Gacha adaptations Gacha adaptations Goddamn Gacha adaptations Where do I begin with this one? Gacha adaptations are the most infamous adaptations in the industry. Theyre the type of shows that clearly have no idea how to set up their stories. Either they tried too hard to connect with their source materials or theyre just lazy promotions for said materials. Blue Archive is clearly a victim of this. This sparks a lot of red flags regarding how it promotes the game itself that you might really consider thinking if the anime even tried or if you just want to play the game instead. Quite the series we have here huh? But tell me the OPs and EDs are promising so you may think this show would at least be a tolerable one dont you Absolutely not and I would guarantee to tell why this series fails in a lot of fundamental aspects. What is Blue Archive about? This series is about Sensei yes hes called that he doesnt really have an official name unless you consider our usernames in the game who is hired to be you guessed it a teacher. His job is to take care of the schools in a world we call Kivotos. In this scenario though this show is at least based on the Countermeasures Committee arc. Shiroko found Sensei lying around on the ground in the town and thought it would be a good idea to have him as the teacher of a forbidden school named Abydos. Abydos is a shell of what it was before because as of currently it doesnt have any students other than the Foreclosure Task Force which consists of Shiroko Serika Ayane Nonomi and Hoshino. They want Sensei to stay around for longer because not only do they want to keep the school they study in healthy but theres also danger involved. Blue Archives premises are interesting because unlike other school anime whether they have fantasy involved or not theres always initial tension involved and each of the story ideas tells us the creation and mystery of each relevant school. Sadly however this wont last for long. Before I get into how the anime is directed let me briefly explain Volume 1 of the game first. Im personally not a fan of Volume 1 and the games storytelling in general. While they do have nice buildups they feel a little too stagnant for what they are. They rely a little too much on sliceoflife aspects and as much as Im a fan of SoL they tend to get in the way of the storys progression. Hell even if we get to the serious parts the story tends to take itself too seriously. It tries too hard to express the personal struggle of each character but most of it either felt forced or doesnt matter. It also has symbolism which is actually damn awesome but in the end its rendered as more of a concept than an actual connection to the story. With all of this being said this right here is an anime adaptation were talking about. You would think that even with just 12 episodes it should at least decently address the problems of volume 1 in the game right? To that I answer HELL NO. In fact the series does the opposite. Even for nonBA standards the anime disrespected what the game really offered and its really painful to look at. The direction is the biggest cause of this show. While the direction in the game is still mediocre at best it at least stayed true to how it connects with the story. This one on the other hand misses the whole point of what the story in the game aims for. It even misses the point of what Sensei is. More on that later. But you get what I mean here. The directing is the cause of why the pacing is so problematic in the first place. Cutting out the prologue is the biggest mistake this show has ever made. The prologue actually shows us how Sensei roams around Kivotos while also building his responsibilities as a teacher. We see how Sensei meets his students. We see how he takes care of his students. We see how danger is set up. Heck we even see the mysteries set around the world. We dont see ALL OF THIS in the show. Its as if the show thought the first few minutes of volume 1 was the true start. On the surface this doesnt seem so bad. But if you had played the game before you would have realized that this is not how we start the story. There are a lot of unanswered questions involved and this is our first encounter. Hell even ignoring how this show cuts out the prologue for no reason the directing is still bad. We have a lot of cool and strong shit from the game. We have the halos which play a very crucial role in the story. We have the origins of Kivotos. We have the mysterious evil leaking in Kivotos. We have Senseis credit card. We even have heavy lore revolving around the characters. You wanna know what the show did? While most of those are present here none of them actually play a role while other stuff like the credit card is left out. Why? Its because the show treats Blue Archive as a sliceoflife romcom with action as a superficial aspect again more on said aspect later instead of what the game is even about. This is not Lycoris Recoil. This show shouldnt really be doing any of this. It has a lot of things that are in the game and it still didnt even try to use any of it alongside the absence of the prologue on top of it. If youre wondering how nothing happens when someone gets shot by a gun even after finishing the show I wouldnt blame you. This is a massive problem were facing and its only spreading from here. The halos arent really explained here. Theyre really just there for aesthetic purposes while students are invincible