• Title: World Destruction
• Studio: Production I.G
• Genre: Fantasy/Adventure

Ratings (out of 5):

• Story: ♥♥½
• Animation: ♥♥♥½
• Characters: ♥♥♥
• OP/ED Themes: ♥♥♥½
• Overall: ♥♥♥ (A little bipolar, perhaps…)

Thoughts:
I’ll say it from the get-go: I’m not sure what I expected from World Destruction, but I’m not entirely sure its creators know what to expect either.

Kyrie is a human boy living in a world where it’s a lot easier to be a Beastman, so he puts on cat ears and pretends to be one to get a job at a pub. (They must have much better fake cat ears in this fantasy land than we do.) But one day a known terrorist– an attractive woman named Morte –patronizes the pub and reveals Kyrie to be a human, then drags him into the World Destruction Committee– the name that the World Salvation Committee gave her, even though the “committee” consists of only one member at the outset of the show. Throw in some cat-people (more cat than human, unlike the more traditional anime catgirls and catboys), a two-headed monster, and the aforementioned Salvaction Committee and you’ve got a recipe for action-filled disaster.

I enjoyed the episode: it has some fun characters, an interesting and somewhat different storyline (how many shows start with the protagonist joining a terrorist organization that admits to wanting to destroy the world?), and some great visuals.

But I feel like the show is a little unsure of whether it’s a comedy or a drama. Of course many shows combine the two successfully, but it’s hard to take any of the show seriously when one of the main antagonists of the episode is a group of very cutesy, goofy-looking cats– and one of the heros is a teddy bear. Most of it feels like a recipe for a comedy, but there’s a single thread that’s serious. That thread is Morte’s goal to destroy the world– which is in and of itself a little ridiculous, which may be why the show feels slightly “off” to me.

But again, even though it felt a little wonky, it was definitely not a bad first episode, and there’s plenty to enjoy. I plan to keep at it and see where it goes.