Animation Isn't Everything | Record of Ragnarok Review

Hello and welcome my weeb friend. I don’t normally do anime reviews, yet here I am and here you are.

As long as you’ve not been hiding under a rock like a shy turtle, then you’ve heard about the new(ish) anime adaptation that stormed Netflix at about the speed of medium rainstorm (anticlimactic I know).

Nevertheless Record of Ragnarok was hyped enough to make some news rounds, being adapted by Graphinica from the ever popular manga.

Keep in mind as we descend into this review that my perspective is that of someone who hasn’t read the manga, but is frequently bored with anime that’s been overdone and cliche’d out the rectum, so without further ado, let’s go!

The Beginning
Record of Ragnarok opens with a unique style, introducing us to many different gods, varying pantheons of religion. Zues, Odin, and Shiva are among some of the most prominent ones shown as they discuss the fate of the world.

Without much consideration, they decide that the world would be better of vanished from existence. This is when our normally stoic, yet oddly multi-expressive heroine, Brunhilde steps into view, declaring “Ragnarok.” This is a clause in the rules that allows mortals to fight against the gods in a 13 round deathmatch. If humanity wins they get to continue living… at least for another 1,000 years.

Right off the Bat
Brunhilde immediately caught my attention. Her design is hella cool, with lots of cool armor pieces, beautiful hair accessories, and bold eyes. What’s she’s most known for is her expressions, which bare a sort of sinister undertone to them, which is incredibly fun to watch, given she’s our main hero and juxtaposed to the gods, she’s the good guy!

The art style of the various gods is awesome in fact. The color choice, the music, and the overall style is killer and holds itself on its own level of unique charm that’s not quite like anything else I’ve seen.

The Fights
The first fight pits off Thor and Lü Bu and it has its fair share of twists and turns. I couldn’t help but feel like the pacing was awkward though. You may go a few episodes of watching these two fight, without really any dialogue being exchanged or character being shown.

What also doesn’t help is the limited animation in the action, which we’ll get to in a second.

In any case, the first part of the show is definitely the roughest, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. I decided to stick it out, given I like the premise, style, voice acting, and music for the show.

The big bad animation
So, if you’ve looked into this show at all, you’ve might have seen that many people (and I mean many) really seem to hate the animation of this show.

”Just read the manga,” they say.

Well, are they right about this?

Yes and no.

Yes, the animation, especially during the fights are rather limited and below average in terms of what you can expect from an anime.

But no, it doesn’t ruin the show or mean that it’s not worth watching. Even slideshow animation is more animation than a manga, that’s why the “slideshow” YouTube videos for Record of Ragnarok are so popular.

Just seeing any animation is great and what really helps it is the quality visuals on display with top tier voice acting (mostly) and great music.

Which again, I can’t emphasize enough. The music for this show, really helps bring the best out of it.

So, what’s the rating?
Well, the gods have decided, on our good ‘ol scale, this show is a…

Rating - Z
Z is our rating for amazing, which is a essentially a 3/4. This means, that as an anime fan who likes fantasy action, you should definitely give this anime a watch!

We only hope that it gets better from here and it gets a season 2.

If you want it to get a season 2, be sure to share around how much you liked the show, so critics don’t ruin it for the rest of us!

And if you like anime, hop into our Discord here!

Stay awesome!
Vincent