520https://static.zerochan.net/Senyoku.no.Sigrdrifa3A.NonScramble.full.3015488.jpg This Review Contains Spoilers for Warlords of Sigrdrifa. I put spoilers in scare quotes because youd practically know the plot of this anime before even watching it. At the end of the day the only person responsible for my supreme displeasure with this show is myself. 500https://static.nextepisode.net/tvshowsimages/huge/warlordsofsigrdrifa.jpg Seeing this image months ago was all it took the beautiful promotional image of main character Claudia Bruford standing in front of a Gloster Gladiator. Just one image was enough to grab my attention with a vicelike grip. Ive loved biplanes ever since I was a little boy and Ive dreamed of flying through the expansive sky in a biplane of my own. How couldnt I give an anime about planes a chance? Im normally pretty discerning when it comes to the anime I watch time is money and in that regard Im a pauper. But you know what I decided to take a chance. I judged a book by its cover and followed my heart ...which led me straight into an open manhole. What I wanted was a visually stunning tale of urban fantasy dogfights. What I got was a vapid cute girls do cute things show with characters that either bore me or annoy the hell out of me. Warlords of Sigrdrifa just might be the secondworst anime Ive had the displeasure of watching. While I knew nexttonothing of the show going in discussion threads made me very aware of who Warlord of Sigridrifas writer was: Tappei Nagatsuki of Re:ZERO fame. Yes thathttps://anilist.co/review/7271 Re:ZERO. His name was initially a pleasant surprise to me. After all even if it took me ages to review it I did love the second seasonhttps://anilist.co/review/8718 of Re:ZERO. I had confidence that hed make Warlords of Sigrdrifa as exciting as his other work. My confidence waned very quickly and his name soon became an annoying mantra. Dont worry things will get dark soon Tappei Nagatsuki is writing this members of watch threads would confidently claim. Oh that beach episode was just the calm before the storm Tappei Nagatsuki is writing this after all Were at the halfway mark let the suffering begin Tappei Nagatsukis writing this so I know the final episodes will be a bloodbath. It was abundantly apparent by episode four or so that the dark subversive war anime these delusional fans foretold of would never come. Ill be transparent and say that a big drive for finishing this show was just to be able to say I told you so. And now that Im on the other side allow me to say I told you so. And my frustration from the show doesnt just come from having to deal with its inexplicable defenders. Make no mistake: Tappei dropped the ball even if without expectations from the much darker Re:ZERO in and of itself the shows story isnt compelling. 520https://pbs.tw.com/media/EeYog8YU4AA8Vrc.jpg:large What is that story you ask? In July 2020 since 2020 wasnt bad enough apparently mysterious creatures known as Pillars appear terrorizing Earth. Soon after a mysterious entity known as Odin yes in fact the Norse God Odin but no one in the world of Sigrdrifa knows of Norse mythology because Reasons makes his presence known to the various world leaders. He presents them with a way to combat the alien force magical aircraft known as herocraft which are modeled after realworld WWIWWII aircraft but have technical specifications that far surpass their real world counterparts for reference these craft can keep up with an Mitsubishi F15Jhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MitsubishiF15J. Those who pilot these herowings are named valkyries. The main events of Warlords of Sigrdrifa take place five years later as we follow Claudia Bruford one of the Named the ace pilots of the valkyries. She has a reputation of being an Angel of Death for shes always the sole surviving member of every team she is on. Shes transferred to the Tateyama Base in Japan where she joins a ragtag group of pilots. With dispositions so bright they make the Sun look vantablack and personalities so wacky theyd put a clown out of business they might just make Claudia begin to open up once more as they take on the Pillars. Oh right and Odin is revealed to be Evil All Alonghttps://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilAllAlong. The Pillars were under his control and he equipped humanity with valkyries so they could usher in the second coming of Ragnarok. What? Was I not supposed to say that? After the idiocy that the show has subjected me to after this lame excuse for a reveal I think its justified. If the show doesnt respect me or my intelligence I in turn feel no obligation to respect the show. Odin being an evil little gremlin was as telegraphed as the sunrise. He has an eternal evil grin and Im halfconvinced its physically impossible for the guy to speak in any way besides a ominous tone thats only a few decibels. Come on just take a look at this guy 520https://pbs.tw.com/media/Ejels3PXcAMI1Gh.png Save for its quality and even then like I said once I was actually on the boat I saw the iceberg from a mile away nothing in this show came as a surprise. The one positive that this holds is that I was as mesmerized at the planes during the show as I was before watching it even