Jouran: The Princess of Snow and Blood

I thought it was sad to see our main girl go through a trauma since. She a child. Losing family like that in a fire arson as a child is really traumatising so I 100% understand where she’s coming from to get revenge on those who intentionally killed her family like that. I also praise her for saving the little girl whose parents sold her off to a older man like Makato should realise this!

It’ll be interesting to see what the blond chick will have to say about why she killed that woman, cliffhangers are a curse man! [/spoilers]
 
Very very fascinating story. I don't entirely understand the timeline of the backdrop (not well versed in Japanese "eras"). But the storyline is attention catching. If you like detective, crime as well as fantasy, this is probably the right cocktail of the two for you. The artwork is very unique. And well... It would be a shame to miss out on this one. Definitely looking forward to the entire anime.
 
Watched up to Episode 2. Not really impressed and decided to drop it after writing my thoughts out so far.

I can follow along what's happening roughly, but it's not too enjoyable for a multitude of reasons. I think the biggest one is the writing. The whole idea is kind of ridiculous; it's a pseudo sci-fi, pseudo modern, pseudo fantasy all combined into one with a revenge story as the main plot (and some political thing going on in the background). It's like the writers just thought up of what would be the coolest setting they could think up of, with a sad yet edgy plot and threw it all together. Then they had no idea of how to actually make it work; and it shows in how much information is crammed in each episode.

Feels like every other moment we're learning something about the setting and the world the characters live in as well as the character motivations, but it just isn't presented all that well. The director did a decent job of avoiding the cheapest forms of exposition, but they never presented the information too cleanly either. There was never an info dump that happened between two characters who should have mutual information between each other, like the Treasurer was sharing new info the MC... But why on earth were they sharing that info to begin with? Well whatever.

Moving on, the direction presents a good amount of the information so the viewer has to pay attention, but they don't do enough setup and down time to allow the viewer to parse the information cleanly. You only get a vague idea of what's happening so it can "feel" like it's an assassination political intrigue story.... When it's just they aren't telling us what we should know to be invested in the story and characters.

Maybe if this was directed better, it could be a decent action flick with rule of cool. Right now it just comes off as silly and pretentious at the same time. You can't have a serious story, but with fake tension rule of cool combat. In fact even if the focus was on rule of cool, the combat choreography and sound work wasn't anything to write home about. It was decent; not great or bad particularly.

So maybe if the combat was more realistic and had tension this show would have potential? Probably not because it's ridiculous setting of pre WW2 Japan+sci-fi+fantasy is hard to take seriously. And yet the biggest hinge is as always for any show IMHO is it's characterization. Nobody to care about by episode 2 except MC and all MC has going for them is "muh family die. me angry. me revenge." Everyone else is 2D with currently illogical or no motivations beyond their status post in the story. Can't care for any of the potentially interesting ideas like the transforming demon humans, political intrigue, or the battles if the characters are all just caricatures. Sure you could get away with this in a pure rule of cool action show or a comedy, but this show went for half rule of cool, and half... Something that it didn't actually manage to do.

4/10 for some okay action and attempt at something interesting, but ultimately uninteresting and badly done.
 
Episode 2.
Well, this got a little twisted.
So Shorty isn't her real sister, but the kid of people she murdered, one of whom was going to diddle her, and now she's raising her so she can have revenge for that...that's a lot of murder and revenge right there.

Also, I think we can safely say these people are not heroes in any sense of the word. They're all kind of jerks. Especially Blondie.
 
This show is so clearly obsessed with "plot twists" that it's not even funny. They keep trying to make characters act in shocking ways but it's impossible for them to shock me or surprise me because I have no fucking clue what they wanted in the first place.

Calling the characters flat feels wrong because it's not that they're one dimensional, is that we don't even know one dimension about them. But that certainly doesn't make them engaging. The only character who we know even remotely any type of motivation is the mc, and even that was extremely generic. Everyone else is simply a mystery.

Not to say that a character being a mystery is wrong per se, but making them do... "shocking" things is not shocking if we have have no expectations of them. A plot twist of an ally turning traitor doesn't work if we didn't even know they were an ally. (This is just an example not a spoiler)

"This character you knew literally nothing about is something you didn't expect!" that's not a revelation, that's just finally telling us what they are. Except the show does try and portray it as a revelation. And because of that it comes across a very poorly written.

