Anime: Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra

INTRO
The Book of Bantorra is in a few words great ideas ruined by terrible storytelling. I liked the themes and the development of the cast while getting alienated by illogical actions and unsupported line of events. Very good on a theoretical level and a nice one-time watch, but it’s a plain mess when seen in action or repeat.

THE STAFF
- Animated by David Productions, before everybody knew it for their excellent job on the Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure franchise. Seriously, nothing else they made sticks out much despite the attention to detail (Ristorante Paradico, Level-E, Ben-to).
- Directed by Shinohara Toshiya, a nobody who made some bucks through raving fangirls by taking over fan catering works for dumb chicks, such as Inu Yasha movies and Kuroshitsuji. Not much of a roster to expect something good.
- Based on light novels, so nothing to expect in terms of plot.

ART

Characters and backgrounds have a pleasing amount of details and colors, with rather smooth animation and cool visual effects that blend well with the action. Very nice looking if you don’t think much about it, but if you do everything falls apart. For example, each Armed Librarian wears clothes that hardly fit the setting. The world they live in is like England of the mid 20th century (giveaways are the aristocrats and the shape of the airplanes). So what does a group of people like a cowgirl, a Hindu girl, a masked ninja and a woman running around without a bra are doing in here? They feel like they popped out of an rpg.

It is a minor issue to be bothered by a blend of real history with magic, in a world where the supernatural overlaps technology. It is also immersion breaking when they do not justify why they are wearing the same clothes almost all the time when they otherwise have the power to look any way they like with a spell. Imagine a woman dressed all the time as a maid in the library, going to battle STILL dressed as a maid. It feels lazy and makes the world seem artificial. Same goes with the pretty girls always wearing revealing clothes. It’s obviously fan service, thrown in there without an in-story excuse and constantly telling you not to give a damn about the show. As weird as it sounds, clothes are part of aesthetics, and the lack of variety takes away credibility.

SOUND

Music themes are good; despite the depressing tone they fit the mood. Voice acting is ok, excluding the squeaky pitch all young and naive girls have; I don’t fancy that. What I really didn’t like were the super long talks, a classic mistake of direct adaption from light novels to screen. They went overboard with the things a monologue can achieve, turning the plot into mostly a dribble of long philosophical monologues, instead of actions.

It wouldn’t be that much of an issue if the dialogues were great and excused, but they are ridiculously cryptic, symbolic and in the long run unneeded to the point of confusing you for no reason. This is obviously done to make the series feel more mystical and it works up to a point, but since the story is one big mess of out-of-place events, all that talking is actually quite superficial despite the really psychological and philosophical issues it encompasses. Keeping it more simple and working on the line of events would produce a far better product.

SCRIPT

The entire story is made to be a mockery of ideals and high expectations, which I liked, with a concept that is quite uncommon. It takes place in a world where the dead turn to stone tablets, simply called books. Anyone touching a book can access the memories of the dead and learn from their life experiences. The conflict comes in the form of two religions, one that gathers and stores the books in a library (Armed Librarians), and one that abuses people as cattle and books as tools in order to advance in life and reach heaven (New World religion). It sounds awesome and makes you expect a lot, only to be greatly disappointed with the execution, since it makes no sense whatsoever.

The first three episodes are used as an introduction to the setting, and it’s achieved through the lazy method of characters blabbering for several minutes, explaining things they normally have no reason to mention as they are all self-explained on their part. Force-feeding the viewer with things like “Hi, I am this and I do that and that one works like that and the other one is like that”. The same as treating him like an idiot. These episodes are also badly-paced, since you are thrown in this weird setting right in the middle of a war, followed by a line of flashbacks, explaining the story of each individual.

The mid episodes are the peak of interest, since they are fleshing out characters and setting. They are still presented in a disjoined manner, since the non-linear narrative constantly jumps in space and time at random intervals to further confuse you even more. This eventually leads to the final episodes which are taking place in the present and serve as the final confrontation of… I have no idea. Why is everybody fighting for in the last arc again? I see their motives, their thoughts, their strategies… and it makes no sense! Here, have a taste of what the plot is like:

There is this savior who saves the world by killing everyone before losing his memory, and then people are born again although they were all dead, and form two religions that aim to kill each other’s leaders, but in reality it is all a set up as they both work for the same goal making their fighting completely meaningless, and the memories are needed to empower something that is triggered by the love of a little girl, plus there are android super soldiers we only see briefly in a flashback, and a boy turning into a mind controlling lizard that uses a spell that creates coma-inducing snow, but there is a bioorganic weapon made to stop the villain, and she loves death because killing is salvation, before we learn there was a disease in the past caused by a witch, and they need to fight the very monsters they placed in the dungeon as guardians of the books in order to access her memories, so here’s a half-naked cowgirl.

And that was only a small part of what is going on in the show, presented with cryptic monologues and a non-linear plot, so have fun not getting any of it. It makes Xamdou Lost Memories to feel like a walk in the park. Yes, you can always read a wiki about what is exactly going on, but that only further proves how badly written the series is if you can only get it with external aid. And even IF you get it, it still makes no sense:

The lover of the savior was killed for no given reason, triggering the entire story with no justification. The current director of the Armed Librarians, ms. Huge Boobs, was there to kill the savior since day one, yet she didn’t despite him being at the palm of her hands, defenseless and oblivious to her powers. She only acted when the world was about to end, which contradicts her goal to prevent the apocalypse. The librarians didn’t know the truth about what happened in the past, even when they had the witch’s book that proved her innocence and a billion other books revealing the dark history. They were gathering the books for centuries so they can learn from the past, only to never learn anything.

And those are just what I still remember fondly; there is a ton of less important nonsense going on, including amnesia, mind control and magic gismos. No well-written story would implement amnesia to slow down the plot, magic to allow the bad guys to appear and disappear at will. And in no chance in hell would it force-feed us the whole backdrop story through monologues in the first episodes.

CAST

What you mostly get are half naked women in the role of the good guys fighting a bunch of fascist bastards who exploit the weak and turn them into mindless weapons and murderers. There are a lot of cheap shots and shock effect in topics where being more subtle about it would have kept both sides of knowledge and faith more grey.

Something I really liked is how most characters receive a great amount of focus in the form of the aforementioned flashbacks during the mid episodes. You see the effort in fleshing them out, and you are made to care about them. Setting aside their stupid costumes, the characterization is great. Not everyone gets it though; that cowgirl remains just a cowgirl with huge tits. And too bad everything is ruined by the ridiculous plot:

How was that boy turned to a mind controlling lizard? Why was the leader of the opposing religion making his head invisible? There was no need for the oversexualization of the females. And then there are the drone-making gizmos to completely finish off any sense of characterization, since they turn people to mindless killers in a few seconds. One moment they are good villagers minding their business, the exact next they are suicide bombers, brainlessly wasting their lives by dropping onto the heroes. Where did they get all those bombs anyway? Was bomb creation arts part of the brainwashing package? Wow, great deal, be brainwashed now and get the knowledge to create bombs for free. Order now! And if that wasn’t enough to turn everybody into a plot device, there is still the snow that throws people into a coma. Magic comatose snow, the cheapest way to evaporate the importance of characters, by massively taking out anyone who doesn’t matter, in one simple step.

LEGACY

Because of all the issues this show has, there is no replay value. Noone would be willing to suffer through all this crap again, unless he is a really big masochist. There is also not much enjoyment to get out of it, unless you are one of those people who just want to overthink the themes and don’t give a damn about the plot making sense. Very bad in overall, not recommended as anything more than yet another proof of light novels sucking ass.