DESCRIPTION

CAST

NOVEL ActionTatakau Shisho
MANGA FantasyTatakau Shisho to Koisuru Bakudan

REVIEWS

• 

  yudiop

  70/100
  Great Book with a Few Pages Missing

  The Book of Bantorra is one of the strangest anime I’ve watched as of recently, coming out of 2009 it had been on my plan to watch list for quite a lengthy time and with very little knowledge, information or people talking about it without the extra digging; the synopsis really intrigued me.

  

  So what is the show?

  By studio David Production, this was their second real foray in the animation scene. With them more known for animating JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Fire Force I was interested to see where they started. I was not disappointed by this aspect, in The Book of Bantorra you can see how they’ve transitioned and a lot of the qualities that make their latter animation so compelling can be seen throughout the series, albeit in a much more raw state.

  The Book of Bantorra’s premise is quite unique. Armed Librarian’s guard the Library of Bantorra which is a safe haven for books, however books in this world are vastly different, they’re procured from when people die and tell their life story and perspectives which is often used as a plot device to show back story or progress the mystery of what is actually happening. Because of this they’re extremely valuable and in some episodes we learn that there are black markets and people trying to seek out Books for monetary profits.

  With this element the first half of the show does seem to fit more of the mystery genre than the action tag it currently has so I was a little perplexed but we’ll touch on that a bit later into the review.

  The author, Ishio Yamagata, went on to write Rokka -Braves of the Six Flowers-. Prior to watching The Book of Bantorra I did not know this but I wish I had done. While I did enjoy Rokka - The Book of Bantorra poses some of the same features and problems which seem to be down to the way Yamagata creates his work.

  

  How was the plot?

  The Book of Bantorra is comprised of many many characters and a few of them get separate arcs which focus a lot more on their perspectives and sides of the story. Haymuts Meseta being the most prominent of the characters within the series and is the character that ends up tying all these mini arcs together. That being said some characters are more exciting than others and some of the arcs do feel, pacing wise, tedious. The biggest problem is the lack of linearity to the story, this can be done really well but always requires a bit more finesse. What I mean by this is you will be somewhat confused while watching. The time skips are not entirely obvious and the lack of sequential order creates this artificial lack of knowledge while at the same time making it feel really choppy to watch. That being said I did enjoy for the most part what I did see and the characters and world building is really well thought out, nothing in the story seemed to be without purpose.

  The Armed Librarians all have unique powers which will be seen from beginning to end. This is not a power fantasy though and we see a lot of “what is right?”, “what is wrong?”. Haymuts Meseta being the main character is more of an Anti-Hero and you will see plenty of her Psychopathic tendencies being displayed. Death is an extremely prominent part of the grey themes and probably the only one I can get into without treading on spoiler territory. Characters do die, some in a very gory and gruesome manner, but the one thing stays consistent; They always cause the mystery to unfurl more. Part of that cool plot device of the books means when characters do die we get an insight into them. Volken’s whole arc is debating with Haymuts on whether the way she kills for information is the correct way and has a whole strong sense of justice of letting the dead rest. There are lots of these grey themes presented which I always find interesting as a viewer, it really lets you insert yourself and decide for your own self what is correct.

  The plot has strong religious themes and it doesn’t shy away from them. The main villains being the Church of the Drowning in God’s Grace; a cult set on destroying Haymuts and the Armed Librarians while opposing the views of what the Library of Bantorra stands for. The Church of the Drowning are split into sections; “True Men”, who live out their desires and manipulate the world from behind the scenes, “Mock Men”, who serve the True Men and allow for them to stay in the shadows and “Meats”, Dolls that are pawns/weapons, with a lower status than human beings often being referred to as “Livestock”. As we watch through the series the world building and conspiracies built around the Armed Librarians and the Church can really be observed immersing you into the anime. The world poses the sense of unfairness, the sense of sorrowfulness but with each arc concluding there is a strong hopefulness as the mystery is built upon.

  

  So where’s the problem, this sounds great?

  Well The Book of Bantorra’s biggest problem is the amount of characters, while some characters are really well written (Haymuts, Volken, Noloty to name a few), it suffers from character overload. A lot of characters just exist, some characters are throwaway and you only see them for a very brief period. If you do watch don’t bother getting connected to the characters. See, outside of Haymuts none of the other characters see enough significant screen time, this for me personally is a problem. With it split into three to four episode arcs it doesn’t give itself room to go into depth with characters and what they stand for/live for.

  This also leads us into an ending which isn’t satisfying at all. Beyond the ending just being a complete mess it basically takes all these mini stories and makes a lot of it irrelevant. Without spoiling the ending it really does chuck all the previous character building and world building away and in many ways feels completely disassociated with the previous story becoming more of a Romantic Tragedy. While the Romance element does play an underlying theme from the beginning there’s just little to no cohesion between it all at the end point.

  

  But you say you enjoy it?

  YES. The Book of Bantorra has glaring flaws but what it does right is done extremely well. Even the smaller details are really well done. The Voice Acting (Japanese) is really well executed and all of them knocked it out of the park. Yoshihisa Hirano’s orchestral scores are grand and elevate the scenes, Hiranos' previous work on Death Note is very, very reminiscent and he does another wonderful job here. The animation of the action, especially towards the end is really strong (for the year of release) and like previously said the characters that matter are written really well. The world feels alive and the mystery remains mysterious leading into the final chapter.

  

  OVERVIEW

  The Book of Bantorra isn’t quite a diamond in the rough but definitely a small hidden gem with impurities. I won’t recommend to get off your seat now and watch but definitely worth having a gander if you’re into your Fantasy Action with a strong slice of Mystery (I really don’t know how this isn’t part of it’s genre tag). If you can ignore an unsatisfactory ending you’ll definitely find enjoyment in this anime.

  TL;DR

  Likes

  -Music
  -Mystery
  -Good Animation at times
  -Character Building
  -Religious Themes
  -Premise of Show
  -Character Design
  -World Building
  -Feeling of Intensity
  -When Action finally ramped up

  Dislikes

  -Pacing
  -Non Linear arcs
  -Throwaway Arcs
  -Not fleshed out characters
  -Throwaway Characters
  -Confusing ending
  -Cheap CGI -> also good that it was used very infrequently

  Continue on AniList

SIMILAR ANIMES YOU MAY LIKE

• MOVIE

  ActionShisha no Teikoku
• ANIME

  ActionBungou Stray Dogs
• OVA

  ActionR.O.D -READ OR DIE-
• ANIME

  ActionToshokan Sensou
• ANIME

  ActionRokka no Yuusha
• ANIME

  DramaUndead Girl Murder Farce
• ANIME

  FantasySagrada Reset
• ANIME

  ActionBaccano!