This is Watch or Drop where the show only has one episode before I decide to watch it or drop it and for “To the Abandoned Sacred Beast” I will probably watch it.
The first episode of Sacred Beast is like the Golden Age arc of Berserk crammed into a single episode, where it tries to establish a the tragic backstory of the main character in one sitting, a cram episode as I’m going to call it. I liked the pacing of the first episode there was a lot of information and character development that needed to be established within 30 minutes and I think the show pulled it off efficiently but I think it sacrificed a lot of potential areas for the series to shine.
Going back to what I said earlier, remember how the Golden Age arc of berserk was its own complete story with its own grand battles, twist, likable characters, and memorable moment. All of that character and plot development was important not only created a quality story, but it also gave more impact on the Golden Age’s arc tragic ending and why Beserk’s main character is the way that he is. All of that potential is lost when you try to crame a whole season worth of story content into a single episode, which is what happens in Sacred Beast.
Now again, the first episode isn’t bad; it’s just missing its potential with all this information being forced into episode one. Granted maybe the author or director wanted to focus on the story after the first episode, and that’s fine it just hard for me to be invested in the emotional points of the series when these tragic events are happening to characters I barely know.
Yes nothing bad happens to these characters
Next, I’m going to talk about how Sacred Best did its crame episode correctly. First is that it used montages to show rather than tell us what was going on. We have one montage to show how the war is going well for the troops, where they’re all getting along, and the main doctor is working to prevent the big tragedy from happening. The second montage then shows how the war is starting to negatively affect the main characters, as it shows scenes of some the characters dying and their bodies beginning to change. I also thought that changing the way the characters looked was a great effect at both showing how much time was passing and foreshadowing the eventual tragedy.
Yep Bad Stuff
Now what I didn’t like about the show. I thought the backgrounds were bland, it was a bunch of grays and Barron landscapes, not particularly exciting. To continue with the Berserk comparisons, you can see the artistic vision on Beserk’s background where there is this beautiful shading and lighting, while in sacred beast the backgrounds seem to have been made just to fill the scene.
Berserk
Sacred Beast
Lastly is the villain, he didn’t get enough development to the point where I don’t know why he is evil. When his big villain reveal moment happened, the only explanation that I have is that he is CRAZY, which is not very compelling as far as motivations go. I’m going to bring up Berserk again Griffith, the main antagonist, was given a whole series to establish his character and motivation for becoming evil. In Sacred Beast, there wasn’t enough time to develop the villain’s motivation, which causes him to be pretty bland as a result.
But despite my gripes, I think overall the pacing was well done, and the animation was of pretty good quality, so I’m going to see where the series goes from here.
But I’d love you what you thought of the first episode? If you made a post about it feel free to link it in the comments.
The Trans-Feminine Gaze 