1000https://i.post.cc/J4Ky7vzt/image.png Promise of Wizard has fascinating compelling character ideas and dynamics Ive never seen presented so openly and in such volume before. The characters within this story are each worth a book on their own a sheltered boy who grew up worshipped by a cult a set of twin brothers where one died long ago a man who ripped out another persons eye and replaced it with his own... I cant go more into it without spoilers but the conceptual power is exceptional. Theres just one issue: theres twentytwo of them. Also the execution is pretty trash. Plot Worldbuilding The story is set in a fantasy universe and follows a group of twentyone wizards tasked with fighting the moon A.K.A the Great Calamity every year. The protagonist is a human girl named Akira who is from modern Japan but refreshingly enters the world directly rather than being reincarnated into it. The story feels like a harem setup but its actually not. Theres only one flirtatious moment within 12 episodes and in the game Ive heard that you can set Akiras gender to male or female. Personally I like that shes a girl here. Unfortunately the plot meanders. I would consider the activities carried out by the characters secondary to the wordy exposition dumps we get each episode. While a lot happens not much of it is resolved making the events forgettable. The show also isnt done in the style where each episode lets us get to know a different character through a subplot about them. While thats a fairly basic structure and not one thats strong on its own it could at least make for a better way to deliver information. As for the setting it has some interest to it but ultimately feels like a simple Westernfantasy isekai. Its undeniable a world where wizards have to fight the moon every year is cool. The wizards each have unique bizarre wounds are born with their powers eventually stop aging specifically arent human and turn to stone that can be used for power by humans these are all cool concepts. However the presentation of the actual society nerfs some of the effect. Have you guys seen soldiers like this in an isekai before? 440https://i.post.cc/T2Cm1zpB/image.png If not how about these civilians? 440https://i.post.cc/vmh8XsFs/image.png Okay these civilians are actually fairly cute but theyve got genericfantasy vibes. The Art Animation In a show focused on emotions and character dynamics the characters look flat. The emotional body language of a character is animated out about once and not especially well. Since theres so much dialogue it should be presented in more than lip flaps... but it isnt. Ive seen great drama animation. This aint it. As for the fight scenes theyre pretty much bottomofthebarrel isekai. The artstyle isnt bad but it doesnt stand out. 440https://i.post.cc/bwt4zczj/image.png Monologues were given interesting montages to go with them occasionally the most interesting of those shown above. However thats pretty much the most basic directoral decision to go with. A better one would be to cut down all but the more important ones such as above and use camera angles the setting and context and the body language of characters to convey the mood in those now shorter pieces of dialogue. The Exposition Problem I dont think any anime has ever screamed this is adapted from a visual novel more than this one since Ensemble Stars. Actually I just went to check the Ensemble Stars anime by watching a short clip from it and that show is more energetic than this one. Promise of Wizard takes the twentytwo character overload and makes it worse by packing long exposition and dialogue into every scene. Scenes that are supposed to be energetic or action scenes are few and far between as the series mostly focuses on long conversations. During action scenes characters will take breaks to have long intermissions of dialogue where you wonder how are they not getting killed? or theyll describe their actions out loud visualnovel style. 440https://i.post.cc/0NRZnTGc/image.png Information about the world and the characters is continually given to the viewer. It doesnt feel like theyre reiterating but what it does feel like is way too much information. Theres not much time for exposition to be processed before new information comes our way and its almost entirely tellingnotshowing. The animes most glaring issue is in some ways a microcosm of that. Akiras thoughts are presented to us not by internal monologue not by yknow seeing what she does and having her be an active participant in the story and not by seeing her emote: theyre shown by walls of text that flash on the screen. This is the most baffling directoral decision Ive ever seen an anime take. The text is pretty much impossible to read in English or in Japanese and it hardly adds anything since Akira is so passive. She has the potential to be a strong character