The First Circle

No spoilers - just sharing how this episode made me feel ,This anime moved me deeply. I haven't watched any anime in a long time, but this episode made me feel truly sad. The art style-there are two distinct styles-was really impressive. The emotional weight of the story and the atmosphere completely pulled me in. The antagonist was written in such a way that I found myself understanding his actions. Everything from the pacing to the dialogue felt purposeful. It's rare to find an episode that leaves this kind of impact. Honestly, this was a beautiful and powerful experience that reminded me why I fell in love with storytelling in the first place.

This episode changed the whole way I was watching the series. The Alluring visuals perfectly achieved the point of the whole story.

From the sudden shift of animation style to the back & forth between the backgrounds of characters at play really starts to make you question the point until, you reach the end. Then you sense a bit of uneasiness because the summery starts to creep in on our real world dilemmas. And the soundtracks, those hit hard especially the 'Afterlife'.

Not everything is black & white and I believe the director knew exactly how to bring the rabbit out of the hat (No pun intended).

Amazing visuals just like every other episode. But this should have been a 5 minute story, cue title screen, and get on with it. I cannot stand the trend of TV shows dedicating an entire episode of there limited run to these side stories. This is an episode I wish I could have watched on 2x speed as there is hardly anything of consequence beyond some wick flashbacks. In fact, this could have been like a preview they uploaded on YouTube in between seasons to keep people excited. But this is not an episode worthy of an entire 20+ minute runtime as it relates to the story, and maybe I don't know, DANTE.

The last two episodes started out being average, until we finally got an episode that was totally out of the ordinary, so yes it was quick but it was superbly well done with the incredible music that embellished the whole episode.

The black and white side was really a good idea for staging with a bit of color for the rest, it was really this kind of episode that I was really looking forward to because it is simply generally the best

The black and white side was really a good idea for staging with a bit of color for the rest, it was really this kind of episode that I was really looking forward to because it is simply generally the best.

To be honest I think the show is mid at best.

The design, the animation, the poor writing and dialogue makes it a 5 stars in my opinion.

But this episode is really what redeemed the show for me.

Great music, great esthetic, almost no dialogue (which is a good thing), and great story telling that bring some depth to what was a very 1 dimensional show and characters for the most part.

If they could bring more episodes with that level of quality, I would enjoy watching more of DMC.

I think the show needs to learn more from the likes of castlevania TV series which strikes a better balance between the humor and seriousness and had an overall WAY better animation.