The Fall 2023 Anime Preview Guide

Shangri-La Frontier

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Second-year high school student Rakurō Hizutome is interested in one thing only: finding "shitty games" and beating the crap out of them. His gaming skills are second to none, and no game is too bad for him to enjoy. So when he's introduced to the new VR game Shangri-La Frontier, he does what he does best—min-maxes and skips the prologue to jump straight into the action. But can even an expert gamer like Rakurō discover all the secrets that Shangri-La Frontier hides...

Shangri-La Frontier is based on the Shangri-La Frontier ~Kusoge Hunter, Kamige ni Idoman to su~ novel written by Katarina. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Sundays.

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James Beckett
Rating:

Shangri-La Frontier dares to ask the question, "What if the protagonist of one of these VR anime was a ridiculous Bird Person, and also, we made the show look really cool for absolutely no reason?" Well, friends, the results of the experiment are in, and it turns out that such a product is, in fact, decently entertaining. It isn't going to blow any minds or shift any paradigms, but it isn't trying to do any of those things, either. It just wants to give its trash-game-obsessed hero a chance to run amok in a AAA blockbuster VR playground and give its audience twenty-three minutes and change of fun every week. Mission accomplished, I'd say.

If I have any significant complaints about Shangri-La Frontier, it is that I don't know how much mileage this particular premise has to run with in the long term. Sure, Rakurō's nerdy antics make for some funny gags here and there, and watching his ridiculous Sunraku avatar do battle with demonic rabbits and the like in Shangri-La Frontier is cool, but I can't say I truly cared about anything that was going on, you know? It feels like another one of those pitches that makes sense as a sketch for a comedy show or maybe a gag manga that can get in and out in a few panels or less. I didn't hate the time I spent with Shangri-La Frontier, but I can't say that I'm chomping at the bit to go another round with Sunraku.

I feel like I will suffer karmically for even suggesting this, but I wonder if Shangri-La Frontier is one of those shows that would have benefitted from a double-length premiere? That is assuming there is anything more to this story other than "Meta-gaming weirdo runs amok in a VR game, and comedy ensues." If that's honestly the start and end of the series' ambitions, then sure, I bet it'll end up as another reliable seasonal snack to munch on between the heavy hitters. I wouldn't complain if it tried to accomplish something just a teensy bit more substantial and ambitious, though, especially given the resources it is working with. We'll just have to see, I guess.

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Nicholas Dupree
Rating:
I wish this one had stopped during the first half of its premise. Don't get me wrong – the second half of this premiere is a solidly good time, but everything before our hero donned a bird mask to play the latest, greatest MMO was more interesting. Countless other VRMMO anime have explored the world of good games, and I was excited to see one that was seemingly focused on "trash" ones instead. Rakuro and the games shop owner discussing the various kinds of bugs and frustrations of the latest buggy mess he forced himself through was fun and offered a unique glimpse of an imagined future of deep-dive VR entertainment that's just as plagued by the travails of game development as our current one. The idea of a show about our hero forcing his way through imagined gaming train wrecks had my full attention.

Unfortunately, the show is more interested in using those bad games as a comparison for the "godly" game in its title, and that's where it starts to lose me. Sure, Rakuro fighting his way through monsters dressed as Big Bird in his skivvies is fun for a bit, and the production values make his various fights pleasant to follow, but at the end of the day, there's not a hook besides watching this guy fight monsters and sort through stat screens. The conceit that playing all those bad games has attuned Rokuro to be stellar at a properly programmed one is funny – imagine people learning to speedrun Virtual Hydlide to get better at Sekiro – but without an added chaos factor like Maple inadvertently breaking the power scale in BOFURI, it ends up being pretty dry outside of the cool fights. There are at least some decent gags mixed in, like Rakuro skipping the text prologue like the impatient gamer he is – and the post-credits shorts even show us that text crawls to sate the completionists in the audience. Little jokes like that add a lot of personality while feeling distinctly familiar with gaming culture.

