First Impression: Ishura

It’s the first day of school in a vaguely medieval Ottoman-like world (with robots) when timid Yuno first encounters Lucelles, the sparkling, confident girl who quickly becomes her best friend. They bond over a Word Arts training montage and dream about the peaceful futures that lie before them now that the Demon King is dead. Sigh, isn’t the sunset gorgeous? But wait! Why is everything turning blood red, and then electric blue like a creepy horror flick? Well, turns out that the Demon King being dead didn’t actually solve this world’s problems and the city they live in so seemingly peacefully is actually a giant robot golem that awakens and deploys hundreds of small golems to tear the citizenry limb from limb—including Lucelles—in a shockingly graphic manner. Yuno escapes with her life when her Word Arts destroys the machine bent on her murder, which triggers a moral panic in the poor girl as she realizes she could have saved her friend. Or maybe not? Her Word Arts fail as a mass of golems close in on her and then…spontaneously fall apart? They’ve been sliced and diced by the beat-up blade of an otherwordly swordsman wearing half a tracksuit! But wait a second, was this snarky boy the reason the city golem awakened in the first place and killed Lucelles? Yuno is going to have to follow this kid to find out and…what else exactly she has in mind is not clear yet.

…or not

Well, that was mildly intriguing! The curveball of Yuno’s non-standard reaction to the isekai’d bog-standard OP shonen MC is kinda cool, as is the idea of an isekai where all the heroes are actually pretty suss characters that cause more damage than they do good—not purposefully, but obliviously, through their selfish pursuit of “fun and adventure”. This theme isn’t being overplayed here (yet), so there’s the potential for some interesting reflections on heroism, power, and “just” war as the series progresses. Yuno’s reaction to Shonen MC’s comment about her now being free also sets up some potentially layered characterization as she heads down a path that is all kinds of grey. She could end up being a complex character or shallowly yandere, it’s hard to tell at this point. Another interesting touch is the magic casting: apparently, the words aren’t spoken audibly, and the “spells” are poetic jumbles of words rather than awkward pseudo-English catchphrases, which makes for a refreshing change. The animation isn’t really anything to write home about, though the switch to horror aesthetics was nicely handled (as to be expected of studio Passione, home to the Higurashi franchise!). There are some good backgrounds, and the CG robots aren’t offensive—I’ve seen better, but I’ve more often seen a lot worse. The action sequences are mid, but that may also be partly to do with characterization: we’re not meant to see this cocky kid in a heroic light, after all. He’s pretty successful at being annoying. This is set to be an ensemble cast though, with several more characters presumably getting intro episodes like this one. This could either make or break the series, depending on whether future episodes can keep weaving in mildly unexpected features. In sum, this is a decent mid-range adventure series, but with a dark edge to it and the potential for some interesting character dynamics. It’s promising enough to warrant watching another episode or two at least before bumping it off the watch list. 

Ugh, he’s already so annoying. And apparently noseless.

Ishura is streaming on Hulu in the US and Disney + elsewhere.

claire
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