Suddenly plucked from his world, young Zhou Mingrui finds
himself transported into the body of the recently deceased Klien Moretti, who
has been resurrected thanks to Zhou’s arrival.
In this world, those who hold power to rival the Gods are called
Beyonders. As Klien, Zhou discovers he
might be one of these all powerful beings and is at the center of a race to
prevent the return of forces the Beyonders have been struggling to battle
against for ages. To return home, Zhou
must unravel of the mystery of Kleins tragic demise and unlock a power greater
than either could ever have imagined.
Oh boy. Won’t lie, I picked this one a random with zero
knowledge of what it was about.
And it’s
rare that I say this but I think coming out of the first episode I now know
less than I already did…which was nothing.
What looked like a cool, bloody, horror centric action romp proves to be
something almost as intimidating and impenetrable as Fate/Stay Night.
That said, Fate/Stay Night at least can
explain the rules of its world and how it works in basic terms that allow
viewers to jump in and try to keep up.
Can’t say the same about Lord of Mysteries.
The name of it’s game is in the title and it
is not a fun mystery at all.
While the premiere starts off with a mostly
understandable breakdown of the “pathway” to becoming a Beyonder (not to be
confused with a Beyonder of Marvel Comics fame).
But then we suddenly jump into an apocalyptic
battle with a Cronenberg monster before jumping back into the head of a guy who
just did something unspeakable but it’s not that guy, it’s someone else in his
body?
And this person is from the
present but he seems to think he comes from another Victorian England style
city?
And THEN he gets pulled into some
enormous Shadow Realm with two other people and basically fakes being a God of
some kind to…do something.
I think you
get the point.
The first episode of Lord
of Mysteries throws a crap ton at you and offers zero explanations or time to
process what’s being seen. Hell, the main character keeps calling himself
“Kline” cause that’s the body he’s inhabiting I think but what is this guys
actual name and where does he come from?
It made me feel less like my head was spinning and instead just getting
steamed and frustrated because this is the start of a brand new thing but it
already feels very unfriendly to newcomers
This is also another example of “damn this show looks
pretty damn nice” being wasted on such an impenetrable premise.
The Astral planes “Kline” transports to and
through do look Ufotable levels of excellent quality, another reason why I
compare it to Fate.
But again, gorgeous
visuals can’t compensate for the confusing world building and stumbling to kick
off this head banging mystery.
More
often than not, I felt like I was watching a way too long opening cutscene of a
video game so far up its own ass with how profound and ground breaking it
thinks it is.
Just like with Final
Fantasy VIII, you can make it look like one of the greatest feats of animation
ever put to the medium…but if the story sucks then it’s not much reason to
stick around (at least Fate has awesome fight scenes right out the gate to
compensate).
If it isn’t clear already, Lord of Mysteries is getting a
pass from me.
I’m sure it has a fan base
that will defend it and it is a pretty show for certain.
But the premiere bounces all over the sense
without a clear sense of where anything is going and is relying solely on it’s
visual splendor to support a script that needed a tighter focus for it’s pitch
and not just taking the “mystery” part of Lord of Mysteries far too
literally.
Even Mike Tyson would pass on
this one (if you know you know).
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