You’re sitting in your office, smoking approximately two (2) of the finest cigarettes handcrafted in Japan. Your secretary knocks to come in and you let her, anticipating splendid news. “Sir-san, we got the license. We’re ready to make an adaptation for a classic.” You nod, but in a super cool way, because while you are relieved, you knew the deal you offered the license holders was too good to pass up. Godspeed to your art of the deal. The rest is simple. You call up your partners at MAPPA to get some slaves immediately working on adapting this masterpiece. They “happily” oblige and work is underway. Months later work is complete and you’re ready to see what animation they’ve come up with. Oh dear. That looks… wait a minute. Wow, the slaves, er, animators must of really been underfed this month. Wait, you called MAPPA right? Oh my. It appears instead that you called studio NAZ. I believe this project is absolutely fucked. Well… a little bankruptcy never hurt anyone.
This season I’m watching Biscuit Hammer which has been animated by NAZ. There are two sides to this coin. On one hand, I’ve heard that the source material is an absolute banger of a time with deep and engaging characters that go outside the norm of anime. Deaths hit hard and emotional weight is scattered across this masterclass manga. On the other hand, this anime is one of the worst anime I’ve seen all year. God damn. Usually I withhold my opinions until the season has finished airing and later voice them in my seasonal article, but I felt I had to highlight how this anime proved one thing: source material is not enough. You see it used to be that when you saw “source: manga” listed for an anime that meant you can have some confidence in it. Obviously it has been tried and tested by readers and deemed worthy enough by a studio for an adaptation. There’s always exceptions to a rule, however generally when you read “source: original” that meant the studio was dicking around and doing whatever they wanted, so who knows if that shit would be any good. Meanwhile this season my favorite anime, Lycoris Recoil, is a studio original and yet it’s my top dog, while Biscuit Hammer has disappointed me to an insane degree.
Don't worry girl I had the same reaction to his bland ass.
With a good story and solid characters lined up for you, it often comes down to carefully picking what content can be cut to save time, and how to animate the story in a way that does justice to the narrative. Holy moly whoever was in charge of those responsibilities at NAZ must have come to work drunk that day. The animation here is truly repulsive and NOT just in terms of action. In the recent episode a major character DIES and they could not bother to animate him coughing up blood. The blood comes flying out of his mouth, but his face does not move in the slightest and it made me laugh out loud. Bad animation is one thing, but then they couldn’t be bothered to deliver the content appropriately either. Apparently major foreshadowing should have occurred by now to indicate where the story may go, as many fans were complaining in reviews. In fact, most reviews I read were simply fans pleading with viewers to stop watching this shit and to pick up the manga immediately if you were at all interested in the story. I’ll try to wrap this up but man it’s hard to limit my ranting when SO many elements at play were not given the attention they needed.
My man is stone cold in the face of death.
The point here is I’ve learned an important lesson: I need to keep my expectations low when I see a new adaptation announced, even if the source material has a fantastic reputation. Unless a big name studio is in the conversation, it’s best to give it the same treatment as any other anime off the block. Have you been let down by a horrible adaptation? Does it hurt to see good material be wasted in an animation format? Eat a biscuit, grab a hammer, and destroy the world in the comments below!
