Nothing I love more than nonstop exposition.
Impressions:
Yeeeah. I know the manga is highly regarded, but this is exactly what I was afraid of. No concept is so trivial that they can’t sit down and explain it like the audience is a bunch of gibbering imbeciles. It’s three minutes into the episode, and they’re explaining the concept of money. We have no money. Money is used to buy goods and services. Goods and services are required to continue our quest. We can’t continue our quest without goods and services, therefore we need money to continue our quest. Thanks, guys. This was definitely a necessary chunk of exposition that didn’t make me want to gouge out my brain. Sure, the ones specific to monsters were slightly less obnoxious than that, but they were still obnoxious. Oh no, a slime is suffocating me. While I’m being suffocated, I can’t cast spells. Because I can’t cast spells, I guess I’ll just die here in this room full of people watching. Was this really necessary? Could we not just let choking and gasping speak for itself?
The characters aren’t helping either. There’s overreacting elf, who is there to pretend to be the straight man but just screams constantly. Exposition dude A who gives the first fun fact about every monster. Exposition dude B who gives the second fun fact and is a dwarf. And a hobbit, who sits in the background with as much presence as the lacquer. It’s not a colorful cast, and it’s definitely missing Trigger’s usual animation flair and expressiveness that typically makes their shows at least visually interesting. It’s very disappointingly minimally animated, even in the parts where they’re fighting dragons or the obligatory bondage vines.
