Plunderer Review (Episodes 1-17)
Plunderers is an odd show, because if you read the description the show you start to watch feels nothing like what you read. It is described as a post-apocalypses, but nothing about the show feels like anything other than fantasy until the tenth episode, and even than that's a stretch. It's not really until episode fourteen or fifteen you start to see this as any kind of post-apocalypse. It's one of those things that's good to go into the show knowing so you are a bit more aware of what you're getting into.
That said, the show follows around Licht, who has been identified as one of the Legendary Ace's of the Waste War three hundred years ago, and Hina, a girl who is on a quest to give a Ballot to one of the Legendary Aces. Seventeen episodes in, I'm still not sure why it was Hina's mother wanted to deliver this ballot to one of the Aces. Licht himself is on the run from the government, but of course something happens that forces him to reveal himself to save Hina.
But now we have to get into how this world operates. Everyone has a number, and that number is somewhere on their bodies. Each person has something they can do that causes their number to go up, and something that causes it to go down. The higher your count, the higher your status in society. With the exception of the military, who can refuse to listen to someone of a higher number than them unless they enter into a Star Stake, a fight which the loser loses a certain amount of their number to the other. Once a person reaches zero, an entity known as Alting drags them into the Abyss.
Ballots, which I brought up a bit earlier, artificially increase a persons Ballot count. This is how Licht, with a number of negative nine hundred and ninety nine, is still here as he possesses a Ballot of five thousand seven hundred. People who wield Ballots also gain access to some kind of power. The higher their count, the stronger the power. Or so the show explains, as when you are introduced to Jail Murdoch, things get a bit odd. When a persons count drops, you only see it on their body number, the number on the Ballot remains the same. However with Jail when his count drops by one, you see the number on his glove lower (A massive 12,500 to start). Though as you later realize, he isn't even using his ballot at the time. His actual Ballot gives him an additional 45,000. Here's the thing though, the show states the great powers they get come from the Ballots, but he can create and fight with his Iron powers even without making use of his Ballot, which comes with the implication that anyone that reaches a high enough count can use these abilities. At least until later, when Jail is without his Ballot, he isn't able to use his abilities. The show has a lot of small inconsistencies like this, and it can make it a frustrating watch if you're the kind to pick up on things like that.
The real issue with the show comes with the characters, outside of Jail and Lynne, being dull and uninteresting. Licht himself proves to be a heavy anchor around the shows neck. I do love me a well written pervert, but I'd say about seventy percent of the time you see Licht he is molesting and creeping on women. The thing is though it happens so constantly and never cleverly or funnily (With one exception during the last couple episodes to be releases) within seconds the joke gets old, and the joke doesn't change every time they do it. It's not offensive, it just feels lazy they felt the need to hammer in the same joke so many times. That kind of sums up most of the characters as well, they have a shtick that get's run into the ground fast.
It's a shame because there are a lot of interesting ideas here, they are just bogged down by the irritating writing. A large part of the show is humour that falls flat, there are enough inconsistencies with the rules of the world to become annoying, and three of the five characters you follow just aren't interesting as characters. I loved the story behind Licht when you finally learn it, and the reason for him becoming this Legendary Ace and why it is he killed so many people despite hating murder is fascinating. And you do have some good characters like Jail who I'd love to follow around far more than Licht.
The fights, however, can be great. You oddly don't get that many, but when they do crop up they are energetic, grand, and fun to watch. Again most of the credit in this one goes to Jail who uses his power to create Iron in a decent variety of ways considering the short amount of screen time action gets in the show. I think the show would have done well to focus more on the action as that would have at least given it more cool things to watch.
A last thing I'll bring up is something I can't entirely confirm, but given Funimation's track record of altering dialogue with buzzwords (See Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid ) to try and prove a point I'm tempted to believe this. Lynne wants too raise her rank in the military to have the option of picking her uniform, as she fights with kicks and doesn't like the short skirt on hers, and refers to it as a 'Sexual Harrasment Uniform'. Calling it that does not sound like a way either Lynne, or any other human being for that matter, would speak. The problem is this show didn't get a lot of attention, so a lot of the people who would normally look at and point out changes like this didn't see it, so it's hard to say for sure. Either way it's a really cringey line, whether it's an accurate translation or Funimation being Funimation.
I just can't get behind this show. The things that start to make it interesting happen way to late, and even the mild interest they generate isn't enough to keep watching. It had some interesting ideas here and there that really could have been used to make something great, but what we got is largely suppar ecchi with no real substance to back any of it up. I'd give it a pass.