Saihate no Paladin

[Kraco]

https://i.imgur.com/XbYAf8L.jpg

"William is the lone human in a city of the dead. Born with vague memories of a past life where he failed to do anything useful, he is determined not to make the same mistake again, and that this time, his life will be lived. But what does that really mean? Raised by a group of the undead, William must discover what circumstances brought him to this city and these people as well as what it means to not just exist, but to live a full life." -Baka-Manga Updates




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This is one of the series I was looking forward to, of course in addition to Mushoku s2. Funnily enough the description is not altogether different. The series is somewhat different, though: No immediate perversion to be seen, haha. I was afraid of the possible lack of production values, but at least so far it seems tolerable. I quite like the manga as the plot is good, there's occasionally deep dialogue with insights, and the MC is not instantly super OP, as this episode already showed. I guess that's another thing this has in common with Mushoku: In both the dudes have to train to get better, even if they are gifted.

[MFauli]

Why can't the hero be a girl when he's looking and sounding like a girl anyway? So fucking dumb.

[Kraco]

Why can't the hero be a girl when he's looking and sounding like a girl anyway? So fucking dumb.

If the voice actor doesn't change into a male one later, I don't know what to think of it anymore. Since the vast majority of anime use (adult) female voice actors to voice underage boys, it's nothing peculiar if he sounds like a girl here. Few anime use child actors in the first place, and those shows tend not to be action shows or anything like that.

Most shounen/seinen isekai have a male MC, most shoujo/josei female. That's just how it goes. Since isekai series in general are exceedingly escapist in nature, it makes perfect sense. Of course there are also some exceptions, but, surprise surprise, they tend to be... you guessed it, gender bender/homosexual.

[KrayZ33]

As expected, I don't like the VA being a female.
I doubt that will change, it just doesn't fit aside from the young age version.

There is no male VA credited to this show and MC, is there?


Argh... I kinda hope this is a second Mushoku, but I'm having trouble getting "into it" with that voice.
Is this weird? I just can't imagine that voice when he's an adult/teenager... and he is going to be one.

[Kraco]

It's going to bother me as well, no matter how much I like the story, if it doesn't change. Maybe there's no one else listed because they haven't announced it yet for whatever reason?

[neflight86]

Didn't even notice the girl voice thing.

Pretty boiler plate isekai stuff right now, setting wise. Magic, swords, and petty gods, and the OP isn't selling it as anything new, either. I'll give it another few eps for it to become more its own thing. It's like surviving the beginning of generic shounen- formulaic as they are, after a while they have no choice but to be their own story.

[DarthEnderX]

Is this weird?You're the 3rd person in a row to complain about it, so I'm guessing not. But it didn't bother me.

[KrayZ33]

Episode 2



-----------------------------------------
15

still a woman.


sad face.

I actually started picturing him as a girl. Then I reminded myself, oh wait, it's a guy.

[Kraco]

Yeah, it's kind of difficult to imagine the later story with the dude sounding like that. Who knows what the director was thinking. Probably nothing, looking at the director's past projects.

[Kraco]

Episode 3



https://i.imgur.com/uKnIDk4.jpg

Are you sure about that?

[KrayZ33]

Episode 5


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I think sometimes, even the animators forgot that he's a guy.

Either way, I think the scene from the past with Blood and Mary was quite fun to watch.
I'm interested in the next few episodes, now that his journey is starting.

Not a fan of the lack of explanation for his "blessings".
They are just there and well.... that's it. Feels cheap how he got them imho.

Almost felt like he should've gotten them *after* all this. Not right at the beginning. But I guess that's just how this "game world" works.

[DarthEnderX]

I'm kinda bored with this so far.

[Kraco]

I think I'll have a look at the next episode still, but if Will remains as androgynous as he's been so far in the anime, I'll drop the series. It clashes too much with my image of him in the manga. Maybe if I hadn't been reading the manga, it wouldn't bother me as much, but as it is, it does. A pity. This is decently highly quality fantasy, and in fact one of the few isekai not falling into the trash isekai category.

[Kraco]

Episode 6


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That's it, I guess, even though it's a pity to drop a show I made the thread for. I don't know which one is closer to the novel source, but I much prefer the manga with a male MC, not this anime with the androgynous MC. Perhaps because I'm used to the manga version, who knows. Although without spoiling anything, the anime director's choice would only bother me more and more in the future, as the story progresses. I'm sure the director had his reasons, which absolutely had nothing to do with the fact all of his previous works either had a pure all girls cast or were a single male plus plenty of girls harem shows.

