The first cour of The Beginning After the End’s anime adaptation is nearing its end, with only two episodes left. Although there have been 10 episodes, the majority of them haven’t stood out to fans of the manga. The episodes that manage to stand out are only doing the bare minimum and nothing special.
TurtleMe’s story could’ve been one of the best Isekai series in the anime industry, if not for Studio A-Cat’s lack of effort. The animation for The Beginning After the End is its greatest enemy.
The original webtoon had a great premise with fantastic worldbuilding. Arthur Leywin’s growth is an emotional masterpiece. However, the anime adaptation captures none of that and provides even less of an effort with the action sequences.
The Beginning After the End had what it takes to be the best Isekai anime in recent years
TurtleMe didn’t want to repeat the same tiring Isekai tropes in his series. As mentioned previously, Arthur Leywin goes through genuine character development rather than being another boring protagonist. He wasn’t just reincarnated into a new body; it was a chance to not repeat the same mistakes and actually feel a connection with others for King Grey.
More than just Arthur, however, the side characters provide The Beginning After the End with a unique advantage. Most Isekai series don’t concentrate on them unless they’re a plot device for the protagonist, but this cast has their own personality and motivations.
Unfortunately, the anime falls flat with the characters, too. It isn’t the worst part of the adaptation, but the studio could’ve put more effort into making the characters feel like their counterpart. Instead, they feel like a poor replacement for those characters. At least Sylvie looks cute.
Another aspect is the rich lore, fantastic world, and magic system introduced in The Beginning After the End. The anime adaptation didn’t try to replicate how beautiful the world is. Studio A-Cat minimized this aspect, too, making it look lifeless. It’s as if they began drawing it, gave up in between, and called it a day.
The combat could’ve been the anime adaptation’s strongest asset, but they chose to drop in quality there, too. You could present a PowerPoint presentation, and we wouldn’t know the difference. Adding a few static lines to an illustration of characters engaging in combat doesn’t make them magically look like they’re fighting.
TurtleMe had to speak up after the backlash with The Beginning After the End’s anime adaptation
If you didn’t believe just how terrible things were with the anime adaptation, then you must remember that even the author had to address the issues on Reddit, explaining his lack of control over the situation. He understood the criticism, but fans are blaming him a bit too much.
TurtleMe, an indie Korean-American author named Brandon Lee, poured his heart and soul into The Beginning After the End. We can’t imagine how disappointed he must feel that Studio A-Cat has butchered his work, especially after how excited fans were to see it on-screen.
The fact that the author felt the need to apologize and explain his side of the story tells us enough about the situation. The Beginning After the End wasn’t just butchered, it was shown levels of disrespect no other webtoon-to-anime adaptation has faced, and that’s saying something.
We were robbed of possibly the best Isekai anime series to grace us in years. The Beginning After the End was meant to show how the genre can still be creative and fresh. Instead, Studio A-Cat fumbled it and made it yet another generic show.
The Beginning After the End can currently be streamed on Crunchyroll.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
