Ragna Crimson

TLDR: Potential wasted. The show starts building a decent enough world but then goes sideways really fast. Watching this happen for 24 episodes was an exercise in patience rather than an enjoyable escape. Off the bat, characters are introduced but are either killed or never heard from again. The MC, Ragna, gets way too OP with a grandfather paradox. He is passionate about killing dracu...Dragons, for perfectly acceptable reasons, but was well mannered and sensible right up until he got OP. At which point, he became an annoying, irrational twat. Just like a lot of Japanese anime, Ragna defeats all his enemies in a samurai stancewhile screaming with willpower as lightning bolts shoot out of his ass. God, it's cliche and irritating. Apparently, his power came at the cost of brain cells. Imagine giving a 6-year-old superpowers; that's Ragna. At least he is juxtaposed with Crimson; possibly the shows only saving grace. Cold, calculating, and forward-thinking. Ragan is willing to kill off the whole squad while charging in for a 1% chance of victory. Crimson will sacrifice tens of thousands for a 99% chance of victory with a good plan. Somehow this duo is a team, and only through the power of plot armour does the show progress. But why do they want to kill mythical anthro metamorphic beings that are weak to silver and sunlight? Because the author thought vampires x dragons x genocidal religious cult was a good idea. Does your brain hurt yet? No? Well, mine does. Throw in a couple other cults, human x dragon hybrids, and magicians, all evolving from the collapse of what appears to be a technology-driven society not unlike ours. So, there are a lot of good ideas in the mix, but they are wasted on a piss poor story with mostly recycled characters. The sound, animation, and voice acting were more than acceptable, but nothing spectacular. Pacing was all over the place. This anime seemed to be stitched together by an edgelord high schooler with too much free time.

The story is still interesting, it loses some of the impact that the manga has because of some slow pacing. The animation isn't impressive, which is a shame for an adaptation of a manga that is very action oriented. It can get saucy at times but for the most important fights the animation was extremely underwhelming. The art style also doesn't live up to the manga. If you absolutely don't want to or can't read manga for whatever reason, then this anime does adapt the story of Ragna Crimson well enough, it doesn't cut out all that much and the animatiom is acceptable. I would just recommendreading the manga.

I'm sure plenty of people are gonna write this show off as just another generic, 24 episode edgy shonen series that will be forgotten about within a couple months. In fact, you're probably writing off this review as a bait, since a 7 day old account which is only JUST able to write a review has to be fake, right? That's where you're wrong. I am being ten billion percent genuine right now (hehe funny dr stone reference (I have never seen dr stone)). I am here to tell you why Ragna Crimson is the greatest anime of our generation, being not only the best revengestory I have seen in a long time, but passing series like Berserk, or the 2003 Korean film Oldboy. So sit down, shut up, and throw away all the other anime you have ever seen for the greatest one, Ragna Crimson. Story - 10 The story is an incredibly unique one, tackling a main character out for revenge on the world. Seems generic on the surface right? WRONG! Its actually a complex, time travel involved plot surrounding the future self of Ragna, who suffered when his master dies from a dragon right in front of him. Incredibly tragic. I almost cried watching that scene. His future self already lived a life of revenge, and passes the power he gains back to his past self, before his master dies, allowing him to save her. After that, he is told to go meet Crimson, starting the journey to kill all the dragons. Already, this beginning hooked me, as it is one of the most interesting ideas I have ever seen for a revenge story, having a main character who didn't actually suffer loss, but is using the knowledge from his future self who did suffer in order to prevent any tragedy from happening. Already takes every revenge story and throws them into the lake. And then sets the lake on fire. There are also tons of twists and turns in the story, some of which involving Ragna's (the main character) future self and how he suffered. I also loved the dark tone in this one, I think it was way better handled here than something like Tokyo Ghoul or TRASHjutsu kaisen (no offense jjk fans). There is no filter on the blood and death in this one, there are a lot of dead characters and a lot of dead dragons. It also has a really interesting fantasy world, combining technology like guns and what is basically the warthog from Halo in it. It was super interesting to see, and fit the dark tone of the show very well. Speaking of Ragna, lets talk about the peak characters. Characters - 10 Hoooooo boy the characters in this show absolutely blew me away. Lets of course, start with the titular Ragna (the main character). Unlike another certain protagonist with time manipulation powers who's name rhymes with "Bubaru", Ragna is NO pussy. He always steps up to the plate in order to kill the dragons, and doesn't focus on the "oh my friends just died boo hoo" crap. In fact, I'd argue he has suffered the most out of any anime protagonist, straight up LOSING in the future, and having to relay his powers to his self in the past in order to save that timeline. Not just Ragna (the main character) is amazing, but every other character in the show is incredible. Crimson is a fantastic manipulative, menacing, and incredibly interesting villain protagonist. He is super manipulative, disguising himself and pretending to be innocent when the situation calls for it. He also looks super cool! Then we have the hysterical Slime, Crimson's minion, who had me absolutely DYING of laughter, easily one of the funniest comic relief characters I've ever seen in my life. We also have Starlia, who has to use Silver for her limbs through magic, and is also in love with Ragna, the main character. She also has a great design, and is a very interesting character, but I can't say much without spoiling. There are other great side characters, like Leonica, as well as some TOP TIER VILLAINS like Voltekamui and Ultimatia. They play super well off of Ragna (the main character). If I were to talk about them all tho, it would not only be spoilers, but I would be here all day. If you can't tell, I absolutely love Ragna Crimson. Art/sound - ??? Ima be honest, I really don't care about art/sound when it comes to anime, and I don't think its important. What's way more important are the characters and story, and these are just icing on the cake. If you need good animation for the show to be good, then the show is not good, for me at least. Anyway I don't know how to score them, and if I rated it any lower than a 10 I would have to give this a lower score (which I REALLY don't want to do) Overall - 10 Ragna Crimson changed my entire perspective on life, as well as revenge stories. Incredible first episode, and the rest did not disappoint. It kept up with fantastic character writing and amazing story, and I sincerely doubt I will find anything like it again. It is way better than any other revenge story in anime that I've seen, and it is not close. I don't want to make it seem like I hate every other series, but this series genuinely means the world to me, and if I can even get one person to read this review and watch even just one episode, it will be enough. I think it is the most criminally underrated series I have ever seen, and the only problem with it is that there isn't more of it! I would kill my grandma to get a 2nd season (not actually), and I really hope it does! I'm caught up on the manga, which is also peak at the moment, but I can't spoil. Overall, ignore the nay-sayers and give this one a try! You won't regret it!