if I wasnt mesmerized by the project the planes were attached to. The planes are animated and drawn absolutely gorgeously and I loved seeing them in action. From what I can tell this show doesnt offer anything for actual aviation geeks. While I do wish this show could have been a vehicle to learn about planes so far Ive made do simply gawking about planes in flight instead of looking under their hoods so this aspect of the show didnt bother me too much. As the show is about museum pieces fighting magical monsters and keeping pace with fighter jets I have to say that expecting a lot of realism is a bit foolhardy. The OST serves as a great copilot to the dogfighting. While I absolutely hate the bubblegum poppy OP and the ED was unremarkable I have to say that the general OST was pretty great and stays in my head as I write this. I can imagine taking off as the triumphant theme plays laughing like a madman as I see the world below me. The song Claudia sings throughout the series is also pretty nice. If I could view Warlords of Sigrdrifa as nothing but an animated form of the poster that engrossed me so then it would fly high passing with flying colors. But I wanted a decent story decent characters. The planes are unfortunately where Warlords of Sigrdrifas positives begin and end. Yes thats really it. The plot isnt anything to write home about. In fact youre better not writing anything about it at all. Save your ink save your time I sure as hell didnt. Its not even that the premise seems formulaic all that means is that they had a recognizable framework to play around with. But Dear God did they absolutely not play around with it in any notable manner. Having a formulaic premise isnt necessarily a death knell but having a formulaic plot almost certainly is. This is your standard actiony First Contact story wherein Mankind are the underdogs that manage to repel the aggressive force. The Norse mythology aspects dont matter at all. Odin may as well just be a nondescript alien the Pillars practically are after all. Id like to say this is by design since in the world of Warlords of Sigrdrifa mankind has forgotten about the Norse Gods for some reason thats never explained in the anime because of course it isnt but that doesnt explain why there arent more than surface level shoutouts to the mythos. For crying out loud Thor appears but no one else presumably because no ones popular enough though Im floored that they didnt work Loki in there somehow. Odin talks about how Ragnarok came and went with the Gods on the losing side but without the appearance of other Gods or indeed the depiction of the war itself this reference rings pretty hollow. Again he might as well just have been part of an alien race that got defeated by humanity in the ancient past. This is among the worst examples of letsusethisforeignthingbecauseitseemscoolandnotbecausewehaveanyunderstanding/deeperappreciationofit that Ive seen. Its only a halfstep up from the summons of Final Fantasy which will typically only reference a deitys name. Were off to a great start when Warlords of Sigrdrifas very title barely works. 520https://theglorioblog.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/erairawssenyokunosigrdrifa01720p.mkvsnapshot09.28.png?w=700h=394 The world of Sigrdrifa is very illdefined. Would you believe me if I told you it took a long time to write my synopsis because I legitimately had trouble recalling details from the plot? I couldnt remember whether it was the pilots valkyries or the planes herowings that were magically enhanced. After figuring out that it was the planes I think I wondered what exactly were the herowings? How are they maintained? How many of them are there? What exactly separates a Named from a general pilot? Is it just a distinction given due to exceptional service like a military rank or is there something that magically or physically distinguishes them? I think you get my point. Many many questions flew through my mind some unanswered others probably answered but framed as so inconsequential that the information went through one ear and out the other. The worldbuilding of this show is appalling never once did I feel like this was an actual world since everything was so nondefined. It seemed like the creators didnt give a rats ass about the world they created so why should I? The worldbuilding is so dismal that I didnt even realize I was watching an underdog story until halfway through the shows run. Nothing in the show indicates that the Pillars have humanity on the run. In fact the main casts largely carefree attitude and the fact that they seem to make quick work of the Pillars led me to believe that they were more of a nuisance rather than a serious threat. But no during episode 6 theres this entire Attack on Titanesque mankind will regain its pride and repel the force that nearly destroyed us years ago speech. This is among the most egregious examples of telling not showing that I can recall. This is a pretty vital aspect of the plot of the tone yet it completely blew right past me because the show did nothing to cue me in on this aspect of the plot. If this speech didnt exist I would have gone without knowing this basic plotpoint. 