Ragna Crimson

Said to be humanity's natural enemy, formidable dragons that belong to an ancient bloodline roam the world. Only two ways prove effective to kill a dragon: freezing their blood with silverine—an aura that comes from silver weapons—or letting their bodies be incinerated by sunlight.

Young hunter prodigy Leonica is accompanied by her close friend Ragna, who appears to lack the skills necessary in their profession. Moreover, many shun Ragna, considering him cursed because dragons always seem to attack him and slaughter his close ones. Nevertheless, Leonica sees potential in Ragna and gladly partners up with him. Likewise, Ragna feels certain that Leonica is immune to his misfortune thanks to her incredible strength.

His confidence is shaken, however, when Ragna dreams of Leonica's death, believing this to be a prophecy. As the destined day arrives, he comes face-to-face with his future self, who bestows him enormous power and memories from the future to ensure Leonica's safety. In order to succeed, Ragna must join forces with a mysterious figure known as Crimson and eradicate all dragons for good.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Crimson Main

Murase, Ayumu Japanese

Ragna Main

Kobayashi, Chiaki Japanese

Leese, Starlia Supporting

Hidaka, Rina Japanese

Ultimatia Supporting

Ueda, Reina Japanese

Voltekamui Supporting

Suwabe, Junichi Japanese

Slime Supporting

Fairouz Ai Japanese

Leonica Supporting

Minase, Inori Japanese

Gilzea Supporting

Kugimiya, Rie Japanese

Chimera Supporting

Noto, Mamiko Japanese

Nebulim Supporting

Yamashita, Daiki Japanese

Oowada, Tomoyuki Producer

Aoi, Hiroyuki Producer

Kaneko, Hayato Producer

Komatsu, Shouta Producer

Reviews

Dec 9, 2024

PixelB

Recommended

Look, this is shounen drivel at it's finest. It's about a guy who "is kind and protects his friends," and has mysteriously OP powers that uses to bulldoze the enemy; an enemy so evil that they're practically different beings. That's right: they're dragons!

Now, why would I rate something like this remotely high? I hated Demon Slayer and it had around the same plot, and the animation quality surely was multiple times higher. Well, it just has to do with good character development. All the characters in Ragna Crimson are pretty fun to read about. When people or demons in Demon Slayer die and they show ... their flashbacks, it kind of just is some throwaway sob story that no one cares about. While Ragna Crimson does employ a similar tactic, it's a lot more genuine because you actually know a lot about a character through their actions and interactions in the story. It isn't just slapping a sob story to a random that died and now the author needs to make the viewer feel a bit empathetic with the side character, but moreso fleshing out a character that already was strong enough to stand by themselves. Almost as a last hurrah, you get to know the last piece about them before they die.

And that truly is what makes this generic shounen kind of fun to watch. Both sides are quite human. They literally ARE human, despite one side being so-called dragons. So that means that both sides would have human-like aspirations, and you're basically just watching a shounen show with both sides possessing shounen characteristics. OP characters with OP abilities, random powerups that are completely OP, and so on and so forth. It's again, like watching two shounen shows at the same time. It's not just a hero cutting down the demon lord. It's kind of more like heroes of both sides trying to beat each other. It's quite interesting.

But of course, the most interesting is how character dynamics come into play. You're lead to believe that Crimson is a mastermind-type individual, trying to micromanage and make use of all chess pieces as much as possible. And you're right. So how does a pretty much clueless hero-type individual like Ragna cooperate -- and perhaps rebel against Crimson's orders? I mean the main reason is plot armor, but nonetheless, the delicate power balance between Ragna, Crimson, and the dragons is always kept. There's always some way that Ragna can keep Crimson in check and vice versa, while both will still ultimately want the same goal of killing dragons and eradicating them. You're not really going to have a chummy relationship where Ragna and Crimson suddenly fall in love or something absolutely stupid like other shounen shows have you watch. Hopefully in the future too.

Plus, there's no BS arc of "training camp." Our MC Ragna is already pretty strong. No need for random high school academies for learning the arts with his peers, or just randomly getting strong because of a breathing technique his father passed down to him or something absolutely dumb. The show maintains a good amount of action the entire way, and it's split into a few parts due to actual plot reasons. You're not given a random raven that tells you another point of interest you need to go to in order to progress the plot. It's more like there's always some sort of reason (some flimsy, granted...) Ragna and his crew are somewhere. Whether it's to investigate or by pure misfire, Ragna and Crimson find themselves in situations that they crafted themselves ultimately.

