Let Me Solo Her: The Anime
So, Shangri-La Frontier has come out with its first episode. While I would like to do an in-depth review, I, unfortunately, have to split my attention between three other anime this season. So I’m only going to be dropping in sparsely with the occasional impressions and maybe an arc review since I basically have too much content on the series to not give it a little more attention.
This episode serves as our introduction to the main character, along with a few side characters and one hinted at if you know where to look. Rakurou is someone who enjoys playing crappy games for the challenge of it, having dealt with buggy controls and glitches as a matter of course, to savor overcoming these challenges. But since his local retailer is out of garbage games, she directs him to Shangri-La Frontier, which is basically the critically acclaimed Final Fantasy XIV of VR games.
He logs in, goes through minimal character customization, and specs his points into agility and luck because he’s a filthy min-maxing, crit-fishing build. He also runs into the local equivalent of a Tonberry, likes the cut of its jib, and decides to start hunting them for their knives as a rare drop. He then makes his way over to the path leading to the second town, completely skipping the starting town itself.
So, right from the start, they establish he’s a souls-borne player who relies on fast movements and being able to read attack patterns. These skills were born out of his habit of playing games that wouldn’t hold your hand or were bugged to heck and back. To that end, he eschews armor since there’s no point if you don’t plan to get hit, right? The fact that SLF is decently made just means he can act in accordance with how he wants to move, so that carries over.
The animation was also really on-point, but I doubt they can keep that up throughout the run. Not that I’d complain if they did. But I hope they can maintain the visuals when it comes to the major battles. There’s not much else I can really say after that without spoiling anything since I’ve read the manga before the simupub got axed for some reason.
But overall, I liked what I got and I’m looking forward to watching more.
Kvasir 369's Anime, Manga, and Game Blog 