[DarthEnderX]

I bet this elf that sounds like a guy is really a chick, just to rub it in.

[KrayZ33]

Hmmm...

That epsiode felt rushed.
It's like this interaction between the 2 villages could've been done way better.
We were kinda thrown in there and I don't quite understand why the elf helped village A but not B even though he seemed to be "neutral" and hunted for both villages?


I actually thought the elf was female from the preview, now I'm disappointed.

Either way, I think this show could be a great fantasy show. I'm getting these old-school RPG vibes from it.
Although I believe the animation (alongside female MC VA) and art is ruining it.
I took a look at some of the LN pictures and it reminds me a lot of Overlord.
https://i.imgur.com/ZQ2mPsS.png

Would've prefered that version. The anime looks "goofy".

[DarthEnderX]

They look like anime versions of those characters to me.

[KrayZ33]

They look like anime versions of those characters to me.

Ya but "happy" versions.
They could've chosen a "monster" design, like in the LN - especially Blood
You know, like Berserk's Skeleton Knight compared to Blood.

Most of the time, blood looks like he is out of a slice-of-life show, even though he looks like an absolut monstrosity directly out of the Warhammer universe

[Kraco]

It's probably also a question of animation budget since the simplified, cartoony looks are much more friendly for drawing the animation frames, in addition to the director's personal taste. I don't really care that much about it since Blood was, in the bigger picture, just a character for the very beginning of the series. I could accept Will's androgynous looks, compared to the manga where he does look like a man by the time he hits the road, but I can't accept the VA. It's just too much. It would be interesting to know if his (adult) voice is described as feminine in the novel, thus making this a faithful adaptation, or if the director is just nuts.

[DarthEnderX]

Ya but "happy" versions.Cause they ARE happy.

[KrayZ33]

Cause they ARE happy.

Yeah but that's not the point.
Don't make it harder for me to explain "just because".

It's not like you have never seen a show where a character is actually friendly and happy, but the guy looks like a total badass or scary monster.

The same "happy" version fought the Undead God.. it's not like they changed the looks depending on their mood.
The scene where he fought Gus was not scary at all because it was normal Gus.
If it were Blood it would actually have been weird and not just "normal".
https://i.imgur.com/jKkkyJy.png

This picture captures the mood a few thousand times better than the anime did. Which had nothing even remotely in that direction.
If undeads are supposed to be scary monsters, make them look like monsters and not like "fun to hang out with" dudes, no matter their alignment.
I always hate that stuff, especially when they encounter a random guy who is super scared seeing them even though they look friendly and almost normal or human (like the Zombie priestess)

[Kraco]

If undeads are supposed to be scary monsters, make them look like monsters and not like "fun to hang out with" dudes, no matter their alignment.

How do you actually depict that? You might say an undead creature would be scary because it shouldn't exist. It might also be grotesque looking, like a rotting zombie with partially visible internal organs and bones. However, a human skeleton is just a human skeleton, even if it's reanimated. The horror would be solely in the eye of the beholder, so it's difficult to depict in a visual medium. In a novel you can spend all the time in the chapter to describe how a character feels. In anime (or manga), you can do something to show it, but ultimately not awfully lot, unless you suddenly pull off half an episode of flashbacks and whatnot. But it might ruin the flow.

Once again, I'd say the manga did it a little better with Blood since he didn't even have the eyes the anime gave him. In the manga he had nothing but deep, dark, lifeless, empty eye sockets, like a skeleton would. Gus is what he is. I reckon his face is the one he had in life, which would make sense. He can't change his face from scene to scene.

[KrayZ33]

How do you actually depict that? You might say an undead creature would be scary because it shouldn't exist. It might also be grotesque looking, like a rotting zombie with partially visible internal organs and bones. However, a human skeleton is just a human skeleton, even if it's reanimated.


You just do it like the thousand shows that already did it.
Obviously budget is limited, but that is really not something new?

Colour, details, shadows, lack of shadows.
I mean, come on, I literally posted the LN version of the same character who looks completely different and has a completely different aura to him.
Anime has extra benefits from getting to choose his voice and the way he moves etc.

You could add twitching head movements and "clacking" noises when he moves and all that stuff.
Not to mention that you can have "chibi" version and whatnot if you want them to picture the daily-life stuff, to emphasise the contrast between what he is and what he does or what is alignment is.

