Forum - View topicBackstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon (TV).
|
Goto page 1, 2 Next |
| Author | Message | ||
|---|---|---|---|
Edjwald
 Posts: 3510 |
|
||
Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon (TV) Source: Light Novel (ongoing @ 12 volumes, written by Shisui Meikyō, illustrated by tef) Demographic: Animation Studio: J.C. Staff Genres: action, fantasy Themes: betrayal, dark elves, demi-humans, demons, dungeons, elves, harem, medieval, monsters, revenge, sorcery Plot Summary: When Light is kicked out of the Concord of the Tribes, his former comrades instantly turn on him. Light escapes this diabolical act of betrayal by the skin of his teeth...only to find himself in the deepest part of the Abyss, the most dangerous dungeon in the realm. To avoid being eaten by carnivorous monsters, he uses the Unlimited Gacha, his sole magical skill. But where it previously only produced junk items, this time Mei—a gorgeous Level 9999 fighter in a maid outfit—springs forth. Fast forward three years, and Light has carved out his own kingdom in this backwater dungeon, summoning more beautiful Level 9999 warriors who swear absolute fealty to him. Now a powerful Level 9999 Overlord himself, Light plans to ascend to the surface and take revenge on his betrayers one by one. Air Date & Platform: October 03, 2025 (Friday) Available on: HIDIVE Episode Count / Runtime: Pending [EDIT: Fancy opener stuff edited. -TK] |
|||
|
|||
|
smurky turkey
Posts: 4997 |
|
||
|
Going in I expected to bounce off the show since I am usually not into revenge stories. I do not have an issue with them concept wise but they usually involve cartoonishly evil villains and an overly pure/nice mc who then turns into an edgelord. Lo and behold, that description fits Backwater Dungeon. I suppose you can not blame Light given the almost comically cruel ordeal he has gone through. Not a show for me though.
|
|||
|
|||
Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 25599 |
|
||
|
Episode 1
Another entry from the Land of Low Expectations that I didn't mind. However, it did make me think of a show that would be way better. Imagine a show like this but that didn't have a title that spoiled the plot. It would have to be an anime original or otherwise source material jerks would spoil it. Imagine it was called something like Scooped Up By a S-rank Party. It's about this kid who has this useless gatcha skill but against the odds he gets recruited by a strong party that needs a human to fill out it's 9-race composition. Now imagine the show spends the first three episodes making us believe the party really likes this kid. The show seems like its going to be about the kid's inner struggle to be worthy of this great bunch of adventurers. We really get to know all of them well and enjoy their supportive interaction with the kid and then... BOOM!!! Then the show becomes what it is. Wouldn't that just take the top of your head off, though, if the show actually could have invested in lulling us into a complete false picture of what was going on? Then the revenge stuff would really sizzle because we actually know the characters the kid is going after. Oh well. |
|||
|
|||
Yttrbio
 Posts: 3822 |
|
||
|
"I was hired as a babysitter to a psychic kid but actually was a ghost the whole time"
|
|||
|
|||
|
Edjwald
Posts: 3510 |
|
||
|
I'm getting a little tired of how many of the villains this season are so cartoonish instead of...I dunno....anime-ish? As soon as they dropped their masks, these guys were so blatantly over the top and sadistic that there didn't seem to be any room for that spies- think-that-they're-the-heroes idea, or villains who know deep down they're wrong and are rationalizing their actions, or acting from a traumatized place. Instead it's all, "Ooh, I love the sound of a kidney bursting under my boot! I want to hear them scream before they die!" Having a deranged psycho appear once in a while can have some shock value, but not when it's portrayed as commonplace.
That said, once I got past that, I too thought that this show was mid. I did find the idea that the MC's gift is dependent on having a "Mana rich" atmosphere a possibly interesting plot device. Is the guy going to make his secret base in the deepest depths of a dangerous dungeon while he keeps drawing ne-plus-ultra magic items and summons? That sort of interests me, but if the show goes full on Arifureta, I'm out. |
|||
|
|||
|
Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 25599 |
|
||
I can't believe you just spoiled the plot to The Sound of Music! |
|||
|
|||
|
Animegomaniac
Posts: 4286 |
|
||
|
This is the type of series that offers insight into its creator. Here, there's an absolute betrayal comprised of every intelligent species on the planet who is then saved by the notion of eternally free and elite GATCHA playing... Right.
It's not as bad as Rising of the Shield Hero but it's only one degree better. It's not openly misogynistic as that one but it's misogynistic adjacent as the betrayal that hurt the most was from a female elf and the salvation was from a bonded female "servant" here to satisfy his whims. I'm ok with this... sort of... the problem I have is that it's blatantly creatively bankrupt because of eternally free, broken "GATCHA" aspect. The main character is just there to figuratively press the button, spin for a win and spin again. So.. a bad high school experience followed by a GATCHA addiction? I'll give it one more episode. |
|||
|
|||
|
Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 25599 |
|
||
|
Episode 2
That was a super lame episode. Did y'all get the message that his summoned chickies are all wild for Harry? I mean, it was only rammed home 10 billion times, so you can be excused for missing it.  Anyway, it seems like there will actually be some revenge next episode so I'll stick around for that.
