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EP. REVIEW: The World Ends with You the Animation

In the game, this is much more clear; in the anime, it's an occasional “blink and you'll miss it” flash of a pin whenever Neku fights and channels an ability.

It's been fun revisiting the series this way. The music has been great so far too =)

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In the game, this is much more clear; in the anime, it's an occasional “blink and you'll miss it” flash of a pin whenever Neku fights and channels an ability.

It's very odd that this flash is all you seem to see. (So far) There's no mention of Neku's powers being related to pins which is a key point in the game. Not just for collecting, but it also explains how Neku's abilities are so varied compared to the others.

If they aren't even going to bring up Neku's pins, I presume we also won't have fashion play a part either :/

Of course an anime adaptation of a game can't be the same, but it's odd that such key elements aren't really present.

Not seeing the pins more is definitely weird, but fashion getting the axe is 100% understandable. The game didn't model any of the different outfits, and I very much doubt the anime can afford to either. The only difference is that the game could get away with an equipment screen that's not reflected in the visuals.

Did anyone get hit hard by Shiki's backstory at the end-ish of Ep 2 tho? I already knew the story from the game, but for some reason, seeing it animated hit me in a different way that was more moving.

I definitely agree tho with the review that for anyone who's had zero exposure to this series, there's been a lot to take in. But the animation art is so nice, love how they managed to somewhat maintain the Tetsuya Nomura art style with the thicker outines and flatter colours.

This anime is lucky that it looks so damn good, because otherwise it would be near-unwatchable.

The Shiki and Eri stuff was great, but still pretty fast and brief. And the buildup scenes didn't linger for long enough for the emotions to sink in.
Everything else has been a disaster, caring only about moving through the plot as fast as possible with characters popping in and out in the blink of an eye. It's good to see the characters moving and interacting in ways that a limited sprite sheet and VN portraits don't allow, but that's it.

And the battles, while cool, skew the pacing of the episodes further, making them feel important (when they're actually just arbitrary challenges so the player gets to DO something) while the proccess that the characters are supposed to be more involved into gets the bare minimum amount of time.

I haven't played the game since it originally came out so I know the bullet points that they're supposed but it isn't fresh enough in my heart to use it as a supplement for all the parts and beats that are absent from the anime.
It feels like this is supposed to work as a supplement to the game: play it first, then watch the anime soon after for a highlight reel of key scenes with better animation and composition.

I hope all this rushing pays off later, because right now it's a cool trailer but a poor piece of narrative fiction.
I remember the first arc feeling much shorter than the others, but complex gameplay and distant memories can easily twist that perception. At least there will be Minamimoto.

Something that I'm wondering since I don't remember that many details, how many Hanekoma scenes did they skip? It feels like he should have helped them a couple more times before developing that level of trust.