Besides, those fights are pretty cool, and the rest of the premiere is no slouch, either—a ton of inventive direction and lively animation work hard to sell the action and gags throughout. The (human) character designs take a bit of getting used to, as does the washed-out color palette of the real world – presumably a decision to contrast with the bright and vibrant game world – but overall, it's a ton of fun to take in. If this series is mostly going to be Rakuro and Co. making mince meat of MMO monsters, it's at least likely to look nice while doing it. There's also a subplot about one of his classmates having a crush on him and seemingly following him into SLF to play with him, and if they can build a fun rapport with her, this could be a pretty fun time, even if I wish he was still slugging his way through the Awful Block at GDQ.

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Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

Shangri-La Frontier's first episode may not have the most exciting plot, but it does look good. Even though I wasn't that invested in Rokuro's adventures in the eponymous VR game, I enjoyed looking at them, from the slightly-outside-the-norm monster designs (the snake with a wig won me over) to the action itself. Even the little throwaway details, like Rokuro scrolling through different male figure types in the character creation window, are well done, especially since differing male figures aren't something that often gets a lot of attention. Even better, SLF's game graphics look slightly different from the game Rokuro plays at the beginning of the episode. Enough care was taken with the visuals to compensate for the lackluster story thus far.

And the plot is lackluster, especially if you've read/seen any stories focused on playing VR games before, which, at this stage, I'm going to guess we all have. The introductory angle isn't bad – Rokuro, who always uses the same name for all his characters, which feels like it says something about his playstyle – is a "trash game hunter," meaning he seeks out and plays bad games on purpose. That changes, however, when the local game store owner tries to do a girl with a crush on him a solid and introduces him to the most popular VRMMORPG out there, Shangri-La Frontier, or SLF. Rokuro's entire first SLF experience is him just being delighted at how fun it is to play a good game that's well designed and developed. That's great but not exactly compelling.

There are some excellent quirks here. Rokuro skipping the prologue turns out not to be that important, as the omake at the end shows us, so I kind of wish they'd left that out, but his playstyle is undoubtedly unique– he immediately sells all of his starter gear. Then he slaps a "staring bird" mask over his face to hide the fact that he's playing as a guy in nothing but shorts. "Don't get hit" seems to be his philosophy, and while it's working for him so far, that feels like something worth keeping an eye on going forward. The monster names and designs in SLF are fun, and I love that the towns in the starter area are named "Firstia" and "Secondale." This episode doesn't do much beyond the most basic of story setup, but it isn't without potential, and it essentially skims over its stat screens, so it's worth giving a chance.

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Richard Eisenbeis
Rating:

Coming out of the first episode of Shangri-La Frontier, I'm stuck with a burning question: "Why did I like it so much?" (Because I did.)

I'm sure a part of it is the production values. A huge pile of money was spent to make this series look as good as possible. There's tons of detail with the shadows and how they change with movement and the character designs are great at showing emotion—and all that's even before we get into the stellar action scenes. That first face kick sets the tone for the series—both visually and comedically.

Though, while I was smiling throughout, I can't say I found any of the gags (other than the opening face-kick) to be particularly outstanding. Rather my smile was more of an empathetic thing. As someone who has played more than a few "trash games" for work over the years, I can understand Hizutome's mindset. Going from a bug-ridden, unbalanced, mess of a game to a modern classic can be a euphoric experience. And who hasn't wanted to give an annoying character a punch to the face once or twice?

But here's what leaves me confused about this episode and how much I enjoyed it: there's nothing new here. There is no twist to the formula. He's not trapped in a death game or transported into the game's world. He's not oblivious to games, constantly lucking his way into being overpowered nor is he given some cheat skill that makes everything easy mode. He's just a guy playing a new game and enjoying it.

All in all, I'm feeling surprisingly optimistic about Shangri-La Frontier. While this first episode wasn't groundbreaking in any way, the fact that it has such a high budget makes me feel that the people behind this anime have a lot of faith in the project—which in turn makes me excited for what is to come.