Ubel Blatt is a series that I’ve heard about for a while now and after being told it was like a modern-day Berserk, I wanted to check it out. Now that the first episode is out, I was able to see what we were dealing with here. Was it worth the hype? Were all of the good things I heard about it true? Well, there’s only one way to find out.
Let’s go!
First Episode Synopsis
Seven hooded men kill off some swordsmen and suddenly we enter the age of the seven heroes… which is an odd name since they came off rather villainous. Now, we are in the present day where the monks are executing civilians for not acquiring a travel pass in an attempt to illegally enter the land. We are introduced to a man named Wied who observes the atrocities from a distance. He intervenes when a young girl is caught and sentenced to death. A young boy claiming to be her brother defends her but when things are about to turn ugly, it’s Wied to the rescue.
The boy’s name is Koinzell and his “sister” is Peepi, although she hates that name and insinuates it’s not her actual name. They are looking to stow away on a ship so that Koinzell can chase down and kill the Seven Heroes. Wied brings them to a tavern run by a woman named Altea who is in charge of smuggling humans in and out of the land. After the monks crash the tavern, they know they need to act fast as Martial Law is declared. Altea leads them through a secret passage; however, they face off against a gargantuan monster. Just when their victory seems to be secured, a man with a magic blade, assumed to be one of the seven heroes, appears and our episode comes to an end.
Worth Watching?
YES – If you asked a manga reader, then this would probably get a MAYBE or a NO. Apparently, some of the source material was left out and they crammed about 100 pages from the manga into the first episode; however, thanks to the magic of naivety and ignorance of being an anime-only viewer this time, I can say that while some parts were a bit confusing and fast-paced, I did enjoy the first episode enough to want to keep watching. I guess whether or not you’ll watch this depends if you’re familiar with the source but if you prefer to be just an anime-only watcher it will probably entertain you but it’s nothing that’s going to blow your mind.
When someone told me that it was like Berserk, I was thinking of something more in-depth, something more gritty and while there is plenty of blood, I wanted to see people’s heads fly off but we’re not in the 90s anymore so any great action like that isn’t probably going to happen. This is probably the best we’re going to get.
While the visuals were good, they do seem heavily rendered to where backgrounds and characters do clash a bit… especially when they were fighting the monster, it looked like a basic character with a texture pattern slapped on top of it. Still, these little nuances can be overlooked if the anime manages to tell a good story. I saw enough here to hope that it can and that’s why I’m going to keep watching.
