Arknights: Prelude to Dawn (2022)
First adaptation of the Chinese Arknights multimedia franchise, its core property being the mobile strategy game by the same name, the opening of which this adapts.
Prelude to Dawn feels largely exactly like what it is, an attempt to adapt part of a tremendously long story with a very large cast of characters and a very complicated setting in a rather short series. All of which is to say... you'll get the gist of who these characters and nations are and what's going on between them but don't expect to get any kind of thorough overview.
So, Prelude to Dawn is set in the world of Terra. As its name suggests, a place that's basically earth, except weirder and worse. Well. The circumstances are worse. The people are about as bad as they're here. The people of Terra rely on a magical mineral called originium as a an all purpose plot device that acts as source of power for just about everything. Unfortunately exposure to this material causes a highly contagious sickness called oripathy in people that makes them develop tumorous growth of black crystal on their body that precedes their total petrifaction and hence, death. Accordingly, those who suffer from oripathy are widely treated as outcasts, similar to lepers or plague victims. The story follows the troops of a militarized medical outfit called Rhodes Island on an operation to defend against an extremist group of oripathy victims and recover a VIP in the border regions of two countries respectively bases on Russia and China.
I rather like Arknight's art direction. It's sleek and militaristic and futuristic, but in a very utilitarian, almost austere, way. There is sort of a Kojima/Shinkawa feel to its settings and technologies. Which is all contrasted, of course, with a cast that consists primarily of cute girls with animal ears. Which is one of those things that eventually, you'll just take for granted but at least in the beginning, will feel a bit jarring. As will some other of its quirks. The protagonist of the game is based on is a practically faceless and mostly silent person called Doctor who is... just kind of around in the anime and as we learn, Rhodes Island's primary strategist but gets little characterization and screen time.
Which, to be fair, can be said for a lot of the characters. It has an ensemble cast and a pretty short runtime so you'll only get the bare essentials of what these people roles and back stories are. Although it does help that they do all tend to have relatively memorable character designs. Which, I suppose, should go without saying, considering the nature of the game they're from.
What also helps is that this series has, frankly, unreasonably nice cinematography and animation. While the action is more restrained than you might expect from an action anime it's all framed ridiculously well. You can almost smell the blood, dust and gunpowder. It's both aesthetic and gritty, I dig it a lot. The music is, likewise, very moody and impactful.
What I will say though is that it's definitely made for an audience of people already familiar with that story who'll be happy to see a well produced compilation of some of its key moments. In my opinion, it doesn't quite have enough context and character development to really get someone not already invested in it to care about them. What I'm saying is, Prelude to Dawn hints at an interesting world and interesting characters but it only presents their very surface. I don't think it's a very good introduction into this series, if I'm being honest.