but she never acts on the thoughts she has. Theyre simply given to us and in an unreadable way. The rest of the shows exposition may not be literal walls of text but it sure is that in all but the literal sense. The Character Problem ? I dont know much about the original but I know the game has a lot of fans hence my disclaimer in the introduction. I also know that its by the writer of the game my favorite anime IDOLiSH7 is based on which is why I gave this a try in the first place. Ive heard some exposition was conveyed in a different way but cut for time. However the setup and plot presented makes me dubious to whether the exposition could be handled well. There are twentytwo main characters twentyone if you dont count Akira whos the PC in the game half of them are introduced at the beginning and half are introduced about three episodes later. Thats almost an impossible setup and its for sure why or at least a big reason why this show is so burdened with dialogue exposition and a wayward plot. It doesnt help that in addition to antagonistic wizards there are also generic isekai villains and side characters to handle. A good story would introduce characters slowly to compare with other shows with a large cast Gintama introduces its main characters over the course of about 22 episodes sometimes having episodes in that beginning section where no one new is introduced. IDOLiSH7 takes three seasons to introduce its full cast of sixteen. The twelveepisode show with the largest main cast I know besides this is Astra Lost In Space which keeps it to 9 an amount where there can be a character focus episode for everyone plus three that can further the overall metaplot. However there are some ways to alleviate a character to episode imbalance and Promise of Wizard does make use of them. One way is to collect characters into groups. In Promise of Wizard the wizards are divided into Northern wizards Southern wizards Eastern wizards Western wizards and Central wizards. To crudely summarize the Northern wizards are badasses and kind of evil the Southern wizards are nice and kind of weak the Western wizards are weirdos the Central wizards know the government the Eastern wizards are kind of tsundere and distant... except Riquet from Central doesnt know the government at all Oz from Central is basically a Northern wizard one of the Southern wizards is super strong one of the Eastern wizards wears his heart on his sleeve its a decent attempt but the categories are hard to keep in mind. Another way is to make the characters have unique relationships to each other and a third way is to make them all memorable and interesting in design and in concept. The Characters You can judge the designs for yourself. 440https://externalcontent.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https3A2F2Fi.pin.com2Foriginals2Fa82F3c2F652Fa83c65ba0ceb26b33159326893876d40.jpgf=1nofb=1ipt=e75f034f4f9b0a052f7163369474f2edb02d559d8b9628dce523d08d53d41533ipo=images The anime restricts itself to having a team of prettyboys and even within that doesnt have the same diversity in face and build that can be found in prettyboycentric anime Blue Lock or even in evenprettyboyer IDOLiSH7 or classic prettyboy anime like Ouran High School Host Club. However I think its indisputable that these designs are fairly fun and can be told apart at a glance. As for concept and relationships the anime excelled there which is why I can list off all of the characters from memory though dont trust my spelling: Akira Oz and right Oz knows Arthur Rutile And his brother Mitile And his redacted for spoilers Mithra Riquet Murr and that guy he has a hell of a dynamic with Shylock Heathcliff And his childhood friend Shino Figaro Chloe And his partner Rustica Faust Bradley and the guy from the North too Owen And that guy he has even more of a hell of a dynamic with Cain Snow White Bradleys connection Nero... and so forth. Since a lot of the anime is dedicated to revealing these details I dont want to go too into detail here Ive already given a few spoilers. I will say that the character concepts and relationships actually managed to keep me notbored through what would have been a snoozefest of an anime. While considering it bad artistically I actually enjoyed a fair amount of it because I got to know these characters with crazy concepts. My favorite one is probably whatevers going on with these two. 440https://i.post.cc/pdYWLn2x/image.png 440https://i.post.cc/7Zt1QfvH/image.png 440https://i.post.cc/hGHLc6PN/image.png And with that I end my review with a score of 60. For me a 49 is one that is just below the threshold of I liked it. Every point above 50 is a redeeming quality 75 is my baseline for an anime Id describe as good which this one doesnt meet. I wouldnt recommend this anime to people generally but if the idea of it intrigues you dont write it off.