Prism Ark (Review)

Man, this series had SO MUCH potential... and it squandered so much of it.

Let's start with the basics, you say: Who, what, where and why? Well, it takes place in Windland with a group of kids training to be knights. One of them is named Hyaweh. And beyond that, I'm not sure. This series takes a lot of twists and turns in terms of backstory, but never really bothers to connect the dots.
The series starts out excellently. There's a battle going on, and every so often, they flash back (in what feels a lot like a bedtime story being told) to two children who met each other as 5 or 6 year olds. Now here, already, what was well done becomes corrupted. This may be one of the best flashback sequences I've seen, it meshes well, both portions hold my attention, etc. But they never bother to explain that we're not flashing back to these children's pasts. We're flashing back to how their PARENTS met. Which would be fine if 1) This was explained (The princess looks like her mother, and has the same actress.) 2) There was some relevance to the story of these children, or 3) The battle during which the flashback took place had some significance. (More on this later. Instead, however, we're left with this confusing jumble of a battle, and a flashback we have no reason to care about, which we think is about these people, until we learn later it's about their parents..... And this takes up an entire episode.

It then goes downhill pretty quickly. Hyaweh's introduction scene is excellent, but the rest of the first few episodes are pretty mediocre. There's romantic tension, some angst, a fair amount of purple prose, and a whole lot of everything else you've seen before. The characters are cutouts, the plotline mainly goes nowhere, and when it does move, it's completely jumbled and confusing. Not a single character feels original, and a few of them are downright annoying. Hyaweh at least is pretty cool, though his personality is like that of Vash and Shinji jumbled together. Yes, you read that right. Insufferable optimism and energy combined with self-doubt and an almost complete wussiness. And he fights angels. Yah.

Many of the characters are not fully explained. Numerous concepts are introduced and then dismissed. And 7 characters and a few major plot revelations are introduced in the last 2 episodes. Needless to say, they aren't explained adequately. And that battle in the first episode? We never come back to it. We have no idea what really caused it. The closest thing to it is the very end, but even that is so far off from what we saw, that... it's like two completely different stories.

This is basically a time waster. It's fun, flashy and fanservicey, but it's not especially functional or fresh. In fact, I was watching a joke sub for the first three non-flashback episodes... and didn't even know it. That says something about your plot, right there. So, watch it if you want something with action and panties. But this is more Kiddy Grade than top grade.

Plot: 4/10 Confusing and muddled when it's there. Usually, not even there. Progesses in "comedy of errors" form for the first half, then switches to darker stuff. Standard fare. And this is based on a visual novel, so it's not like they had nothing to work with.
Characters: 5/10. A few are thoroughly unlikeable. Hyaweh is pretty cool, with a seriously sweet introduction which has him dodging everything. But nothing we haven't seen before.
Art: 7/10 LOTS of fanservice. Well drawn, nothing unique. Perfectly functional.
Music: 4/10 Not a single good song. The intro and end songs were poor, the image songs were merely functional. Not a soundtrack I'd pay for.
Overall: 5/10 A time-waster. Don't watch it if you want high art, but for what it's designed for, it's not too bad. Plenty of comedy and panty shots. And the girls are all cute. And there's a couple of great action scenes. There's just not ENOUGH of any of them to right this sinking ship. I think, most of all, this series would have benefitted from a stretching. If it had been 24 episodes instead of 12, I think much more could have happened, and it would have been much easier to follow. It happened to Kanon, so maybe someday.