El Psy: Yay Or Nay? - Drifters

Drifters aka when Hellsing had a bastard baby with Fate Zero.
The story takes place in a standard Tolkien fantasy world in which unique historical figures are taken moments before their deaths, to fight alongside one another against a rival force under similar circumstances. If you have seen Hellsing and or Fate Zero, imagine that only with a touch more history and a lot more gore and poo.

The story is quite simple really, it sort of plays out like a less clever version of the early parts of Code Geass. In which you have two basic character types, the Master strategist (Oda Nobunaga) and the bad ass warriors( Toyohisa Shimazu and to a lesser degree Nasu etc etc.) You can pretty much narrow every character to one of these two things, leaving anyone else as just filler character who'll probably die. Now that might sound like I'm harping on the story, but I really am not. Not yet anyway. It brings that mindless love of violence and gore you get from Hellsing, plus a nice touch of history and comedy here and there. Granted it hasn't quite gone with the intense battle scenes that Code Geass or Fate/Zero has, though I hope this will be further focused on in the upcoming second season.

Now onto a particular issue I had early on.(Minor Spoiler Alert)
There is one scene early on in which Oda has the elves dip their arrows in poo, then fire them at trapped soldiers. Now maybe I'm just a spastic retard, but I honestly have no idea what the point of it was. The show sorta address's it, but it seems completely token. My first assumption was that it acted like poison. If you were hit by one, the arrow might not kill you but the infection probably would. However that only matters if they person manages to escape, yet the show goes out of its way to point out they are all slaughtered either in the village or moments later. Now the show also mentioned the infection part, but it falls completely flat because they are hailed on by arrows anyway. Plus the way the character instantly recognizes the fact he has been struck by a poo arrow is both odd, like why would you instantly assume that?
The other reason would be to force a route, but unfortunately they show never shows the "good guys" in any sort of danger. They always seem to have the upper hand and there is simply no sense of risk. Even when the main bad guys show up they are defeated almost immediately, in fact I don't remember seeing a single good guy die once they got a weapon. Unlike Code Geass, which went out of its bloody way to show Black Knights being killed left and right. So why bother routing if you are going to win anyway?

Another issues is how the three main characters are Japanese Hero's, whom are played out as unstoppable bad ass's with a very extreme sense of bias. Where is the sense of risk? Not to mention how every character acts so surprised whenever the main character do something, like they invented every idea under the sun. Its not a big issue and isn't a plot hole for the most part, but it does feel like I'm watching Japanese propaganda wank material. Also when the two American's show up and all they do is steal a kill, be loud and show off their military hardware... Well, okay. Maybe that is more fair after all but shut up. Actually now that I think about, this show seems to loves the Axis's forces. But its unfair to totally smash them for that until we see more of the series.

Things I liked? Mostly everything else really. Its a fun show with fun characters and some historical comedy thrown in, admittedly if you are like me and barely understand half of it, the majority will probably fly over your head without a quick google. But otherwise its generally quite funny and most if not all the characters are agreeable if completely one track minded. As I said the before, its gory! Though without any sense of risk I feel I could be enjoying a lot more than I did. The music is good enough and the English dub is quite brilliant. Though it seems they didn't have the balls to give the Japanese stereotypical accents, unlike everyone else. Oh no, wouldn't want to offend anyone... Except the Italians and American's because fuck those guys amirite? It is rather unfortunate because unlike those two, the Japanese stereotypical is actually pretty accurate to how they sound when they try to speak English. It a rather alarming degree... But I digress.

Yay or Nay for Drifters? A most definite Yay. Go in mindless, come out satisfied and perhaps even hyped.

 

Drifters is just a fun anime. I like it because from the first episode to the current one, it's just a free for all battle royal of craziness, with a nice vibe of silliness, Hellsing Ultimate style. It's got my vote as a great anime.

 

I've yet to watch this and I've been debating whether or not I should. Now, maybe this review has prompted me to getting on it?

Furthermore, I know this may sound strange, but when I first saw a pic of this on Facebook, I sort of confused it with Attack on Titan

Weird