with Schaal, particularly in the second half, feels completely unnatural and forced. When she gets kidnapped, he has some sort of mental breakdown over her and it, if anything, felt creepy. It was undeserved and was forced down your throat rather than built.

Beatrice was the best character in the show and I think that if they stuck to ideas like hers (misunderstood creatures who just want to go back to their old lives), the story would have been much better. Instead, you switch to characters like the Gargoyle Incarnate, who just goes on a murder spree, and it ruins a lot of the development that Beatrice brought to the table.

& our deep deep look at one part: Forgive me if I get this screwed up a bit, it's been a weekish since I finished the show and my brain dumped out all details of it already.

Hugh Hank goes to the mountains and fights the Garmr Incarnate, Rex (Roy? I'm a bit confused on his name), in an epic show-down. Obviously, at the end of it, Hank wins, killing Rex. Now, if you're like me, you sat there for most of the fight going "who tf is Rex and why is this battle important?" and only at the very END, when he's dying, do you see a clip that you might remember from the very beginning of the anime, with Rex talking about Schaal. You go "oohhh I know who he is!" but you wished that you remembered this ten minutes ago when the fight started because it would've been so much more impactful. The show didn't remind you of this scene. It didn't tell you that Rex was this same person that you already met. It expected you to remember, and I didn't. This scene sums up a lot of the character problems with the show, where even if something does have emotional weight, the show doesn't act on it.

Now we're done!: Sorry if this was harsh, but that's my full review on To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts! I'd love to hear if you agree with me or think that I'm totally wrong! If you've read the manga, tell me if it's better or worth a read! And thanks for reading!

(The crossed-out "Hugh"s are all of the times that I got Hank's name wrong! I'm not super great with character names, but I always take it as a bad sign when I screw up the name. )

[spphicnightmre]

A Little North/Markus Rant

Edit: I'm really sorry! Some of my paragraphs got messed up and put in random places throughout my rant, so I'm sorry if it seemed I was all over the place! I'm fixing it now.

Don't get me wrong, I get there are a few problems with this ship, the main one being that it seemed very rushed and forced.

-------

First however, I wanna talk about North by herself.

She alone gets a lot of hate, and I feel like it's really undeserved. To most people, she comes off as really genocidal, annoying, and pushy. If you believe she's annoying, then there's nothing I can really do to convince you otherwise, but I do have a few things I want to point out.

1. I think that, if you think about it, North is just as pushy, if not less pushy, than Josh is. She, just like Josh, is constantly pushing Markus to go down a certain path. While this might seem annoying, I think this was put in here for two reasons. One being to emphasize your choices as a player (Between pacifism or hostility), and two is linked to her past.

We don't know much about Josh, nor Simon even, but we know a lot about North if you just put the pieces together.

I think by now most people know that North had originally worked for the Eden Club unwillingly. One day, she was able to stop following her programming, freaked out, killed the client she was with, and ran away. We don't know how long she'd been at the Eden Club, but we do know that she was technically being raped in her time there. This experience has caused her to be hostile and aggressive towards humans because of how she was always treated by them, which brings me to my next point.

2. Saying that North is genocidal is a STRETCH. Because of how she was treated by people, all she's seen of humans is lust and hostility. North only wants what's best for her people, and the way she's sees it, she's only gonna get that if she fights back.

Unfortunately, North had never had the pleasure of meeting people like Carl, Rose, or even Hank, so she doesn't see any good in humans.

The most amazing thing about this though is, even if you choose to be a complete pacifist, North doesn't really fight your decision. She voices her opinion, but if you have a high enough relationship with her, she still willing follows you. Josh and Simon will follow you too of course, whether you choose to be hostile or passive, but not without Josh nagging you constantly (No hate to him though. I'm just making a point.). In the end, if you've chosen the pacifistic route, she will still help you.

With that said, I think the most memorable example of this I had in my playthrough, was the fact that, if you decide to sing when you're surrounded by troops, North is the first to join you. This, in my opinion, speaks volumes. Throughout the game, North has always talked about wanting a revolution. Wanting to be violent, but even with that in mind, she's willing to step forward and sing with you in the face of death. Even though she didn't agree with your approach, she was still willing to follow through until the final moment, when they believed they would die. That to me, is really touching.

-------------------------------------------

Anyway, with that out of the way, I want to get to my point about Markus and North's relationship.

I already pretty much know what most people think of them. It's too rushed. It's too forced. And honestly, even though I think their cute, I think so too.

With how North is, and how she comes off, she seems to be open to a relationship a little quick. I don't think this is because of North herself, or because of Markus, but because of the creators. I myself wish QuanticDreams had taken more time to develop their relationship because, it feels like it came too quickly and came as a surprise for a lot of people too.

The thing is, I think if a little more development went into their relationship, it could've been really special. There's so much potential there.

But, let's forget about how rushed it was for a sec. I'm just gonna talk about the scene that started it, because I think this scene is pretty important, not really to the story as a whole, but to their relationship.

This part had me surprised, because just like a lot of people, I didn't expect Markus to automatically become North's lover if they talked about her past. I wasn't disappointed, but it did feel a bit sudden. Although, I kinda figured once they connected. Other than that, I did like how it was portrayed. I do wish that it would've taken a little more time to be able to unlock the lover path for North, but overall I see where the developers were going with the relationship and I really like it's potential.

Markus and North, even with their differences, were understanding of each other, especially in this scene. Not to mention, I thought it was nice to see North not being all "I feel like blowing up some shit today" and whatnot. No, but for real, I think it was nice to see a softer side of her, one that us as players can identify with, and Markus as well. Not all of us can relate to her story, but just her demeanor.

One thing I think I would've really liked to see however would've been if you take the pacifist route, it not only takes North longer to fall for you, but she also slowly starts to understand your approach throughout the game, given you make certain choices that are convincing enough. It would've been an interesting thing to see. There is that part where North runs off after you've just unlocked the lover path, but I think it would be cool if she kind of took longer to really acknowledge their feelings, even if she really only mentions how she feels in times when she believes it might be the last. I don't think it'd be fitting for her to change her opinion about humans completely however. One thing I really liked about her was her determination, but it'd be nice to just see her slowly understand why Markus decides he wants to be peaceful with humans.

-------------------------------------------

Finally, my last point I want to get to is Simon.

I really like Simon. I think he's a good character that didn't get a lot of screen time, nor was he focused on enough. It is disappointing that they took out the lover path for him, since I know a lot of people like him, but that's not the main thing I wanna say about him.

Really, the only thing I have to say is, it's ok to ship Simon and Markus. It's not a problem, but that doesn't mean you have to hate on people who like North and Markus. It's really disappointing to see ppl fight over something like this because it's not something worth fighting over. Both of the ships are unique and beautiful in their own way, so let's just accept that and move on.

Anyway, I'm done now, so if anyone did read through this, thanks because I know it was probably boring. I'm not very good at expressing how I feel into words, but I hope you could understand what I meant. It really sucks seeing all this hate on them because I really do think their cute, that includes Simon and Markus, though tbh I never really thought about it until I saw what ppl had to say lol 😂.

Ok, I'll leave now. Bye 😐.

P.S. - The four of them are friends. The Jericho Squad. I really don't see any of them fighting over someone. I like to think that Simon and North wouldn't do something like that, especially since it's so out of character. I get that it can be funny, but at the same time, just make sure you aren't hating on other ships.