RitsukaTachibana said:A lot of people are missing the cues that this whole anime is meant to be a cultural reference to some of the most influential Japanese animators in the industry (Miyazaki, Naoko Takeuchi, Tezuka). Right down to the dialogue and animation style. It's Ghibli. It's Tezuka. Unio is literally based on Tezuka's Unico. Natsuko created what is their version of Sailor Moon. And she ended up in what is effectively: Miyazaki's Nausicaa. The monsters, in some episodes, are the spitting image of Ghibli insects. It feels old because people have
seen this before. Literally. MAPPA is paying homage to the people who formed their industry. Even the storyboarding itself:
is not meant to be linear. They follow Miyazaki's heart in storytelling, and Tezuka's affinity for tragedy in children's animation. Zenshu is supposed to be
but what if there was more hope in the films of my nostalgic childhood?
As far as complaints to Natsuko's inability to leverage her knowledge further- I think this is pretty well shown in the anime! They make it clear that she does not know everything occurring within A Tale of Perishing. She only knows what she was shown (ie: the movie, some behind the scenes movie making tidbits, and what the creator had published, etc). She often remarks how many scenes and motivations of the characters in A Tale of Perishing
don't make sense to her. (This is also a ref. to Miyazaki's storytelling btw). Because she doesn't have more knowledge than what they show in the movie. They don't show the very source of the great evil, or necessarily why things occur in the manner they do. She can only do with what knowledge she has at the time of the film she was dropped into. And even so, the events she knows by heart begin to change in increasingly drastic ways- making her newfound reality very difficult to predict.
So, so far- I do agree that it's woefully underrated. But not everyone is going to get Zenshu for what it is, or necessarily enjoy it at face value without that background knowledge. I do think that it wasn't marketed very well. Both the cover art, and the trailer, don't really sell the story for what it is. Some people will pass because they dislike isekai. Some because of the intentionally dated art style (even with incredible modern animation), and some won't catch any of the deeper footnotes of the story. I think they seriously missed out on classifying this as a Magical Girl anime. It's tragic, we get a female heroine with no interest in being a hero, perfectly traditional mahou shoujo transformation sequences- it really is the perfect formula for that genre, I think! (And I'm honestly glad it's not as tragic as most magical girl anime).