|
|||
|
|||
|
Edjwald
Posts: 3510 |
|
||
I don't know, I might have to watch again, but I think you're reaching here.. I'm pretty sure those maids just want to smell his underwear because they're dedicated maid staff and they want to make sure they're cleaning his clothes properly. We probably just didn't see the armed soldiers with spears pointed at the backs of those cheering crowds... Anyhow, I guess you could rationalize that this level of devotion is some kind of built in mechanism to make sure that summons never betray their summoner. Since he was betrayed so traumatically in the first episode, they might be the only beings he could trust, which does indeed harken back a bit to the Shield Hero's decision to have a party member with a slave contract back in season 1. And it does beg the question of to what extent the summons are human or only humanoid or have free will. But I was at least a little intrigued by the idea of setting up a town infrastructure at the very bottom of a dungeon though the anime didn't really go into any details of how that would work exactly. Does he draw a card that says throne room or several cards that say "stone mason, carpenter, blacksmith, tailor," etc? That could be an interesting story if developed, kind of like that anime about Farming Life in Another World, but I don't see it going in that direction. Instead, the anime is a mash-up of a revenge story and that recent anime bout a guy becoming an evil overlord of an intergalactic empire. He dresses the same and has an army of adoring summoned maids instead of android ones and has an ultra competent female assistant... But an easily manipulated part of me was glad to see that deranged wolf boy was the first one on the chopping block. |
|||
|
|||
|
Animegomaniac
Posts: 4286 |
|
||
|
I knew it was going to be bad when the episode description started "a few years later..." but I didn't expect it to be that bad.
If I cared, I'd have question but seeing how I don't care, we're even. Episode 2 ?... !... -. I think I like the party that turned on him than the maids. At least none of them made me think "hey, I think she's someone from some other franchise." |
|||
|
|||
|
Edjwald
Posts: 3510 |
|
||
|
The anime is still as subtle as a sledgehammer - it went so far out of the way to make sure we understood that Wolf Boy is detestable that it was kind of cringe.
And I wonder if it was intentional that the way Wolf Boy was being treated in his own territory was similar to the way that Light is treated in his town... But I'm still finding some weird, probably immature satisfactions in this anime. When Light casually summoned the (presumably) actual Fenrir of legend to cow the wolf beastkin who seemed to revere said Fenrir based on his naming choices, it was a pretty effective smackdown. And even though the anime avoids a lot of those awkward action sequences by just not showing them - wow, they're so fast it's invisible - the renderings of characters' facial expressions and visual backgrounds is well done. Watching Wolf Boy degrade into a whimpering dog with his wilting ears and drooping muzzle was a visual exercise more than a story driven one. And Light's assertion that he was willing to be a force for good in the world at large depending on what he found out about the whole Maestro thing was unexpectedly layered. I'm not saying it was particularly sophisticated or emotionally complex, but it was more than I was anticipating. So I'm still riding along, at least for awhile. |
|||
|
|||
Hiroki not Takuya
 Posts: 3025 |
|
||
|
Decided on a whim to check this out to Ep3 despite generally having no interest in revenge stories and as someone who was bullied to the point of wanting revenge on my antagonists in HS, I found the protag strangely devoid of true anger or malice or rage. Heaven forbid I should say Redo of Healer was "revenge done right" as it delved into and portrayed the depths of the worst desires of people, but it did a better job of representing the mindset than this.
Light generally seems happy and maybe it's the direction and delivery but the writer seems almost obliged to have him say "they'll pay" or "I'll make them suffer" with no conviction or facial expression to reflect the depth of emotion that should back those up and happily declares "let's go serve my first dish of revenge!".  When he confronts Garou, it is Mei who is threatening but Light arrives and happily declares "Hi! I'm here to get payback.." and shows off his True Fenrir and shows all he has acquired as much as to say "yeah, can't touch this" while Garou's reactions seem like he is facing a demon or something.
The "mistreatment" he wants revenge for also amounts to about five minutes of being sneered at and badmouthed after being treated kindly for some amount of time, albeit also threatened with death, so the motivation doesn't seems fully earned. Needless to say, this is one I won't follow... |
|||
|
|||
|
Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 25599 |
|
||
|
Episode 3
So our boy has gone from wanting to get revenge on his old party to wanting to go to war with the entire surface world. Welp, it's not like he doesn't have the resources to do it. Another show that clearly has zero interest in making us watch the protag have to struggle even the tiniest bit. I'll certainly watch a bit more of the revenge tour but I have a feeling this show is on borrowed time where I am concerned. |
|||
|
|||
|
Edjwald
Posts: 3510 |
|
||
|
It's been a good long while since I read a mainstream American comic book - I gave them up a few years before I started watching anime, so about 15 years ago I guess. And it wasn't for political reasons...it was because the comics became ungodly expensive for something that I read in 5 minutes, and it was getting harder and harder to find stories that didn't require reading 20 other comics in some big crossover event, and people kept dying and coming back and dying and coming back, or going through gimmicky, convoluted soap opera-ish character contortions every time a new writer came on board...
Anyways, at the time, it always bugged me that all comic books were dismissed as adolescent power fantasies. For one thing, that's painting with an impossibly huge brush. For another, stories that appeal to people's inner children have their place, and I would even argue that most stories do so for different reasons to different degrees. And I really have to keep that in mind when enjoying this anime to the extent that I do, because it's definitely an adolescent power fantasy. |
|||
|
|||
|
Hiroki not Takuya
Posts: 3025 |
|
||
|
Ep6-Since this is where some anime reach a turning point, I thought to check this out again and surprisingly there was a proper fight with emotion on both sides, complete with mystery casting and lead-up. A simple power fantasy but enjoyable, even if the villain behaves laughably. They actually gave us a glimpse into why he is so arrogant and it's all copium (which makes sense)! This might bear watching after all, ignoring the original revenge plotline...
|
|||
|
|||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group