The episode opens with student council president Faria, a girl in military uniform, standing in a destroyed town, muttering about being too late before singing a song. Her subordinate Ellen joins her and they board a train. Elsewhere, monsters are destroying another town and devouring people, whose corpses turn into more monsters. A boy unsuccessfully attempts to hide from or escape them, but just in time, Faria drops in. Using metal tarot card thing to transform into a knight, she wields a halberd and lightning to defeat the monsters. It turns out that the boy, Nemo, is a new student at Granseed Academy, where Faria is prez. Back aboard the train, we get a bit of exposition about how divinely chosen heroes once saved the world from darkness, and their powers have been passed down since then. Faria is one such successor to a hero. Granseed Academy is base of these heroes, who fight an evil cult named Physis. The show really jumps the tracks when a giant monster derails the train. The situation is dire, but suddenly a metal tarot card appears before Nemo. He has a vision in which he asks for power from a disembodied voice identifying herself as the goddess Serrass. The vision changes and a man talks to Nemo—apparently the hero whose power he just inherited. Swift defeat of the monster follows.
Based on the show’s description, I expected it to be typical shounen fare, and the episode seemed to validate my suspicions. It checks all the boxes: young boy is determined to protect people, suddenly receives power, transforms, and fights a monster created by a cult that worships the “God of Destruction” (Seriously??? Come on people, at least give your evil deities names so they don’t seem so obviously generic!), and now he’ll be going to school and joining a band of heroes. If this sounds like your jam, I won’t judge you for watching. However, I felt the episode was formulaic, with nothing to distinguish it from dozens of other shounen anime. I probably won’t continue watching it.
Seven Knights Revolution: Hero Successor is available to stream on Crunchyroll.
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Sounds fairly generic. I’ll be skipping it unless I hear it gets better down the line.
This kind of missed the point, though. There are only seven heroes for the students to inherit power from, and they’re all taken; so who is this kid getting his from? That’s the central plot mystery, and I’m looking forward to seeing it unfold.
Also, Greek! Lots of Greek names, which has my curiosity up because it’s not something you see every day in anime.
wait what
If the kid got his power from a mysterious eighth hero…maybe it would be helpful if the dialogue in the episode mentioned that??? I didn’t see anything in the show that indicated all seven of the hero slots were already occupied, nor any indication that there was a mystery.
If that was indeed “the point,” then yes, I totally missed it…but I’d blame the episode for that fact.
As for the names…Greek? No idea. “Faria” just reminded me of Abbe Faria in The Count of Monte Cristo, and “Nemo” made me think of Jules Verne’s famous submariner. Since Dumas and Verne are both French…I wouldn’t have expected Greek?
It’s literally in the description of the series, so I assumed you’d be familiar with it even though they haven’t gone into detail in the episode. But you’re right that ep 1 alone doesn’t explain it.
Greek names: The bad guys are called Physis, which means Nature. And one of the heroes is named Eunomia, literally Good Law (i.e. Justice).
Show descriptions aren’t exactly notorious for their flawless accuracy, are they now? When I’m writing a “first impression” of the *first episode*, I can’t very well say “Despite the episode not saying anything about it, there’s actually supposed to be a mystery about Nemo’s hero — it says so in the show description!”
Expecting viewers to trust the show description over the actual first episode is unreasonable on the part of someone involved in the show’s production. It sort of reminds me of the moronic decision to treat the *real* first episode of the Noblesse anime as an entirely separate OVA (a creative/production choice I know you just adored 😛 ).
Heh, it’s your review—you can say whatever you want in it! I would have phrased it something like, “I’ve been looking forward to this show because the description says X. So far, this is what episode 1 has shown us.” Nice and neutral.
Now, if you’re going to dredge up the ancient and decaying detritus of old arguments, don’t go putting words in my mouth! XD I didn’t ‘adore’ the Noblesse decision; I just didn’t have a problem with it. Next I suppose you’ll tell me that reading the description is “research” or something!