Ragna's an absolute archetype of the typical shounen protag, and so the fact that he gets put in his place by Crimson and vice versa, there comes an actual story to tell. I still won't lie, it's still very shounen-driven. Friendship, random powerups, plot armor, and more are commonplace. Still, it's a bit equalized. Of course, Ragna and Crimson are practically immortal, but the rest of the characters are quite equalized. Yes, you could also find a lot of plot holes that don't make a lot of sense. There's a weird hybrid of science and magic that gets thrown around a lot with Crimson as well. It's like Crimson was deliberately nerfed so that there's a story to tell! I wouldn't watch this show for an in-depth story, but rather just suspend your disbelief and let yourself get shown the narrative the author wants to craft for the story and characters.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by PixelB (440)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Dec 19, 2024

Abdiel7

Mixed Feelings

For my 20th Review on MAL

We have…..

“Crimson”
(Yes, there was another word before that but I’d like to forget that part)

I was rather anticipating the binge of this series, a 48 min opening, a 24 episode season and “SILVERLINK” who have cooked up quite the resume of fantasy anime.

Unfortunately, this is the 1st time i have absolutely hated a 48 min opening it was probably the worst i have ever seen by a mile. To give you a gist they decided to waste your time on some of the most unbelievably insulting writing imaginable. Who thought of this garbage? it's practically nonsense materialized. It's ... fantasy that ignores any sort of realism or structure so it just fails to captivate it’s audience as it’s childish and stuffed with contrivances. What they were saying, what they were doing, I couldn't believe any of it. it's just a forced mess to try and create some sort of impactful introduction but it lacks any wisdom and understanding. it's in essence an exhibition of mediocrity. I was ready to quit by the end of it but they gave a big hint that the source of that pathetic excuse of writing could die in the next episode so I soldiered on. I could fondly recall this inane sequence of the MC’s backstory which just made me burst out laughing. I will applaud that they are no stranger to death in this show which is refreshing.

You can map my experience of this show onto an isosceles triangle with the 2 base angles being white signifying the beginning and the ending and the middle vertex angle being red, “crimson” red. We start from nothing, ascending into an eventful, and clever climax with very sharp and enjoyable moments but with a clear descent into a lacklustre ending.

We are introduced to an acceptable cast of characters I didn’t hate many. I watched the show in the Dub and I was impressed, especially during the middle part. It had killer voice-acting and dialogue that left me almost in tears laughing. However the crown goes to Crimson, that character was pretty much the only reason i enjoyed these 24 episodes. Crimson just oozes with charisma, his motivations and actions are coherent and written with wisdom. You can really understand him and empathize with his decisions and the dialogue is ever lively with his presence. Whilst he’s on the screen the show almost feels like a banger however his brilliance is unfortunately dwarfed and adulterated by the sheer stupidity of the MC "Ragna" who is utterly insufferable and embodies the worst of the unfavourable shonen archetypes, as well as being a massive simp to boot. His motivations are very much mindless his understanding non-existent he is a tool for the plot and apologist when need be, and you really can’t connect with this character. They explore a unique way to give the MC an appropriate power early on, however It’s just too abrupt for me, it’s not got enough drawbacks and it just feels like a cheat-code. The power-up in question, is comparing a crack in the mud from your back-yard to The Grand Canyon. Comparing your local park’s anthill to Mount Everest. Another thing is I hate the idea of people becoming strong all on their own. It’s complete nonsense, no one becomes strong on their own some of the greatest people you know all had strong mentors at certain stages and teams willing to expend copious amount of effort to support them. It’s quite exciting the clear juxtaposition of the excellence of Crimson with the irrational, impulsive, ignorance of Ragna, the problem is these flaws of Ragna’s character shouldn’t really exist to this degree and are rewarded rather than punished. What’s more infuriating is that the nature of this Power-Up should eliminate most of Ragna’s character flaws either immediately or slowly. While there’s glimpses of that early-on ,this development is eventually replaced by “Shonen Main Character A” to my pure dismay, with a cabinet of plot-armor injected into his subsequent actions.