Also in 3 eps I still know more about the setting from the synopsis than the actual show. Not a good sign.

Visually it's great and I have zero complains about the voice acting or OST but man this show makes it hard to care about anything happening. I'll give it one more ep just because I have no other show airing on Tuesday.
 
Episode 3.
Moral of the story:
Never trust old people. They might be a eugenicist lunatic in a Mission: Impossible disguise.

Also, I love how much Blondie and Paleface hate each other. It's quite amusing to watch.
 
Okay so I just noticed that the intro song's foundation actually has this alternating pattern where each time first a not is played in some japanese instrument (idk the name but there's this anime about it ongoing now...) Which is followed by the same note played in a lower octave in a guitar like sounding instrument throughout the intro part of the song. ie before the piano kicks in. And it just sonds so smooth though. Like... Idk it sounds like a traditional song that's been recreated in the 90s or something...
 
I'm watching this show for the wrong reason lmao
that aside, i'm not really impressed with the plot
 
Episode 4.
That was...not good.
Like, why did 1000 Degree Knife Guy betray her, but then suddenly save her? That just seemed out of nowhere. Also, the fight with Janome was a letdown. The action until now was pretty good, but the big showdown with him was just...meh. It didn't help his snake monster form looked completely derp.
Yeah, not great.
 
Oceanwithwaves said:
Episode 4 was...interesting. It made no sense, but I'm still clinging to the hope of it all being explained later.
Click to expand...

I am sure it will be. Whether satisfactorily or not is another story.

I am still liking the show, but if that is all there is to the Janome stuff then I will have to admit that is a huge let-down as far as the driving plot currently. I am going to guess though that he is not really dead, or at the very least is not the one really behind a lot of the sinister things going on. As for the betrayals and such, I am fine with it all, since they are part of an underground assassin group, and I would expect there to be a lot of betrayals, limited trust, and loyalty out of convenience and necessity much less respect and devotion. I really like that because I like to be kept guessing and curious about who is where and on whose side.
 
I worry this anime will suffer the fate of so many things going on, that it won't manage to wrap all of them up by the 12 episode mark.
 
ZanKraken said:
I worry this anime will suffer the fate of so many things going on, that it won't manage to wrap all of them up by the 12 episode mark.
Click to expand...

It is only episode 4... a bit early to be worrying about plot flow and resolution just yet. Still plenty of time to explain and reveal the dangling plot points going on, which there are really not that many of so far. This latest episode did sort of throw a curveball you could say, but unless the show just goes full filler or they start introducing all sorts of new ideas while ignoring what is already out there, it should be fine. I would be less worried about them wrapping it up, and more worried about them doing it in a cliched predictable way. Which at the moment, they are doing a good job keeping the twists and turns coming.
 
Episode 5.
Oh, please.
We all know none of them are dead. Like if you're gonna try and make it look like they died, put a little effort into it. But no, we get the cliche "Shot while the camera isn't on them" scene, Blondie "Dying" offscreen and never seeing her bodies' face and Sawa supposedly fatally poisoning herself. I give it 2 episodes tops before we find out they're all alive.
 
randomredneck said:
We all know none of them are dead. Like if you're gonna try and make it look like they died, put a little effort into it. But no, we get the cliche "Shot while the camera isn't on them" scene, Blondie "Dying" offscreen and never seeing her bodies' face and Sawa supposedly fatally poisoning herself. I give it 2 episodes tops before we find out they're all alive.
Click to expand...

Well, we know Sawa is not dead, unless the show just decided to throw the biggest curveball yet at us, in which case I have no idea where they would take it. As for Elena... there is a strong chance she is gone (of course this is anime so who knows). The show is going for a serious route and is playing with themes of assassination, betrayal, and utter secrecy... so it makes perfect sense that "there is no way out except in a coffin". It really would not be that big of a twist to bump her off and show how high the stacks are for the main cast. Honestly, I hope she is gone... I was not the biggest fan of her, but beyond that, I like the weight it gives to the actions of the characters and the story and makes the situation more desperate and intriguing.
 
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