First Impression: Petals of Reincarnation

Toya Senji has been trying to figure out for a long time what his special talent is, but so far, his true calling has eluded him. He has developed this inferiority complex due to constantly being compared to his brilliant older brother, who died young. So when Haito Luo Buffett offers him a chance to gain talents from a previous life, he instantly seizes the opportunity, despite the risk of immediate death. Luckily for him, he wakes up the next morning with a new ability. At first glance, his skill seems relatively insignificant, but he realizes that with enough time, it could grow powerful enough to become the greatest talent of all.

I think the art style and color palette of this first episode were nice to look at, but other than that, there wasn’t much going on here to interest me. Toya seems to be a pretty one-dimensional protagonist, and the other characters are mostly there to dump exposition. This doesn’t work very well because the premise by itself can’t carry the story either, because it’s not the most original idea out there. The tone throughout the episode is also slightly strange. Multiple people get killed in this episode, but it’s treated as the most inconsequential thing ever. It doesn’t help either that Toya doesn’t seem to have any friends or family, which adds even more to the disembodied feeling of the setting. The main plot point that’s supposed to draw us in is the implication that Toya is the reincarnation of someone special, but unfortunately I don’t think I’ll stick around for episode 2.

Petals of Reincarnation is streaming on HiDIVE.