Shironeko Project: Zero Chronicle

Note: I watched this with no previous knowledge of the game that it is adapted from, only knew its adapted from a game. I am also judging this show as a 12 episode anime -- this means keeping in mind what 12 episodes can accomplish, and not expecting the depth, character development, writing and literary techniques that can be employed with 24 episode, or, what some people have shown to do, expect the standards of a 50 episode piece in 12 episodes. Art: 6/10 It's nothing special. It isn't horrific, I've seen anime where the art was just bad. It isn't a masterpiece for its time, itsjust ok. The cast could have been color themed better. Sound: 7/10 TM Revolution/Takanori Nishikawa helping with the OP theme is nice and all, but there isn't really any pieces from this show that I would really miss. It's on the good side just because of a few good fitting pieces music scores at the end really fit the scene they were with. Character: 7/10 The biggest downside of this show is that it is full of cliches. 12 episodes gives very little time to explore or grow characters. I've seen other 12 or 24 episode anime try to do it, and sadly it just looks half-assed when you try to squeeze in character development that needs more time to do than what the show has to draw on (I know someone will misinterpret this sentence so for clarity, I'll note that there are 12-24 episode anime that do it well too!). On this note, I'm glad this show didn't try too hard at character depth. Most of them won't be memorable for the next decades, but the characters played their role well. Obviously this won't propel a show's character writing to god tier levels, but I find this better than trying and ending up with a literary spilled trash can. Story: 8/10 Again, this show's biggest downfall is the cliches. And again, that's ok, especially since it's literally a 12 episode gig, meant to be short and sweet, and in this case act as a promo for the bigger franchise (games). The reason I gave this an 8 is because it did its tropes well, no matter how common or well known (cliche) the trope is. What makes a story enjoyable is not how novel it is; this can be good but only if done right. This show's story is pretty much a budget Romeo and Juliet -- and THAT'S ALRIGHT! Enjoyment -- So did I enjoy these 12 episodes? Sure. This isn't meant to be the next Code Geass, this isn't meant to be the Greek tragedy that was Fate/Zero. Heck, this show was created for the purpose of promoting some games and giving the existing fanbase of the games some fanservice. Did they keep this simple? Yes. Did they get me, someone completely new to the franchise, interested in checking out the games? Yes. My overall rating? 8/10. It did it's designated job well. Who this is for: -people who don't have a lot of time and just want to watch something longer than a standard movie, but not a full blown 24+ episode thing -romance genre fans -star-crossed lovers fans -fantasy fans Who this is not for: -people looking for the plot twists and inter-trope weaving that was Code Geass in 12 episodes -people looking for the ideological/philosophical deconstruction that made Fate/Zero and Psycho-Pass good in 12 episodes -people who only enjoy serious works aimed at being an intellectual discussion -people looking for a shounen adventure story, of which this is not