to gunshots. This show either forces us to play the game to discover how it works or it purposely reduces that factor into plot armor. Like I said it doesnt end here. The show contradicts the story by shoving in a lot of sliceoflife and comedy aspects to cover the unanswered chaos involved. While the game still overuses those aspects those treatments are even worse here. The show really doesnt know what it tries to aim for. It just seems like it wants to be like the generic seasonals we see before. It plays too safe with its setup. It doesnt want to expand more on serious stuff. Its not funny. Its how it is. By the way I mentioned how symbolism in Blue Archive is relatively underused in the game. Its a good time to point out that its not present here and thats also really a massive problem. I can forgive the game for rendering symbolism as concepts even if it degrades the writing. But leaving them out is a horrible thing even worse than cutting out the prologue because theyre used to show us what the mysteries are. Lastly the fight scenes are garbage. Some may consider this as a nitpick and thats totally understandable. But I just cant stress to you how negatively it affects the show. The choreography is complete nonsense. Characters resolve each problem in each fight by asspulls such asspulls as removing hardcore consequences the moment students are about to win or students are motivated by Senseis weakass words just because. There is something really off with the choreography. Were not given enough time to see how students fight. We spend the rest of the time seeing characters do surfacelevel stuff. They dont really show how they fight effectively. We just see characters winning by either random luck of their own or elements of surprise. The show is too afraid to hurt its own characters because of those problems. Hell we can ignore the horrible fight scenes and this glaring problem is still presented. Even Hoshino who sacrificed herself to save the Foreclosure Taskforce is given a treatment that is not harsh enough. Lets move on to the cast consisting of Sensei the main teacher Shiroko the bank robber Serika the tsundere cat Ayane the table flipper Nonomi the sunflower with a minigun and Hoshino the unstabled uncle. The main girls arent really much to speak of even in the game. They have no personality other than being based on one character trait. Yeah they do their own purpose but thats really about it. Nothing to say here because they arent really worth more than a few sentences individually. The same can be said with the side cast. They have a role for each but they dont do much. None of these characters are close to being impactful. Theyre too straightforward and they dont express much besides their cookiecutter expressions. Yeah we have the famous Aru shock face meme presented but most of the time theyre really just plot devices to move the plot forward. But no other character comes close to being a problem child as the Sensei in this show. He is without question the worst part of this godforsaken adaptation ever. Sensei in the game was actually a character of his own. Hes mature hes independent and he sets up his own responsibilities. While I still dont think hes that great of a character everything he does in the game is at least understandable. In the anime you get none of that. Hes reduced to being a generic harem protagonist whos afraid of certain things for no reason. He really has nothing to show. Hes just there because the anime really needed a teacher around. Think about it hes a living contradiction to the story. He clearly has no idea what he does as a teacher. He only does his job because his students really need to succeed. While that is understandable by itself hes brainless because he mostly follows his own students just to keep his job going instead of actually taking care of his own responsibilities alone for once. Seriously I really want to punch him in the face. The animation in this is bland. Its stiff. It looks like it was made by middle schoolers who recently discovered Twitter. The character designs anime or game are a massive hitormiss. While they at least fit with each character most of the time they still look generic and arent really my cup of tea. The soundtrack minus the OP and ED both of which are fine is deplorable. From a generous perspective this is the biggest crime in the show minus the absences of the prologue and the symbolism as well as the flanderization of Sensei. The music is outright amateur and doesnt fit well with Blue Archive at all. The voice acting is good though. Hoshinos voice actress really went all out with her character. Its a shame with how the anime went and the anime is a shame itself. Really though it manages to miss the whole point of what Blue Archive is. Listen I personally dont like Blue Archive in general but I can still see how its written. This show is a spit in the face in how it promotes the game. Its yet another generic example of how fundamentally flawed Gacha adaptations are. Just look at Arknights for a moment. Sure its not very amazing but the story in there is still pretty good and manages to connect with the game well. Blue Archives anime cannot do the same. It tries too hard to be its own thing when it messes with what the game offers. Lets hope that if it were to have a sequel that adapts volume 2 it would at least avoid the problems this anime has. But I highly doubt it would happen.