In a year where we got so many interesting dark fantasy stories, Ragna Crimson ended up being my favourite by a decent margin and had one of the most interesting premises and cast of characters of any recent anime. The best way I can explain Ragna Crimson is that it’s metal as hell. This world is dark and brutal as hell and the show does a good job of showing how no one in this story is safe. Death is always lurking around the corner and due to the strength gap between dragons and humans, human life feels so fragile and fleeting. The author doesn’tshy away from killing off characters either. It’s gritty, dark and at times seemingly hopeless. That is, until we get to Ragna’s power up. One of the coolest things about the story is how Ragna’s future self and his present self interact and share knowledge and power. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this before. Yea, we’ve had isekai and reincarnation stories where people bring knowledge from previous lives, but never one quite like this. An integral part of the story is the relationship between Ragna and Crimson which I loved. They’re polar opposites, but their shared goal of wiping out the dragons unites them and their abilities complement each other so well. The banter, slice of life moments and planning with them is so fun and they gradually influence each other as well. It really feels like a buddy cop dynamic with the good cop and the bad cop. While both are motivated by mutual desire for revenge, the story doesn’t get too edgy which is a testament to good writing. A lot of times stories like this end up being an edgelord’s fantasy. The abilities of each character in the story are so well thought out and useful in their own way. Definitely one of the more unique power systems I’ve seen. Whether it’s the Argentum corps or the dragons themselves, there’s a wide variety of power ups making the fights interesting. Ragna’s abilities in particular are unique since they involve silverine, to which dragons are weak. Can’t express how much fun I had seeing him wipe the smirk off the dragons’ face. After years of dominating humans and doing whatever they want, finally someone is able to stand up to them and give them a taste of their own medicine. That leads me into the one big problem I had with this show. The story, worldbuilding, characters and everything else are solid. But God, the production values are really bad in this, which is such a shame. There’s so many interesting fights in the show that just didn’t hit as well as they should’ve because they look like power point slides. I mean it even got to the point where the mangaka had to take to twitter to tweet out what he intended for the fight to look like, so that people don’t judge him for how bad it looks in the anime. I know animation is such a taxing profession and I’m sure they did the best with what they could, but this staff needed more time or better leadership because after the first couple of episodes things were rough. The character designs were solid, though. Some might point to the pacing as another issue, personally I didn’t mind it too much as cliffhangers keep me looking forward to the next episode, so I’ll never complain too much about those. I was hooked from the very first episode of Ragna Crimson and maintain that it’s one of the most underrated shows of 2023. Production issues aside, the story is well written, characters are fun and even with the bad animation fights still manage to be hype. As much as I’d love a second season of this, I doubt we’ll get it. Onto the manga it is. Ragna Crimson gets a 9, out of 10.