The gacha game model has been around for a while, but it's not until the 2020s where it really started to take off. Genshin Impact was the start of the gacha renaissance and since then we've seen real discussion about whether these games should really be considered games, given that they're essentially built around a monetary model and not a specific genre of game. When a gacha takes on a genre, whether it's open-world adventure with Genshin or action with Zenless Zone Zero, it always seems to be a pretty watered-down version meant more as a vehicle for the cute girls or guys it sells in its store. Arknights is an example of this but in the tower-defense strategy format, and I've decided to take a second stab at it after several years; not because of its inherent quality, though I have heard about that, but rather due to the quality of its recent anime adaptation.

Arknights: Enshin Shomei is the third season adapting the story of Arknights into an anime series. If you don't know anything about the game you'd be surprised to learn that there is a very in-depth story here with a detailed world and political intrigue that just so happens to have endearing characters you could loosen your wallet for. Enshin Shomei, however, has done such a frustrating job with the events it's chosen to cover that it's driven me to play the game myself just to get the details straight. You could say the first two seasons weren't as bad in terms of being an adaptation, but since this one's rolled around I've decided to review these three seasons succintly to set out my feelings for it before I immerse myself into the source material.

Personal Score

this criteria uses the DecentFilms rating formula.

Letter-Grade Recommendability: C
Artistic/Entertainment Value - ★★★☆☆
Moral/Spiritual Value - +2
Age Appropriateness: Teens & Up

Because Arknights is more than just a singular story, I'll start by introducing you to the world of Terra. Terra is a world inhabited by a score of humanoid races, that at some point began to suffer great storms known as Catastrophes. These storms have the side-effect of producing Originium, an unstable mineral that has decimated the land and causes the degenerative disease known as Oripathy. Infected individuals are heavily discriminated against and persecuted by non-Infected, and the politics of this have reached far and wide across the world. This is a harsh land that is actively surviving through an apocalypse, running off of both racial and quarantine tensions, and constantly seeking new solutions to these problems.

That is some heavy stuff for a gacha game, but fortunately it's not all gloom and doom. Our main story follows a pharmaceutical company known as Rhodes Island that seeks to mend the social injustices towards the Infected and develop a cure for Oripathy. A young girl named Amiya works with you to head Rhodes Island, and while other characters get their own stories the main tale is that of striving for an ideal world despite being under immense hardship. Amidst themes of discrimination and war there is still heroism and redemption amidst that, and it makes the events of Arknights very compelling. X-Men wishes it could cover these themes as well as it's done here.

The first three seasons cover Rhodes Island's encounters and battles with the extremist Infected faction known as Reunion, starting with the first skirmish and ending with the defeat of their leader Talulah. I am somewhat surprised that Reunion was taken care of in so relatively short a period, but it does make sense given how their organization is depicted. Reunion is built upon the resentment Infected individuals feel towards society and so their foundation is unstable and susceptible to flaming out, quite literally at that. Despite how short-lived their time against Rhodes Island was I think they do a good job at immediately getting across the societal issues of this world, and this one of Arknight's greatest strengths.

The first season, Prelude to Dawn, is a good example of this, serving as an introduction to the world through the eyes of the player proxy. The Doctor's amnesia is obviously to provide opportunity for exposition while also allowing for some agency in the greater workings of the plot, and I think it was done well here. The first three episodes cover rescuing Doctor and getting him back into safe territory, and while it does serve as a solid introduction I feel it went on a bit too long, with events seeming to drag on and not too much happening despite being a critical junction in the city of Chernobog's history. That being said, though, we get a sufficient second half in the form of Misha and Skullshatterer, hammering in the personal aspect of the Infected's plight and the unfortunate necessity of violence in this world. It's an good season despite inconsistent censorship and some pacing issues, and I did like it.

The second season, called Perish in Frost, is my personal favorite. This season has one consistent antagonist in the form of Frostnova and her attack on the city of Lungmen, and I think it was quite good. The slow build-up to Frostnova's appearance was well done with her icy field reaching the cast for quite a while before she actually makes her debut, and in contrast to the relatively weak villains of the first season her power immediately poses a harsh threat. While I don't think her past was as well defined I did like her character as Reunion does believe in its cause, and the covert actions by Lungmen make for a pretty gray morality between the two sides. Amiya and Rhodes Island as a whole constantly has to navigate a harsh dilemma of who to help and who to fight, and the diplomacy between these various factions change throughout the season. The animation is also a bit better, Yostar Pictures getting more confident in their adaptation and allowing it to show in the production value. Just like the first season, however, Perish in Frost clocks in at a skeletal eight episodes, less than even your average seasonal title. I do understand that Yostar Pictures is a relatively new studio, but this does hurt the story as it feels like some things are just breezed through when more time would have helped both the pace and the emotional beats. I was pretty pleased with the anime, however, and so I kept it on my radar especially as it ended in a cliffhanger.

It's not pleasant to say that I did not like Rise from Ember. The runtime has been increased from eight to ten episodes, and I can definitely say that is not enough in the slightest. This season tried to tackle a lot: the history behind the psychotic mercenary known as "W", the story of Talulah and the creation of the Reunion movement, and the current decline of Reunion as Talulah spirals and Rhodes Island steps in to stop a crisis. There is so much going on and the anime tries to juggle these three separate stories by dedicating some to flashback episodes and then some to the actual happenings in the now. It's way too much and none of it has room to breathe.

Let's take W's story for example. She gets an episode to visit her origin as a mercenary that eventually makes her way into the service of Kazdel and the Sarkaz leader Theresa, and after Kazdel's fall she eventually makes her way to Reunion. The story being adapted here is called Darknights Memoir in the gacha and has a word count of whopping 18,000 words, and it's a very important chapter of early Arknights lore and W's characterization. In Rise from Ember, though, the entire thing is crammed into a single 20-minute episode that has to speedrun an entire arc worth several OVAs. You can tell, too, because there is hardly any pause between dialogue, and everyone talks at 1.5x speed as if constantly in a hurry. It's trying so hard to fit all of this into the story, because it is pretty important, but it ends up feeling like a cheap sampler without getting the meat of what seems like a good story.

A lot of the season feels like this, as well. Talulah gets a little more time spent in her flashbacks, which is necessary given her history is most relevant to the current conflict, but even then it goes through with a certain sense of urgency. These issues plague what is a pretty compelling story as you see the trials of early Reunion and the injustice it faces eventually causing the breakdown of civility and the descent into burning rage. If there is one thing I wasn't too keen on, though, it's the possession angle with the Deathless Black Snake, as it removes a lot of agency on Talulah's part and makes both her fall and eventual redemption feel a bit less personal. It makes sense for a final boss battle, though, and we do get that here with the finale battle against Ch'en and Amiya. The fight was animated pretty nicely and managed to feel like a boss battle with phases without dragging on too long.

I don't know if Yostar intends to adapt more of the Arknights story going forward, as it seems to imply in the end that these three seasons have completed a full chapter of this saga. If they do want to keep going, though, I would definitely urge them to loosen the reigns on the production team. It's clear that the people making this do want to do this and have some amount of passion they're putting into it, but they're being hampered by the lack of runtime. At the very least they need the full twelve episodes one expects from an anime cour, which I think would solve a lot of the problems that they've run into so far. Arknights is a surprisingly compelling world full of hardship and hope, and the anime has the opportunity to present this to people who aren't interested in playing a gacha game for the visual novel parts. If it meant to bring people in for the full experience it's definitely worked on me, since I now want to read the story as originally told, but I hope that future seasons have the proper runtime and production to tell this story as it really needs to be told.