Another peculiar choice is the setting of the show, it seems it take elements of different time periods of history and throw them all together. There's no tact here and from what i recall none of it is explained. I won't say it ruins the immersion but the military strategy and soundness is in absolute tatters sometimes you're left wondering why certain weapons are used when there are clearly better options blatantly available. Then they just end up scrapping all that in favour of a single weapon intimately linked with the MC.

The animation had very good drawing but really lacked a true potency in motion that other shows of this genre usually hold them up. Something like Fate UBW with a story and plot almost as bad as this one i couldn't help but give a high score because the soundtrack and animation were the greatest i had ever seen at the time, it's impossible not to get goosebumps whilst watching that but this did not generate spectacle that was that memorable.

The Dragons were utterly terrible both in conception and in action. They are divided in classes but the sense of unity and family is just a farcical formality, those at the top share nothing in common with those at the bottom. They are suppose to give the collective impression of a great superior race but It could never be realized whilst they the stench of commonplace "bad-guys" and "jobbers". The only interesting "dragons" are those at the top and my quotation is intentional and they were butchered for the plot, with motivations that are simply headscratchers. These dragons have certain ridiculous limitations which are the limitations of other fantasy race/classes you've grown to love and they barely even keep the consistency of these limitations. The monster choreography is mediocre at best, it's littered with monsters just staring at characters and waiting to die. If you want to see real monsters go and binge the Chinese masterpiece "A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality" you'll never respect this average level of choreography again. They call dragons the strongest beasts at the start but you'll be hard pressed to not see most as chaff by the end. They show promise at some points but they aren't allowed to shine as the plot armour on MC is strong. They're obsessed with the need for massive beasts with the strength several hundred times greater than the strongest of men not to mention potent magic abilities, to be one-shot by beings 1/1000th of their weight. There's also hardly any coherent and interesting teamwork outside of boss class monsters. It's usually either u get one-shot or the monsters get one-shot ,sometimes they sponge but it never felt like proper cut-off-the limbs sponging, it was hollow..

There’s an art to depicting the act of “Dragon-Slaying”, and these guys are novices. There’s no nuance, there’s no specific anatomical points where the dragons are weak, the different types, natures and species of dragons are barely explored. I can’t help but feel we were robbed of the beauty of such wise exposition due to the main character and worst of all certain 5 foot sub 100 pound(45kg) girls sometimes not even older than 10 years cutting through them like fodder. These sub-elite class dragons are literally drone bots incapable of higher thinking which is in such opposition to how they are usually depicted. There should have been effective team-fighting sequences for these dragons but The problem with letting these individuals solo-kill dragons is that it's wholly ludicrous and dilutes how impressive a feat slaying dragons is supposed to be. There’s no weight to it, the grandiose idea of this Leviathan; this tremendous mythical creature is eventually brought to naught the longer you watch this show. The disrespect spreads to the dragon-slayers themselves being total nonentities outside of the “chosen ones”. Where is this association of Dragon-Slayers? Where is the Ranking system? Where is the union, the political influence? The hierarchy of dragon-slayers?, the fame of strong parties of them non-existent, there’s just nothing of substance here. This is a problem because it doesn’t any make civilization even possible, nevertheless one that has advanced to the level shown in the show. Where are those society can trust in to be safe? Due to the writing they were just poorly conceived plot devices because the only people capable of these feats are the ones close to MC at the right place and at the right time. It just doesn’t feel like the world exists outside of when it’s on screen perhaps more is explored in later seasons or chapters of the source. I must say at this point, I’m thoroughly disgusted seeing another group of strong warriors subordinate themselves to another shoulder-height, XX, giga-thanos, barely half their weight, half their age or lower, standing at a whopping 2/3rds of their height and 1/10th their muscle mass. This drivel is overdone in fantasy anime, I’m just taken a back, outright bewildered whenever I behold the empty farce of such a scenario.

