3ET: Blade and Soul

The target audience notices her guns.

Studio: Gonzo

Director: Hamasaki Hiroshi (Steins;Gate) and Takeuchi Hiroshi

Writer: Tomioka Atsuhiro (Zetman, Inazuma Eleven)

Main Cast:

Takao Yuki as Alka

Amamiya Sora as Jin Hazuki

Oohara Sayaka as El Karen

Takagaki Ayahi as Dan Roana

Yuuki Aoi as Jin Valel

Character Design: Osada Eri

Music: Iwashiro Tarou (Suisei no Gargania)

The opening scene of Blade and Soul serves as a good summary for the show. The main character, a woman known as Alka, faces down a group of soldiers. The soldiers shoot at her, Alka dodges the bullets, and then she opens their throats with her two-bladed knife. It has to be two blades, because two blades make it cool. The scene both illustrates the brutality of the show and Alka's superhuman reflexes. There is also some cryptic dialogue about how Alka is from the Sword Clan like that is supposed to mean something There is also a male extra that gets killed in a horrible fashion by the bad guys, who hail from the big bad empire, this time known as the Palum Kingdom. It's then quickly established that Alka has been falsely accused of killing her master, and that she wants revenge on the real murderer, the female leader of the bad guys named Jin Valel.

To the show's credit, the world that Alka is trying to get her revenge in is fairly well-developed. Alka wanders through a village that is trying to resist selling its land to Palum, which ends poorly for all involved. She then goes to a larger independent city in the desert, where she interacts with a number of residents before meeting the proprietor of a red light district inn along with a talented bounty hunter named Hazuki. These scenes work to make Alka's story feel like it's part of a much larger world, and if the story was about these side characters teaming up with Alka, I'd be very interested in watching. They add much needed color to Alka's world. 

Haven't we figured out that CG humans should never be used, ever? Bad Gonzo, bad!

And I say that color is much needed because Alka is an awfully plain character. I can sympathize with a character who is quiet and doesn't show a lot of emotion if their past is shown so I can see how they became that way. That never happens with Alka. I didn't learn anything about her master, nor the circumstances by which he died. Also, her ridiculous ability to dodge or deflect bullets makes her seem invulnerable, and even a leg wound during a fight with Hazuki does nothing to dissuade me of that notion. These two factors, her invulnerability and her lack of a personality makes her completely unrelatable. All of this adds up to an overarching plot that is light on reasons for me to give a damn.

The other main complaint I have is this show's predictability. Each episode has the same basic storyline. Alka goes to a new area and meets a bunch of people. There are some male characters, most of which are either likeable or innocuous, and some female characters, who are usually strong and interesting, as I said earlier. At some point, things get horribly violent, and the guys get slaughtered horribly to the point of borderline misandry, while the women are able to survive, usually without a scratch. This predictability was so obvious that I didn't bother even trying to give a shit about the group of bandits Alka runs into in the third episode. I knew that the only survivor would be their leader, a busty woman (and let's be honest, they're all busty in this show) named Dan Roana. And I was right. Sometimes I don't like it when I'm right.

Don't worry, this guy actually had it coming.

I can't call Blade and Soul a complete failure, but I can call it a bit of a mess. If someone needs to see a femme fatale killing guys in full bloody glory, they could do worse. But, there isn't much beyond that in the three episodes I watched. With a better protagonist, and less joy in killing off every male in sight, I could see myself picking this up as a mindless action slog. As it is, I have to fail it and move on.