raffrasson

I was surprised by how good this series was. I've been seeing a lot of criticism about how this is not a faithful adaptation of the anime/manga, and I feel this misses the point entirely.

It's unreal to expect a producer to adapt the whole first arc to live action, especially right out of the bat. It would cost too much, take too much time and require an army of actors and vfx artists for what is, at the end of the day, a gamble. How many shows Netflix has canceled because of rising production costs?

That being said, let's go over the strong points. The action scenes are great. Very well choreographed, dynamic fights, and plenty of unexpected camera angles. They make good use of the scenery, with characters using objects to make and block attacks. This is boosted by some pretty good CG, and since the art direction isn't too realistic the scenes don't feel too much out of place.

The acting is also pretty solid. Yusuke nails the delinquent vibe with his posture, Botan is bubbly and kinda annoyingly fun and the older Toguro is an absolutely nasty little guy.

The weak points are the expected ones. The story suffers a bit from the rushed pace. Characters can feel somewhat underdeveloped and their growth, unearned, both in power and in personality. Some of the tropes of Shonen are a bit weird in live action as well. The saddest thing for me is that the side characters don't have as much time in the spotlight, in a series with such a great cast.

Overall, I really recommend this show. It was fun, easy to watch and to follow. If you go into this with an open mind there's much to like. At the end of the day the Manga is still there, the anime is still there. By taking liberties we get something fresh that doesn't try to compete with the original work. We don't need another Disney remake situation.

This was a really unsatisfactory ending to the season. The episode had a strong start, with many of the tensions built on the previous episodes reaching a boiling point. Characters had their morality challenged, tenuous alliances were formed, and overall the payout was worth it (which was unexpected to me; so far I had felt this series, while quite pretty, was just ok plot-wise).

That made it all more surprising when, WAAAAY out of the left field (believe me, it REALLY comes from nowhere), something happens to tip the scales considerably in favor of the protagonist. Problem is this benefit feels completely unearned: none of the main characters had to do anything to make it happen, it just does, and that makes it feel very cheap. I would much rather the season to end on a more hopeless note, with the heroes seemingly defeated and with no apparent way out, than with this "hope" conjured out of nowhere. Left a really bad taste on my mouth. Here's hoping they can do better on the next season's ending.

I must confess I went into this show expecting a lot, maybe too much. For something with as high a score as this, I felt that the first season was a bit weak at points. The drama fell a bit flat for me, as well as some of the performances.

I'm very glad I stuck with it, though. The episodes got progressively better as the season went on, and this one was an absolute high point in every aspect. The production values are still great, with some specially good makeup work, as are the action scenes, but the absolute highlight for me were the actors. Basically everyone is great this episode. Ian Hart keeps knocking it out of the park as Father Beocca, Eva Birthistle as Hild is pretty good as well, even with few scenes, and Alexandre Willaume has more screen time to work with and uses it to portrays a strong antagonist as Kjartan. Alexander Dreymon, as the lead, is also great. I feel I might be mixing character growth with the actor's growth, but it really felt good watching him on this one.

In my opinion this episode absolutely deserves the high score it has here on IMDB.