English Dub Season Review: Scarlet Nexus Season One

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Set in the not-too-distant future, Scarlet Nexus takes place in a world threatened by a mysterious group of monsters called the “Others”—strangely-crafted creatures who fall from the sky and attack anything that moves. Luckily, most people in this future world have a power called psionics that allows them to fight back against the Others. But these monsters aren’t the only threat that Yuito Sumeragi and his friends face. Between a crazy conspiracy, warring city states and trying to stop a madman from traveling back in time, the Scarlet Guardians have their work cut out for them.

Our Take:

Being based on a video game isn’t unusual, and it really shouldn’t necessarily be viewed as a negative trait—but it’s also common knowledge that video game adaptations can be incredibly difficult to pull off well. Scarlet Nexus the anime was produced to coincide with the release of Scarlet Nexus the video game, and let’s just say that one of these things is much better than the other.

As a show, Scarlet Nexus is both exceedingly insane and depressingly dull. It seems like the writers just pull things out of their hats, making up whatever crazy plot twist is needed to try and keep viewers engaged. I’m guessing this works better in the longer, video game format, because it sure doesn’t work well here. What starts off as a show about a superpowered warriors battling giant monsters eventually turns into a giant conspiracy theory featuring time travel, multiple dimensions, and immigrants from the moon.

It’d be one thing if the show could ground all this insanity with likable characters or interesting animation, but unfortunately it fails on basically every front, including these. None of the characters are very cool or well developed. It’s tough to spend screen time on character development when so much of it is taken up with dumb technobabble and exposition about moon people. Yuito is probably the one we spend the most time with, as the protagonist and possibly the most powerful person, but he’s basically a blank slate by the end of the show. When everything happens due to external conflict, a show has to try harder to show us internal growth, and that was clearly not a priority here. In the video game, I’m sure that’s just great, because Yuito would be a stand-in for the player, but in a series where he has to make his own decisions? It makes for a very boring group of main characters.

The big finale of the show gets suitably epic, but the more Scarlet Nexus builds up its lore, the shakier the foundation gets. Between throwing around concepts like time travel and parallel dimensions, and including half-explained forces like the Extinction Belt and the Kunad Gate, it gets hard to follow and even harder to care about. For a viewer to feel the tension and stakes involved, they have to understand what the heroes are up against, or at least understand as much as the heroes do.

On the artistry side, Scarlet Nexus isn’t much to write home about. The character designs are pretty bland, and although there were a few I liked well enough, that was about as good as it gets. The animation and direction is uninspired, with the closest thing to excitement being found in fast-paced action scenes that happen from time to time. The designs of the Others range from confusing to laughably terrible. The dub is just like the show—forgettable and passionless.

Scarlet Nexus might be an okay video game, but it certainly isn’t a very good anime. Between the silly storylines, muddled supernatural concepts, and insipid characters, there’s really no good reason to watch this show. If you’re not into this kind of thing, you won’t like it, and if you are into this kind of thing, just play the video game.