The last 4 episodes are a complete snooze-fest I had predicted it’s ending by that point and in likewise fashion it turned out to be such a revolting conclusion, They of course, tried to make it all more believable by killing off more characters but when millions have perished without much thought to it, nothing even hits any more. Here we have mighty villains who have sworn pacts with strong wills who then basically set the heroes up to win in the best scenario. It ends up being truly incoherent and in complete antithesis of their goals, it's a shame because this kind of “tie-the-knot” , “let-the heroes-win” lazy writing is very much boring for seasoned anime watchers. The is final fight is consequently reduced to an anti-climactic mess.

Final Ratings

Animation 8
Sound 7
Plot 5
Characters 6
Enjoyment 7

= 33 - 6.6/10 - 7/10 - I can only recommended to fantasy enthusiasts like myself.

So you’re thinking; how can you rate this 7 after you complained so much? Well I made it through 21 episodes(one being 48 min) without stopping. If an anime can keep it’s audience entertained for that long whilst being rather endearing in some areas it deserves some praise. The bad moments never completely wrecked the experience for me.

If you've got time to waste and enjoy the odd fantasy experience with good laughs jam-packed inside then this is your show but the quality of writing outside of general dialogue and communication won't impress anyone. The gold of this show lies within “Crimson” and those that surround him it’s painfully average elsewhere. If this Crimson character didn’t exist, this would probably be another 4/10 disaster. Perhaps the later events of the plot save the series, unfortunately, I have no desire to search that out but I wouldn’t mind if they conjured another 24 episode season.

For the 7 letters of Crimson I shall award a 7.

Hope this Helps.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by Abdiel7 (21)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Sep 9, 2024

0004_1

Not Recommended

DISAPOINTING AS FUCK
Only really watched because I thought the opening was really really good .

Art - 4/10 Basic animation, lots of just still shots with gums flapping for talking, fight scenes are pretty bland and all blend in with eachother.

Characters - 3/10 Almost None of the characters are memorable, I Finished this today and remember Ragna, Crimson and slime and the princess w no arms thats it. The rest of the characters are just nothing, even the characters listed have 0 Development and do not engage me whenever they are on screen.

Story - 2/10 What story? the story doesnt really exist its just a show ... of fighting Dragons? Not dragons? it gets repetetive after like 3 episodes and there is 24 of them, the times when the show stops for a few episodes takes a breath and thinks about characters are when it is really engaging, soo much potential wasted, the slower episodes were far better.

Overall - 2/10 Genuinely dissapointed and struggled really hard to get through this, whenever something would happen in the story it would all be resolved with punches in the sky, it made no sense.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by 0004_1 (60)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

must watch shooters medieval and other stuff (gore,action, ADULT AUDIENCE) GORE GALORE

by max6599

22 Entries · 9 Restacks

Overpowered Main Character (Isekai & more). [#03]

by 1List2RuleThemAl

48 Entries · 87 Restacks

ANIME WHERE MC USE SWORD AS A MAIN WEAPON

by NoLongerAtsushi

6 Entries · 2 Restacks

Fall 2023 Simulcast List [Update 10/22]

In this thread, you'll find a comprehensive list of television anime acquired for simulcast release during the Fall 2023 season. Anime series licensed for home ...read more

Sep 29, 2023 8:06 AM by Snow | Discuss (26 comments)

Q4 2023 Anime & Manga Licenses [Update 11/17]

In this thread, you'll find a comprehensive list of anime and manga licensed in the fourth quarter (Oct-Dec) of 2023. Fall 2023 anime which were licensed before...read more

Sep 29, 2023 8:05 AM by Snow | Discuss (8 comments)

	Poll: Ragna Crimson Episode 7 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) IzanaSolos - Nov 11, 2023	106 replies	by 1List2RuleThemAl »» Yesterday, 7:09 AM
	Poll: Ragna Crimson Episode 14 Discussion IzanaSolos - Jan 20	31 replies	by Gaboche831 »» Nov 30, 2:33 AM
	Favorite Ragna Crimson moment? RagnaCrimsonFan - Oct 16	23 replies	by xZabuzax »» Nov 27, 12:34 PM
	Poll: Ragna Crimson Episode 24 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) IzanaSolos - Mar 30	135 replies	by FurinaCatmeow »» Nov 13, 10:18 PM
	Poll: Ragna Crimson Episode 2 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) IzanaSolos - Oct 7, 2023	114 replies	by Kaydansnk »» Oct 29, 1:32 PM