Assassins Pride [DUB]

Every season, it’s become a necessity now for us to have that one anime that just hits all the wrong nerves. It’s the one anime which frustrates you so much that you cannot drop it because you want to see where the trainwreck is going to halt. We had Arifureta last season, Kenja no Mago the season before that, and now in Fall 2019, there’s Assassin’s Pride. Admittedly, Assassin’s Pride isn’t as bad as either of those two. It had its fair share of moments where it made me feel that the anime might take a turn for the better. But for every forward step that it took, there were another five steps back. To start off, Assassin’s Pride had a terrible first episode. The premise was somewhat interesting but the execution in the first episode itself made it obvious where this show was headed. The main character already saved the main female, who’s somewhere around 13 years of age, multiple times in the first episode. Then, at the end of the episode, they had a kiss to transfer some powers to her because she was a useless little crybaby. Doesn’t the plot already sound shoddy? Well, the following episodes are not too different and although, it did evoke some hope in between episode 5-8, the following episodes turned out even worse than the initial ones. Melida Angel, the main female lead of the show, can’t manifest any mana even though she’s supposedly of noble bloodline and has to become Paladin, the class of fighters that’s supposed to be extremely strong and only people who have “right kind of shitty noble blood” can achieve. To help her awaken to her powers, the Angel family appoints Kufa Vampir, our perfect male lead, as her tutor. But unbeknownst to most, Kufa is actually an assassin and is sent to kill Melida instead. But of course, Kufa sees something in her and decides to let her live. His reasons are never revealed, and all he says is I feel like letting you live and see where this goes. For a character as rigid as Kufa, this is totally out of the blue. Even before establishing his character, it was already destroyed in the first two episodes. Apart from supporting and helping Melida, everything Kufa does is for a reason. She’s a pretty weak character and the only thing she’s good at is whining. So why help Melida? I’ll tell you why. For plot. Melida is such a little bitch. I really don’t like her. If Kufa was a bad character, Melida is ten times worse. She’s unlikeable, whingy and a total loser. And I don’t say that because she’s weak, but because of her approach to trying to be strong. I tried to give her chances so that I could find any redeeming qualities in her character but there are really none. All she knows is to suck up to Kufa and pull shit out of her ass. First off, it’s never really explained what exactly a Paladin is. The word is thrown around from start to end, but the meaning never given to us in a satisfactory manner. Heck, none of the so-called classes in the hierarchy are not described in the season at all. Assassin’s Pride tries to put a match of a weak and a strong character but manages to fluff it up worse than you can imagine. Melida achieves things too easily and Kufa is pretty much invincible. Everything turns out in favor of the two even though most of the world seems to be against them for some reason. Things happen randomly and so many instances contradict each other. They simply don’t make any sense at all. Oh, the animation. It’s crap. It really is. One of the scenes in an episode is totally scrapped because the studio probably didn’t want to animate it. The encounter just starts between two characters but suddenly in the next moment, it’s over and one’s defeated. We don’t see an attack, no fight and they’re in a totally different place than where they were a second ago. And no, there was no power or such used. The studio just messed it up and didn’t want to correct it. I guess they’d just given up by that time. The action sequences are a pain to watch because so many scenes are simply… skipped. We see two characters charging with their swords and then we’re seeing one hitting the wall the next second. The overall animation isn’t as bad as something like Arifureta, but it’s not too far off from that. There’s nothing too noteworthy about the audio either. The opening song was pretty “girly” and I felt that it didn’t suit the theme of the show even though Kufa seems to be the only male character who appears in consecutive episodes for most of the season. The show goes from an average start, to a somewhat decent middle part, and then absolutely shit towards the end. The show was a pain to watch towards the end. I definitely don’t recommend this show because it’s not got anything going for it. From generic story to plain plot and characters, everything it has to offer is disappointing.