Shironeko Project: Zero Chronicle is one of the most entertaining anime of the Spring 2020 season. It's not a good anime, and you'll only be met with disappointment if you expect otherwise. It's a very bad anime, and that's exactly what makes it worth watching. There's plenty of bad anime every season, but what sets this one apart from all of its contemporaries is the massive scope of its narrative, which makes its glorious failure of execution all the more brilliant. This anime is a prequel to the 2014 mobile game Shironeko Project, hence the "Zero Chronicle", but that's not important. It's an entirely standalonestory (aside from a flash forward nod to the game in an after-credits cut), and what a story it is. Basically, there's these two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Light and the Kingdom of Darkness, which, surprisingly, don't get along with each other. The protagonist, named The Prince of Darkness, is, surprisingly, the Pr-nah, I won't make that joke. So blah blah a little bit and you get a Shakespearean love tale between The Prince of Darkness and the Iris, the Queen of Light, set to the backdrop of the most Final Fantasy-y Final Fantasy story that never existed. The most notable part of Shironeko's story is the sheer variety of plot events, and the pinball pace with which it moves through all of them. In one episode, the fate of the world will rest on the outcome of an epic battle between godlike entities, and the next, the cast get together to frolic in the woods and pick berries and fall on each other into rivers, only to emerge soaked and embarrassed, as you do. Sections like these occasionally clash with the show's lengthy and poorly animated action sequences, but they do come with the advantage of letting the characters do their thing without any unenthusiastic explosions or cheap looking digital effects to interrupt them. Which is a good thing because the characters are the highlight of the Shironeko experience. Again, our main character is The Prince of Darkness, The Prince of Darkness. You could call him a kuudere, but really his defining trait is that he's the main character. The highest praise I can give him is that he's not nearly as edgy as his appearance suggests. Iris is the female lead and deuteragonist. Interestingly enough, for being a western-style royal in a shitty anime, she doesn't behave like most of her peers. Honestly, she's really not that awful. She's powerful, she doesn't do anything too annoying, her mannerisms are a little cute in an old-lady-on-the-inside kind of way; all-in-all, she's a serviceable waifu (or that could just be the work of Yui Horie's vocal ASMR hypnosis). What really sold me on finishing this show, however, were the side characters. Groza is a green-haired milf general from the Kingdom of Darkness. I don't know if she's actually a milf or not, if this were any other anime, she'd definitely be a milf though. She has a quintessential fantasy milf design, but it's contrasted by the pure, innocent, almost virginal schoolgirl crush she has on the Prince. She comes with a retinue of bodyguards, and let me tell you, those guys MAKE the show, easily the best characters, they're the biggest reason the story feels so Shakespearean. They're basically Shironeko's version of the comic relief commoners. There's four of them, they all look exactly the same (although one is the leader), and they're the only ones in the show that are intentionally funny, I was shocked that such high quality characters wormed their way into such a low quality work. Not far behind them though is the captain of the Knights of Light, Phallus- or excuse me, Phious. He's great because his voice actor isn't, and when that's partnered with poor voice direction and a character that's written to be a dickhead, you get a convincing performance of a knuckle-dragging nutjob prone to socially-inappropriate outbursts of emotion. Groza's guards aren't around often, so he's the one who carries the show the most. There's also another Kingdom of Light shota who I'm pretty sure goes through a whole character arc across the season, but I just remember him because he's a shota with a male VA who sounds 15, looks 12, and says things a 6 year old would say. There’re a couple others, like Adel the Darkness bro and Sima the fembro, but their abnormality comes from the status quo of the show rather than any qualities or personality traits special to them. One thing I should mention is that the dialogue in this show is so bizarre, or stilted, or otherwise unnatural, that, even though every single character is some sort of trope or archetype, the things they say are so weird that it elevates them to a level of uniqueness you won't find even in some high profile shows, right down to the random sassy street merchants. And I'd be remiss if I didn't go into detail about the production quality either. As expected, it's not good. Shironeko has a heavy reliance on fights, but none of the animation capability to follow through on that. There is one sakuga sequence in the whole show. It lasts less than two seconds, and the extremely overdone character designs had to be reduced to a composition of simple shapes to enable it. Other noteworthy moments include a sword duel wherein two characters stood still for several seconds in the likeness of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots to bang their swords together like when you played Star Wars with meter sticks in 4th grade, and a scene that obviously took inspiration from the visual genius of Studio Trigger by having a static image of a character dragged across the frame to convey the act of grappling up a cliff. By the end of the season, even continuity was too much to ask for, as characters changed appearance on a cut-by-cut basis. The only things consistent about Shironeko were my feelings toward as I followed it weekly. I remember watching the first episode as soon as it was released and getting excited because I'd witnessed what I thought would be the worst anime of the season. Listeners snatched that achievement away after a few weeks, but my genuine admiration for Shironeko's entertaining awfulness never faded as I watched more and more of it. When I finished the final episode and witnessed the expectedly terrible ending, I felt a pang of melancholy, more so than I did with Yesterday wo Utatte, Kakushigoto, or any of the other seasonal highlights. I don't know how many of my feelings will be shared by the average viewer, but if you have any interest at all in bad anime, Shironeko Project: Zero Chronicle is a must watch.

If you have the free time to watch this anime, it is most likely a better use of your time to learn another language for those time than watching this anime. TLDR: for me, this was one of the worst series I have ever watched. (I have never given any series a rating of 1 until this anime). Story: Somewhat overused setting. Princess and prince of dark and light trying to coexist, but they are constantly at war. You will understand the premise if you watch the first 5 minutes of this series. The pacing is bad, and the ending is super rushed. If this series cutout the middle 5 episode, and used that 5 episode for actual story, maybe this rating would not be a 1. There were alot of random fillers that didn't offer anything to the story. This is a game adaptation, but the story did not convince me to try the game at all. Note: the summary listed in MAL is very misleading. Art: It's nothing special. No depth of any kind, and very generic looking characters. The background is even worse. I know this is a game adaption (never played the game), and this art did not convince me to try out this game. Sound: same as the art. Very generic, and the same sound is used over and over again. There a scenes where you feel somewhat hyped, but the art/story and event just lets you down everyime. Character: I can't even tell who is important in this series. Random "character development" (ie looking into past) in some episode. Honestly, there wasn't any character that I felt attached to in the slightest Enjoyment: Took me 2 hours to watch each episode because I fell asleep. Sums up the entire series. There has been alot of series where it wasn't really good, but there were 1 or 2 scenes where it was cool. I wan't able to find any in this series. Overall: Don't bother watching this. At first, I thought that there were some inside stories I am missing, or this series may have been for the fans of the game. A good example is Bang Dreams. However, after watching 12 episodes, I genuinely think it was just bad. If there is anyone who is a fan of this game and think differently, please let me know. It is possible I just missed the entire series.

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