520https://i1.wp.com/www.animefeminist.com/wpcontent/uploads/2020/10/Screenshot20201003112728.jpg?resize=8102C456ssl=1 From this it should be clear that the show doesnt care too much about its plot. I dont think its unfair to say that for Warlords of Sigrdrifa the plot is largely a set piece something to flavor the things that the showrunners do care about. What they care about is of course the principal characters Claudia Azuzu Miyako and Sonoko. Make no mistake compelling fantastical war drama this aint. This is a Cute Girls Doing Things show and your reception towards them will be the determining factor in how you regard the show. In my reviewhttps://anilist.co/review/4964 of School Days I said it was impossible to be bored while your blood is boiling. Warlords of Sigrdrifa helped me make a new scientific discovery because throughout my watch of this show I was simultaneously steaming fucking furious and bored out of my goddamn mind. And its mostly thanks to the two hit combo of a dull world and absolutely insipid characters. 520https://i2.wp.com/www.animefeminist.com/wpcontent/uploads/2020/10/Screenshot20201003110749.jpg?fit=19202C1080ssl=1 The show seems to think that having cute anime girls is enough to carry it. Those characters need not be compelling mind you. There need not be anything in the gnoggin all that matters is them being cute and distinct enough to push figure units. The characters need not be nuanced they need to be just distinct enough that you could glean a preference. This leads to characters coming across as very shallow. After telling an acquaintance about Sigrdrifas plot they asked if it was an adaptation of a gacha game. With how shallow the characters seem like nothing more than .pngs to collect after spending 1k on inapp purchases I was surprised that this wasnt connected to a gacha game at all. 520https://bbts1.azureedge.net/images/p/full/2020/10/fabbecebad5643f0b2aee0133fc5b10d.jpg As an aside let me just state that this cuteness over everything affects characters beyond just the lead. When were introduced to Odin hes briefly depicted as being the wizened old man thats more familiar to audiences. Then he reverts to a redeyed whitehaired anime child for no better reason than Its anime hes gotta be a cute little guy Cant have some weird old dude hogging up the screen Lets make him cute I know it may seem like Im nitpicking but small decisions can go a long way. Odin seemed less like the cool God Im somewhat familiar with and more some generic anime villain. Oh wait thats because here he is a generic anime villain And generic is a great word for the characters. They absolutely can be distilled into one sentence and unlike last timehttps://anilist.co/review/8976 what you see is what you get. Claudia the most component of the group is a serious somewhat taciturn pilot who gradually comes to love and trust her fellow pilots on Tateyama base. Azuzu can essentially be called a Diet Claudia nononsense but a bit less so she seems like a bit of a jerk but thats really only because she has to deal with the insanity of her teammatehttps://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OnlySaneMan. Miko is the embodiment of genki always cheerful ever friendly and eternally louder than Mt. Krakatoa. Sonoka is a softspoken friendly girl whos adept at modifying herowings. Despite being as flavorful as fresh snow the characters still ended up grinding my gears. A lot of that is thanks to Miko whos always cranked up to eleven without an off switch in sight. Whenever shes on the screen you can bet your ass shes screaming crying hysterically or making some dumb joke. It doesnt help that her voice is extremely grating. I know how mean this sounds and maybe its just a conflict of personalities but I could not stand Mikos overly amped personality and I wished the show would stop focusing so much because her appearance was sure to make me angry. I told Miko to shut the fuck up more times than Im proud of. 500https://i.ur.com/3pZT5VL.png I will however I wear my hatred of the Shield Squadron proudly on my sleeve. The Shield Squadron is a group of male pilots who support the heroines in battle. Simply put they are creepy as hell constantly talking about how much they love the teenage girls how cute they are how much they want to marry them that type of stuff. This behavior extends to most of the male personnel at the base. This behavior was very offputting to me. For as much as the show seems to care about feeding viewers cute characters I really cant fathom why they felt the need to put these dudes in here. I dont think the shows smart enough to use them as a critique of Otaku culture. If it was that smart it would simultaneously be absolutely stupid because I imagine that guys fawning over cute anime girls is the main demographic for Warlords of Sigrdrifa. When the characters arent making me groan in annoyance theyre remarkably bland. As I said what you see is largely what you get out of the four main characters only two get any development and Claudias is the standard learningtotrustothersagain plot thread that youve seen a million times before. Adding insult to injury is that its really resolved within the first two episodes. As a multimedia project along with the anime Warlords of Sigrdrifa had two light novels and two manga