Review: The Kingdoms of Ruin Anime

I came by this show after the YT algorithm shows a video summarizing the story. I don’t mind getting spoiled with the story, if it’s good, I’ll just enjoy reviewing it anyway. I’ll save you time by saying outright that this is a negative review about the show. This covers the first half of the season. You’re not missing anything if you never started this series. There are going to be spoilers below for those who dare reading beyond this point.

Img Source

Plot:

In a world where witches and humans co-existed, the balance of power shifted when human tech advanced to the point that it rivaled magic. This started an era of witch hunts in the name of peace because witches were feared due to their powers. When humans have wiped out most of the witches, they started to turn against themselves because why not?

Adonis was the human apprentice adopted by Chloe, the Ice witch, also known as the strongest witch in history. They were on the run from the witch hunts until they got trapped and teleported into the empire of Redia. An escape through magic proved futile as Redia developed machine that cancels magic. Chloe was publicly executed through firing squad, then her corpse got mutilated with her head paraded for everyone to celebrate, and this all happened in front of a struggling Adonis trying to break free from his captors. Thus, the start of Adonis quest for revenge.

10 years after the incident, Doroka, the love witch was sent on a mission to infiltrate Redia’s prison to free Adonis from captivity and if you finished the pilot episode, now is your best time to drop the series from here on out.

Characters:

I get the part where the main character is all out for revenge against humanity because people killed the only person that treated him like a human but it’s damn hard to relate trying to put yourself into this person’s shoes. There’s a scene where he goes on a rampage after being freed from his prison and went pew pew magic over the unsuspecting civilians. The path that pushed him to vengeance is understandable but it’s never right and he even knows it.

A bit of character development from the protagonist villain is having some insight that he knows what he’s doing is wrong and there’s no way his previous master would commend him. When he had a chance to revive his old master with the help of the witches, he turned down the offer after realizing that by bringing Chloe the Ice Witch back, he doomed her master to another round of worldly suffering. When he refused to murder the vagrants that saved him without Doroka, the witch of love to persuade him.

The supporting characters are given a few moments of screen time intended to be sentimental but all the efforts to build these characters up tend to get drowned out by the deeds they have done. There’s no one in the show worth saving here, even Doroka.

Doroka’s character is that one anime character where no matter what life throws at them, they just accept it and move on with optimism. She’s really a witch because her belief system is corporeal manifestation of human compassion and that’s unreal. I can’t respect her as a character because the lack of qualities that make her relatable as a human being. She’s a mouth piece of virtue to all the is good about what life has to offer and this perfection is her pitfall. Her presence is a plot device to change the bad boy Adonis to rethink his ways and contemplate on whether vengeance is really the path to take with a slight hint of potential romance.

Misc.:

Animation, music, and everything else in the show is unremarkable. This becomes more apparent because these miscellaneous parts of the show are what you can at least look forward to when the plot and characters suffer terrible writing.

Made by: Yoruhashi
Animated by: Yokohama Animation Studios
Directed by: Keitaro Motonaga

Conclusion:

It’s a bad show and you’re not missing anything. I don’t recommend it. I spent the whole 6 episodes waiting for something interesting to happen, a twist or something that could make these characters redeemable but nope. Even the conspiracy twist related to the witch hunts was underwhelming because the character flaws that were supposed to drive the story were too obvious.