Blazblue Alter Memory tells the story of the anime fighters Blazblue Calamity Trigger, and Blazblue Blue Continuum Shift, in order to have newcomers understand what's going on for Chrono Phantasma without having to play the previous two games.
The first two episodes cover Calamity Trigger point for point, and the rest of the anime is a re-imagining of Continuum Shift. While that sounds like a bad thing, it actually ends up making the story easier to understand, and even manages to make some characters more important to the story. The problem with Blazblue is while referring to Takamagahara a lot, they never fully explain what exactly it's suppose to be very clearly. However, during the fight between Ragna and Terumi in this anime, Terumi explains very clearly how Takamagahara was made, and how he manage to create the Blazblue. (which wasn't explained how he created it in the game) However, it still leads to not understanding the other units that were byproducts of the master unit like Susanooh unit or the Tsukuyomi unit, or what the Murakumo units exactly are. (though Relius does briefly mention them) But regardless, that doesn't stop the anime from being enjoyable.
Surprisingly, the animation is exactly like the animation from the Blazblue games intros which means it's beautifully drawn, full of color, and visually pleasing to the eye. On top of that, the Japanese voices from the games are here and accounted for the characters. I was quite surprised how well the narrative was both a lot like the game, but different enough for me to feel like this was something new, yet familiar enough to know that I'm watching related to the video game franchise under the same name.
However, the only downside to this anime is for those who really like the English voice actors/actresses (such as myself) there has yet to be an English dub for this anime, so you're left watching the Japanese sub. Overall though, what you have is a solid anime that newcomers and fans can both watch and enjoy. It's worth a watch
The first two episodes cover Calamity Trigger point for point, and the rest of the anime is a re-imagining of Continuum Shift. While that sounds like a bad thing, it actually ends up making the story easier to understand, and even manages to make some characters more important to the story. The problem with Blazblue is while referring to Takamagahara a lot, they never fully explain what exactly it's suppose to be very clearly. However, during the fight between Ragna and Terumi in this anime, Terumi explains very clearly how Takamagahara was made, and how he manage to create the Blazblue. (which wasn't explained how he created it in the game) However, it still leads to not understanding the other units that were byproducts of the master unit like Susanooh unit or the Tsukuyomi unit, or what the Murakumo units exactly are. (though Relius does briefly mention them) But regardless, that doesn't stop the anime from being enjoyable.
Surprisingly, the animation is exactly like the animation from the Blazblue games intros which means it's beautifully drawn, full of color, and visually pleasing to the eye. On top of that, the Japanese voices from the games are here and accounted for the characters. I was quite surprised how well the narrative was both a lot like the game, but different enough for me to feel like this was something new, yet familiar enough to know that I'm watching related to the video game franchise under the same name.
However, the only downside to this anime is for those who really like the English voice actors/actresses (such as myself) there has yet to be an English dub for this anime, so you're left watching the Japanese sub. Overall though, what you have is a solid anime that newcomers and fans can both watch and enjoy. It's worth a watch