I acknowledge that the characters and world might have been enhanced by delving into the other works. That said the anime really should be able to stand on its own. The materials should be complementary not supplementary. Just ask Final Fantasy XV how well locking plothttps://anilist.co/anime/21729/KingsglaiveFinalFantasyXV/ and characterhttps://anilist.co/anime/21728/BrotherhoodFinalFantasyXV/ beats behind different media platforms works out. The tone is something else that kills the show for me nothing seems to matter even if characters in the show will periodically try to convince us otherwise. As I alluded to prior nothing ever feels dire. Characters never really carry themselves as though the apocalypse is nigh and theyre all so successful repelling the Pillars that they appear to be a nonissue. Im not saying I want the characters constantly on the verge of mental breakdowns while they continually get defeated by the Pillars but there really isnt enough of a struggle to make me feel like there are stakes of any sort. Not helping matters is the fact that there are extremely light episodes that buck against any notion that this is a serious anime. Theres a comedic beach/swimsuit episode because of fucking course there is and later on theres a festival episode because of fucking course there is right before the final battle and everyone treats the one person who objects like theyre being a stick in the mud and not the only person who seems to be aware that they should be busy preparing and not having a festival. I was half expecting for Odins forces to catch them while theyre unaware but that would have been too smart for Warlords of Sigrdrifa. While you could certainly try to say that Sigrdrifa just isnt that type of show that doesnt really hold up. While its true that Sigrdrifa isnt a serious show its not for lack of trying. From genuinely more somber episodes at least until Miko shows up to the setting as illdefined as it is its clear Warlords wants to be taken seriously in some capacity. But it desperately wants to eat its cutelydecorated cake and have it too never really walking the walk of being serious because its too attached to its cute characters. None of the principal cast dies. When someone does die its either a character carted in an episode before practically to die or the male characters that the show frames as dispensable. Somber moments are quickly dashed by Miko screaming something making it seem as though the show is afraid its audience will be turned off if it commits to the tone its dabbling in. Its not even that I dont like Cute Anime Girls doing things showshttps://anilist.co/anime/97874/FrameArmsGirl/. Its just that Im not interested in whatever halfassed chimera Sigrdrifa is. Id rather have watched a show about Claudia prior to joining the Quirky Qrew. It would have been a lot more somber the dire state of the world would have been conveyed more effectively and the heroes wouldnt have won nearly every encounter. 520https://cdn.animeapi.com/images/1/ebf4937181f6352x220.jpg I planned on talking about how everything in this show is infuriating. I planned on talking about how I want the four hours of my life back. I was going to make a status post about how Evil Pockey from the School Days review is back. But I cant. This isnt the type of review thats fun to write where I get so impassioned from my anger its just a slog. From the otherside everything about this show is so supremely boring so middleoftheroad that its hard for me to muster the energy to finish this review. Looking back this feels like a silly show to hate since on paper it never does anything enough to hate. Be annoyed at sure but hate? Its the type of show that can really only be felt rather than described. I can tell you how its boring easy enough but even I have a hard time articulating what infuriated me after the fact. I guess its really just the act of watching it the act of hoping that something anything marvel will happen. It never does and youre left feeling bitter wondering when exactly was it that you stopped liking yourself when was it that youd subject yourself to something you hate this badly. The discussion threads on this show truly are bizarre. Having a different opinion on something is fine but it really seems to me that its fans believe this show is something that its not. This isnt an exciting adventure story with interesting characters this is an anime where surface level characters fly planes. Thats it. Its painfully average the type of show that bores you just by talking about it but actively enrages you if you force yourself to sit down and watch it. There were a great number of shows that premiered during the Fall 2020 season and Warlords of Sigrdrifa seemed to slip through the cracks. You may wish to reach in to see if you can find anything of worth. Dont bother. All youll find is the one of most criminally average anime Ive ever seen. Even if you like this kind of thing given the number of anime that exist statistically speaking theres bound to be something far far better. Why would you want to waste your time on something this by the numbers? 200https://i.ur.com/pUxSBWx.png 520https://cdn.animenewsnetwork.com/thumbnails/max700x700/cms/news.3/157792/sigrdirfavisual.jpg