To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts – Episode 1-7 Review

I really hate when you have a great premise for a show that comes out this half baked. The show stars the captain of the Incarnates, humans given the power to transform into all these mythical beasts. They were created to turn the tide of war, but as time goes on they begin to give in to the beast within and go berserk.

After the war is over, one Incarnate betrays them for his own sinister plans. Hank, the captain, is now on a quest to kill all the remaining Incarnates to hold true to the promise they made that the Incarnates would be killed off by their own if they ever lose their soles. He does this as well as search for Cain in order to find out why he betrayed them.

The first problem is for the first six episodes the characters have almost no personality. You learn a little about the person's past and why they act the way they do, but not enough for them to really feel like people. So for six episodes, you are basically getting a monster of the day show with no real plot being built up.

The other lead role is the daughter of one of the Incarnates, who goes from wanting revenge on Hank for killing her Father, to wanting to know why it is her father had to die. The problem here is we the audience pretty much already know this. It's not really until the seventh episode she finally gets it, despite how obvious all this feels to the audience. It could be said it was harder for her to accept because her father was killed, and she harbored a hatred for Hank because of it, but after the first scene, they have together there are no signs of anger at all.

We are also lead to believe that the Incarnates are pretty much unstoppable in the first episode as we see them decimating enemy forces with little threat, then told there have been so many times they have nearly died that you never see happen during the war. At least up until the first one loses his soul and he just gets quickly shot down by gun and cannon fire from his own side.

Mind you, they had to develop special bullets to fight and kill the incarnates, yet now we can see them get taken out by perfectly normal means. I get there are some inconsistencies in how strong some are compared to others, but so far not one Incarnate seems to not be kill-able by conventional means. Hell, the Behemoth Incarnate is larger than buildings and almost impenetrable but is killed without the use of a bullet at all. The most physically dominant and impervious one we have seen so far dies without the need of a God killer Bullet.

By episode six we finally learn the bullets also drain the Incarnates power, which is what makes them so useful. That is way too long to wait for an explanation,especially as we see Hank use a God killer Bullet to finish off some of his foes, despite him already having the fight won. You wonder why it is he even bothers using one of those bullets if these incarnates are kill-able normally, and you don't need to waste one of them.

Fast forward to a unit of the military whose goal is also to hunt down and kill Incarnates, and yet none of them seem to be armed with these God Killer Bullets, even though no one in the squad is an Incarnate. But they give God Killer bullets to the girl who isn't part of the military, has no combat experience, and they don't intend to let fight when the Incarnates come to attack. This may be the stupidest military in any anime I have ever seen.

I'd like to say that the actual art design and animation are pretty great, I love the designs of the various Incarnates and their resemblance to mythical creatures, and even how they tie the history of those creatures into the actions of the Incarnates themselves. The problem though is not one fight up until this point has actually been interesting. You get a lot of great detail, setup, and animation just to get a bunch of dud fights.

The show has a wonderful premise. You have a group of soldiers who have lost their place in the world after a war, a theme enforced by Incarnates and their unique history and tendency to lose themselves to the beast within. But the first part of the show just feels like it drags and wastes its time,the fights themselves are lackluster, and all of the characters feel flat. I wanted to like this show for its premise and great art design for many of the Incarnates, but the show ends up falling far short of what I was hoping for.