This show had me fully immersed from the first 30 minutes of episode one. Actions, event and characters felt believable, consistent, and authentic. But something odd happened in the final episode. It slipped into the territory of characters and events becoming unbelievable and illogical which upended the fantasy somewhat.
A few of the moments which really broke the spell for me:
If Fowler could so easily overpower Mizu time and time again, why did he never bother to kill her? He just kept smacking her and Taigen to the ground and then jogging off into the castle. This felt so incredibly cliché and unrealistic.
When Akemi and Seki bravely decided to close the doors to the castle and trap the fleeing enemy army, they just about managed to get the doors closed before the fleeing army slammed into them from the other side. I was expecting the doors to fly open, but somehow an old man and a princess managed to resist the pushing force of a tens of male warriors long enough to barricade it. My physics/biology brain found this incredulous.
If the soldiers burned to death behind those doors how did Taigen stroll through them a short time later to appear on the bridge?
When the camera panned out to show the whole city burning and about 5 minutes had passed inside the castle I was scratching my head again feeling like believability had been swapped for plot convenience.
And there were many more ...
Perhaps you will see this as unfairly picking holes in an animated fantasy. Perhaps it is, but these kind of glaring holes barely existed until the last episode, so for me it was very jarring to see so many appear. As such, I finished a great series with a lack of confidence in the writers and a fear season 2 might be similarly full of frustratingly silly moments. Fingers crossed it was just an issue with trying to tie up too many loose ends in too short a time and the same mistakes won't be made next season.
A few of the moments which really broke the spell for me:
If Fowler could so easily overpower Mizu time and time again, why did he never bother to kill her? He just kept smacking her and Taigen to the ground and then jogging off into the castle. This felt so incredibly cliché and unrealistic.
When Akemi and Seki bravely decided to close the doors to the castle and trap the fleeing enemy army, they just about managed to get the doors closed before the fleeing army slammed into them from the other side. I was expecting the doors to fly open, but somehow an old man and a princess managed to resist the pushing force of a tens of male warriors long enough to barricade it. My physics/biology brain found this incredulous.
If the soldiers burned to death behind those doors how did Taigen stroll through them a short time later to appear on the bridge?
When the camera panned out to show the whole city burning and about 5 minutes had passed inside the castle I was scratching my head again feeling like believability had been swapped for plot convenience.
And there were many more ...
Perhaps you will see this as unfairly picking holes in an animated fantasy. Perhaps it is, but these kind of glaring holes barely existed until the last episode, so for me it was very jarring to see so many appear. As such, I finished a great series with a lack of confidence in the writers and a fear season 2 might be similarly full of frustratingly silly moments. Fingers crossed it was just an issue with trying to tie up too many loose ends in too short a time and the same mistakes won't be made next season.