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This is an OVA for Shadow Skill which I watched a couple of episodes because I thought it'd be cool, but I dropped it because I couldn't get into the plot. So I was surprised to find this OVA and decided to watch it purely for the art style which sands down all those nice 90s characters into emotionless rubber.

It's an early 3D animation. Which, despite the character designs, is honestly not as bad as it could have been. There are some moments where you can tell they put some thought and effort into the direction. Unfortunately for my sanity, these moments are quickly ... undercut by very strange and weirdly disorienting moments. There's this exposition scene near the beginning that is just a solid minute of rotating from character to character which kind of gave me a headache. Sure 3D animation was really difficult to make back then, but understanding this fact does not make it any less difficult to watch.

The animation isn't the worst of it though. The music actually drove me insane. I swear it's like the same song looping for an hour, I started hallucinating. The voice acting is good though, probably a remnant of the original show.

The plot... I honestly don't remember much. It has this strong focus on the theme of the cycle of violence and pacifism which I'm not sure I entirely followed because my brain was decomposing at that point. It's not terrible, just typical over bloated anime philosophizing.

Would I recommend watching it? If you like watching weird bad stuff then yes, otherwise obviously not (why are you here?). Because of the animation and music it has a kind of unnerving liminal vibe which despite my complaints I kind of loved. It reminded me of an unskippable cutscene.

I think it's been pretty ok. A lot of people say the characters are too over powered, but personally I don't mind a little over powered bs in my shounen. Sure it's unrealistic, but for me that's fine. The premise is enough to keep me invested for now.

The real draw back for me is the characters. I know it's early in the show, but it's been 16 episodes and they seem kind of shallow. They have potential, but to me they were all more interesting when they were introduced. Like at first Kohaku seemed ... pretty cool, now she's just a background tsundere. Besides Senku the only other character that gets a lot of focus is Chrome, but I think he's kind of bland. Don't get me wrong, I like him, I just think he's boring. Again, the potential's there for both of these characters, they both have interesting motivations and strong personalities, they just need a little more depth or something to make them more enduring.

The character I dislike the most is Senku which is a red flag considering he's the main character. Everything seems to go his way. We only really see him failing or struggling in montages. His only weakness seems to be his lack of physical strength (but he's still ripped for some reason). He's shown to be kind of manipulative, but I don't think this is really a character flaw because it's more played for laughs. Which is fun and all, but again, no flaws or weaknesses that I can find. I know I said I don't mind a little op shounen bs, but Senku walks the line for me. In recent episodes he's gotten a little better as we learn more about his dad. Hopefully he'll end up being more likable.

A lot of people seem to like the art, and it is great sometimes. Everything but the characters are always great actually. It's just that sometimes the characters look super off. I know it can be worst, but even in the opening, the girls look really... durpy. Their eyes and mouth are just too close together. It seems minor, but for someone who watches anime mainly for the art, it's a really draw back. Luckily it's not always too bad, and all the other aspects of the art and animation are good.

The music isn't bad. It's just as I'm writing this review, I can't remember any of the songs. So it's average I guess, not bad, but not memorable.

I guess to sum it up, I'd say it's got a lot of potential. But so far it hasn't delivered, and that's disappointing. People have been talking about the manga for a while, so I was thinking it was going to be great. I guess I had my hopes too high. That's not really the shows fault though. It's ok as it is, but don't go in thinking it's going to be any better than ok because so far it really isn't. Still, if you haven't already, I think it's worth watching if it sounds interesting to you. It's not bad, in fact, a lot of people seem to really like it, so it's worth a shot.