[Kraco]

If he had looked like in that earlier smudgy, almost sketch like picture you posted, the whole show would have been one of those "artistic" shows, where you wouldn't know half the time what you see on the screen. You can't just make one character like that and the rest, along with the backgrounds, look clear and crisp. He also had to move like he moved in his life to make him as capable. Actually he's not as capable because a skeleton is lacking mass compared to a full body, which is a huge weakness in all but the most ninja like ways of fighting, but I doubt as an undead he would be capable of learning a new style.

Gus could have been more ghastly easily, though, although that would have also made him far more unrecognisable, and thus the audience wouldn't have really cared about him a whole lot.

[KrayZ33]

I don't know why you fixate yourself on exactly *that* look. This is just an example.

Again, there are tons of horror-*anime*shows that have ugly/scary looking monsters in them that are sometimes pretty disgusting to look at without the whole show looking like the shitty Star-Wars animes that came out recently.
Hell, there has been a harem show recently that is somewhat similar to Slime, that featured a very minor side character for like 2 epsiodes, that was some kind of Lich, and even that one looked way cooler and evil than him.
You are really not using your imagination and knowledge and experience here.

And the "he had to move like that" doesn't really count. It's magic that he moves in the first place, so magic is magic and magic allows him to do whatever the author decides he should be able to do. It's no less or more believable either way.

It's about the intention of what they wanted to show and when I look at the LN pictures (and I didn't read it, so maybe the LN is weird in that regard), it seems like the monsters are supposed to look more grim-dark than how they look in this show.
It's also why the battle with Gus was kinda weird to look at when he was floating there, looking super normal, and MC nearly pissed his pants.

[Kraco]

Blood was a handsome and great dude while alive, working as a champion for mankind. Why would he be a horrifying monster in unlife? If you ask me, that's the point of why he looked like he did. Although, like I said earlier, the manga still did it a bit better. You ask me why I fixate myself on some looks, but I could ask you why you fixate yourself on hoping they would look more terrifying. They were great parents and a grandpa for Will, so I don't quite understand why or how they would need to be any scarier. For comparison, if you think of Ainz Ooal Gown, he's not a reanimated human skeleton. I don't remember what he is, but he's some other monster. He's also evil, so it makes sense he looks more evil, store wise. There's a distinct difference here.

[DarthEnderX]

Again, there are tons of horror-*anime*shows that have ugly/scary looking monsters in them that are sometimes pretty disgusting to look at without the whole show looking like the shitty Star-Wars animes that came out recently.
Hell, there has been a harem show recently that is somewhat similar to Slime, that featured a very minor side character for like 2 epsiodes, that was some kind of Lich, and even that one looked way cooler and evil than him.
You are really not using your imagination and knowledge and experience here.I feel like the thing you're glossing over is that making shit like that is...hard? And/or expensive?

Those Star Wars things are like 5 minutes long. And have Star Wars budget. They can do things that simply aren't going to be feasible for a show like this.

[KrayZ33]

I feel like the thing you're glossing over is that making shit like that is...hard? And/or expensive?

Those Star Wars things are like 5 minutes long. And have Star Wars budget. They can do things that simply aren't going to be feasible for a show like this.

The Star Wars stuff were pretty shit - and I didn't praise them for what they did. So you might be able to make the argument that budget means nothing in that regard
But I'm not glossing over it. This show is low budget, and I'm saying it's such a waste because this show could be a great fantasy show, and it isn't partly due to that.
There are other low budget shows that did make monsters look more like monsters.

I also think that this Avatar of the undead god looked weird and low effort.

[DarthEnderX]

The Star Wars stuff were pretty shitThe animation wasn't.

[KrayZ33]

8
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While the bards story was a bit cheap-ish and the animation was... not even there (lol), I still like the Half-ling.... *so* much even.
What a happy soul. And what a waste she is on this show's budget.

A bard through and through, lovely.

[DarthEnderX]

Agreed. Halfling bard good despite being loli bait.

[DarthEnderX]

9

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Huh. Guess that elf was a dude afterall.

[KrayZ33]

Sooo I think I stopped watching it, but a second season will come later this year and the MC VA changed to a male voice.
Now I'm kinda interested again..... yes, it bothered me... VERY MUCH.

Same VA as 86 MC and this elite-school anime show. Ayanokouji was the dead-pan MCs name I believe.

[DarthEnderX]

S2 E01

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This is back also.

[DarthEnderX]

03

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The artist is definitely a fan of movie Thorin.


I don't remember what happened to Will's hands.

[DarthEnderX]

6

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Oh man. Magic armory. That really triggers the endorphins.

[DarthEnderX]

9

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The undead dwarves was a cool moment.

This show is overall kinda boring, but it keeps having interesting little scenes.