Carrying on our new segment for Kuru Media, it’s the Stick or Twist Review, in this segment we will be watching the first 3 episodes of as many new Fall Anime releases as we can.
Like our usual reviews we will be focussing on animation, characters and story, before providing our final thoughts and we will rate the Anime as either Stick or Twist. Similar to the Black Jack system, stick will mean we will continue watching the anime for the rest of it’s season and a twist rating will mean that we have given up on it and will not continue to watch. Simple enough, so lets get to it.
The second anime for our stick and twist review is the Netflix original anime Blood of Zeus. Powerhouse Studio were cast with the task of producing the series, Powerhouse have produced for Netflix previously with Castlevania and are currently working on the upcoming Masters of The Universe series too.
Story
This is an original story however at the beginning of the series they talk about the ancient myths of the gods of Greece and this just being one of them. Although the series is not based on actual Greek myths rather borrowing aspects from other myths, legends and films such as the Clash of Titans/Wrath of the Gods films and even Disney’s Hercules.
The series focusses on the main protagonist Heron who's back story mixes in some of Theseus’ and Perseus’ legends. Heron lives on the outskirts of a small village, one day soldiers led by the Amazonian, Alexia warn the village that Demons are near by managing to capture one showing the village the truth, Heron who assisted the capture of the demon has a decision to make join Alexia or remain at the Village with his mother.
So far I am really enjoying the story, with it being the biggest draw to the series, we’re Greek myth geeks so have felt drawn to watching it but the original story is very compelling and we like the fact they’ve blended in actual Myths to help set the story.
Animation
We’re not 100% sure about the animation, it almost feels like late 90s cartoon/computer game cutscene animation, whilst the story is very compelling, the animation is almost to ‘cartoon’ with very bright colours. The character designs are quite basic especially with facial expressions and they just lacks some original imagination almost like they’ve hit random on a role playing game.
Characters
They pack a lot in the first three episodes so its difficult to get any real gage on who the characters are. Heron the main protagonist is not all that inspiring during the first three episodes, you can see he has basic hero qualities with being kind, selfless and willing to put himself in danger but at the same time he’s just not very compelling. There plenty of other characters from gods to humans but there is so much building in the story that you just get the basic idea of who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.
Final Thoughts
The story is good, very good especially if you enjoy stories that are based on the Greek Gods and myths like we do, but even if you’re not Greek Myth geek there is still plenty about this epic story that should draw in the viewer. Overall I feel the depth of the story does out weigh any negativity towards the animation and although they’ve not spent to much time on characters you can still see a few that we feel will be awesome characters, we will definitely be continuing this series.
Verdict: Stick
The Great British Otaku
Andrew More