Léviathan

There was something of a show here. The revisions to history were alright, not the best. The animation is top notch, deep and beautiful. My biggest complaint and ultimately what stopped me from finishing the season were two things. First, the writing, just bad, the story is boring. It just meanders on its revised historical story with Darwin and mechs and ugh.. it just didn't hold up. Second and still with the writing, is their obsession with making Sharp say "barking" all the time, every sentence she say starts with "barking"! It made her time on screen just silly. Lots to pick apart on this one... barking stay away from it!

I actually feel bad for not giving a better rating for this series because it is technically flawless and it is clearly visible that the entire staff poured their heart and soul into it. The animation is great, the voice actors - in the English dubbing at least - are well-casted and the action scenes are great.

Basically, my concern about this series that it shouldn't have been an anime.

This pairing simply doesn't work. Keith Thompson's extremely atmospheric and unique illustrations replaced by some generic anime scenery just takes away something from the book trilogy's essence. You listen to the Scottish Deryn Sharp singing 'Anime Opening Song #536' in Japanese puts me out of the vibe.

I am really sorry for having to say all this, because the idea of spreading the popularity of Scott Westerfeld incredibly original and clever book series with an adaptation sounds good on paper... just not in this genre.

The protagonists Aleks and "Dylan" are probably two of the best characters in the coming-of-age genre I have ever seen. If you are a fan of character development, this show does it masterfully, especially as to Aleks. The development of Aleks from being a "spoiled brat" to a selfless hero is beautiful, and you genuinely feel like you want him to succeed. The romance between the two protagonists was also utterly captivating. That is the strength of this show.

The weakness is that the show didn't really play up to those strengths as much as it could have. The plot itself outside of the friendship and romance aspects between the protagonists had to do a lot with very interesting twists and turns in politics and war and started off amazing, but it really lost its way at the end. No spoilers, but let's just say that there are a bunch of plot holes behind a certain capture. In any case, the politics-war plot was unsatisfying, and it also pretty much caused the ending of the romantic plot to feel unsatisfying as well. It also just makes you feel like it would've just been better to see Aleks and Dylan interact more.

Yet despite all that, when the two did interact before the ending, there was definite chemistry between the two. The way their personalities interacted, especially when it comes to subverting gender expectations or even stereotypes, worked very well with these two.

Without going into detail, I also think the ending in the show diverged from the book in which it is based? It seems like an extremely significant change too. I don't know which ending I prefer when it comes to our protagonists. I think I'd have to see a season 2 to decide, but I definitely think this show warrants a second season, especially given how much the politics-war plot ending left a lot to be desired.

I won't go in too deep, because the show it really short (You can binge watch it in a day), and it was great, so I'd encourage you to watch it.

But to summarize: The Setting was fantastic. The show got me hooked with the first (30 minute) episode.

The Visuals are great. Only the best "animes" had better visuals like Arcane, or To be Hero X.

The base story wasn't super crazy, but how the executed it made it great. Just for an example: I won't consider this a spoiler since it's revealed in the first 5 minutes: One of the main characters (Dylan) is a girl, and she only poses as a boy only to be able to enlist in the UK air force. Just this simple setting makes the story much more interesting and exciting, as you hope she won't get discovered.

I'd be really happy if this show got a 2nd season or more. It was worth every minute.

I've seen some people saying romance killed the show. Don't let that discourage you, that "romance" was basically only in the last episode, and for about ~6-7 minutes.

They reimagined the world war I with bio-engineered animals and some walkers, at-at style, plus other kinds of technology.

From the worldbuilding to the characters to the story itself, I really enjoyed the show.

I could get through even though the CGI is, at times, not so smooth; and I'm definitely not a fan of CGI, up to the point to skip a show if it has any, but everything else was so well created and tailored that it didn't bother me, much.

In any case, if you're a fan of sci-fi or alternative realities, give this a chance because I promise you it will deliver, if only due to the amount of imagination involved in its creation.