Arknights: Perish in Frost
アークナイツ【冬隠帰路/PERISH IN FROST】
Rebel organization Reunion has reduced the city of Chernobog to ashes and despair. That is only the beginning of its uprising against the nations prejudiced toward those infected with the highly contagious and deadly disease Oripathy. Now, the rebels have set their sights on Lungmen—a prosperous city infamous for its inhumane treatment of the sick. After witnessing Reunion destroy her homeland, Chief Ch'en of the Lungmen Guard Department's Special Inspection Unit leads her squad to defend her city. Meanwhile, Amiya, the Doctor, and the rest of the advanced pharmaceutical company Rhodes Island continue to oppose Reunion on all fronts. However, they soon find themselves in a deadlock against a powerful enemy: FrostNova, a Reunion commander whose fearsome wintry powers cause anyone unfortunate enough to stand in her way to slowly perish in frost. [Written by MAL Rewrite]
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Rebel organization Reunion has reduced the city of Chernobog to ashes and despair. That is only the beginning of its uprising against the nations prejudiced toward those infected with the highly contagious and deadly disease Oripathy. Now, the rebels have set their sights on Lungmen—a prosperous city infamous for its inhumane treatment of the sick. After witnessing Reunion destroy her homeland, Chief Ch'en of the Lungmen Guard Department's Special Inspection Unit leads her squad to defend her city. Meanwhile, Amiya, the Doctor, and the rest of the advanced pharmaceutical company Rhodes Island continue to oppose Reunion on all fronts. However, they soon find themselves in a deadlock against a powerful enemy: FrostNova, a Reunion commander whose fearsome wintry powers cause anyone unfortunate enough to stand in her way to slowly perish in frost. [Written by MAL Rewrite]
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ShinodaChan
November 24, 2023
For a long time, Arknights has had a cult following; myself included. We praise the game for its worldbuilding, hold its characters near and dear, and cherish the game as a part of our lives. Why is it then that the anime fails to convey this appeal? Why is it that Perish in Frost, which is in many ways an improvement over its predecessor, is still so critically flawed? The truth, put simply, is that it's a flawed story mixed with extraneous circumstances. Now, I won't talk about gacha syndrome here, nor the limited episode count. These issues should be fairly apparent, and though Yostar hastried to work with them, they both tie back to the same problem: the problems with the source material. To give a few examples of what I'm talking about: - Prelude to Dawn (Chapters 0-3) was poorly written across the board. Amiya gets a weak introduction, the first main antagonists (Misha/Alex) are respectively naive/insufferable, and most critical of all: Lungmen's issues weren't made apparent sooner. Reunion largely gets painted in a negative light up until this season, meaning that Prelude to Dawn lacked the nuance in its conflict that it desperately needed to convince viewers. By the time viewers finish Perish in Frost the story will make sense in retrospect, but it should never have been 'in retrospect' to begin with. Context clues should have been planted way sooner, and Yostar failed to make these adjustments to what is commonly perceived as the worst arc in the original game. You'd think that this wouldn't matter, but look at the viewership drop between seasons. No matter what Perish in Frost does, it can't change Prelude to Dawn's bad first impression. This gutted most broader interest in the anime, and it's unlikely to come back. - The story provides very little payoff. Payoff can take multiple forms: visual results, character development, and callbacks to previous scenes. Where Arknights suffers is in its inability to make the conflict seem worth it. If the tragedy only gets worse, and there's no real light in the dark, what's the point of any of this? Why depress viewers further if there's no clear ray of hope? One could liken it to torture porn where, instead of things getting better, the situation somehow only seems to get worse for the mere sake of getting worse. Rhodes Island rarely 'wins'. Instead, it's constantly dealt pyrrhic victories that take more away than they give. If that's the precedent across not just one, but two seasons, why should viewers still care? Players may know the answer, but for anime-onlies it's more difficult. To put it one way, we live in a time where depression is more rampant than ever, and escapism is highly preferred. If your emphasis is on confronting reality, and said confrontation rarely yields positive results, then that's not enjoyable in the slightest. While it's from a completely separate genre, consider that part of the reason Bocchi the Rock is so popular is because it relates to and instills hope in its core audience. It tells introverts that the world isn't all darkness, and that if they take a chance to step out of their shell, they'll be able to pursue what they truly want. Arknights doesn't have a similar message, it's merely a surface-level commentary on discrimination and injustice. Considering that, maybe it's not such a good idea to tell viewers the truth insofar that injustice is a systemic problem, and it takes an eternity to properly address. Again, people don't want to face the grimness of reality, and that's exactly what Arknights is: the wrong story at the wrong time. - Arknights arcs have too many characters. This is a problem that only worsens as the story develops, but for all of the intricacy of Arknights' worldbuilding, it gets too many faces involved. Gacha syndrome plays a part in this, but in general it's a mistake to focus on more than a few characters at a time. Character development takes nuance, conflict, and screentime. If you distribute your points across too many skills, you're not going to level anything. What's even worse is when the investment DOES happen, but the character is subsequently killed off. Suddenly we're back to stage 1 of depression, only now the viewer is left frustrated. Where is the win? Where is the hope? Where, in this godforsaken Earth analog, is a sign that things are getting better? Tolerance has a breaking point, and a failure to acknowledge this is a failure to keep viewers interested. Characters need to be meaningfully developed AND maintained for sake of continuity, otherwise it's a wasted effort. You could argue that in some cases a character's death is narratively significant, and in both seasons this is certainly the case. The problem is that there is nothing BUT death, leading to the aforementioned issues. - To add onto the above, Arknights prefers the 'big picture' with its storytelling. It focuses on providing a broad view of all the main players, like watching chess pieces move on a board. This is great for building a comprehensive image, but draws the focus away from individual characters. Ironically, part of the problem is in situations where the seeds for payoff are actually planted. Without getting into spoilers, this season has more than one occasion where a character's arc is foreshadowed for later, preemptively justifying their screentime. This works if your viewers are already bought into the narrative, but when the story is already as flawed as it is, the biggest concern should lay in fixing the present; not setting the stage for the future. If you take anything from all of this, it's that Arknights' story is too broad and overly depressing. It does a poor job in retaining viewers because there's little to be found in maintained progression. You can see the progression in recurring characters, but with gacha syndrome in full swing, those examples are few and far between. None of this is to say I hate Perish in Frost. As I said at the start, it's mostly an improvement over Prelude to Dawn. The animation has improved, the fight scenes are (generally) better, there's more focus on fewer characters, and the central conflict has grown much clearer. Viewers can clearly see how Amiya, Ch'en, and even the Doctor have developed, even if Ch'en's arc was gutted through pacing. This season's antagonists are far more enjoyable — barring a certain little shit — and the emotional beats are starting to hit. There are still problems, namely when it comes to the pacing, soundtrack, and inconsistent censorship, but those are things that can be improved without relying on the source material. Unfortunately, the anime is crippled by its first season, as if gacha adaptations weren't scrutinized enough. It'll be a long road for Yostar Pictures from here, and with the mixed quality of future arcs (starting strong then getting worse), I have my doubts for future seasons. Life lesson, folks: Don't screw up your first season. It'll undermine everything that comes after, simply because viewers won't view anything beyond it.
