The Summer 2025 Anime Preview Guide - Arknights: RISE FROM EMBER

"She" was supposed to be a beacon of hope, but anger, hatred, and war are threatening to engulf the people. Only Rhodes Island, a neutral organization, can stop the Reunion Movement's rampage and the conspiracy behind it. Amiya and her friends head to the central area of Chernobog, which is near Ryumon.

Arknights: RISE FROM EMBER is based on the Arknights mobile game by Yostar. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Fridays.

Well, nothing lasts forever, I guess. It was such a breath of fresh air last week when we were treated to the rare, easier-to-follow episode of Arknights. But not so this week! This anime is back to its usual tricks. Which is to say, being dense and making the audience put in a lot of work to follow and appreciate what's going on.

Unlike last week, which was focused on Amiya, Doctor, Ch'en, and Co., this week was more or less entirely about W—who, if I'm not mistaken, I don't believe has got as much screentime cumulatively across the other seasons of this show, as she did in this episode alone. Don't quote me on that, though—I don't exactly go around counting the number of frames characters stay on-screen. All the same, you get my point: we learned a ton about W this week. And frankly, it's about time she got more attention. She's gradually been inching closer and closer to center stage, and I've been wondering when (or if) Arknights was going to do anything with her.

Still, this week's episode continues to suffer through what I'd say the biggest issue with this show is: how much attention it demands the audience pay, relative to the meager payoff you end up with. Sure, there was a cool fight scene at the end. And it was interesting to learn more about W finally. But if I'm being honest, I don't think either was so awesome that they make me feel like it was worth the difficult journey—nay, the long trudge through the mountains of (beautifully animated) snow—there.

In short, if these first two episodes are anything to go by, I don't think you're going to find anything in this season of Arknights that's going to change your mind about the series. If you've liked the previous seasons, there's a pretty solid chance you'll like this one, too. And similarly, if you haven't cared for what you've seen so far, and you were holding out hope that this season might be different and change your mind, well, I wouldn't count on it.

Credit where it's due, though: I've watched enough this season to be able to confidently say that this is easily one of the best animated shows we've got right now. If you're the type of person who likes checking out an anime just for excellent visuals, this one should definitely be on your radar.

I wouldn't go so far as to call Arknights convoluted, per se, but it definitely demands its viewers actually pay close attention if they have any hopes of keeping up with its story and the sometimes complex politics of its world. And if you don't pay that toll, Arknights immediately punishes you by tossing you out into the sea without a life raft. It's easy to feel lost in what's going on in this series. Y'know that comfort show you've rewatched a million times that you like leaving on so you can half-pay attention while you do something else? Arknights is the anti that. Given how pervasive this harshness was throughout Perish in Frost, honestly I was expecting Rise from Ember to be all the worse about it—this is season 3 after all, and I can't imagine there's a lot of (if any at all) people who planned on starting their grand Arknights journey with Rise from Ember. If you're here, it's because you're not new.

So basically what I'm getting at here is that the Arknights anime (and maybe the games are like this, too—I haven't played them, so I don't know) have, historically, had a very “Keep up or keep out” attitude throughout them. And given that we're on the third season, I had no reason to believe we'd be in for anything different. So I was pleasantly surprised that this episode was pretty straightforward by Arknights standards; picking up immediately where Perish in Frost left off, Rise from Ember wastes no time establishing what's sure to be its major conflict: an impending war between Lungmen and Ursus. And without getting too specific at the risk of spoiling anything, there's conflict between Wei and Ch'en. And Ch'en and, well, someone else.

Still, while it's a nice change of pace that this episode was less difficult to keep up with, that doesn't necessarily mean it was fun to watch. On one hand, I can appreciate the gravity of moments like Ch'en's confession, and Wei explaining the situation in the slums to her. But on the other, frankly, I just can't find it in myself to care. This show just has too many moving parts for my taste, and we're seeing that culminating in this episode's interpersonal drama. Which I'm sure is great if you have any level of emotional investment in them or the story, but I simply don't. There's too much going on, it's difficult to keep up with, and this episode affirmed that the juice just isn't worth the squeeze for me. But hey, the visuals are—as usual—gorgeous, and I have little doubt it will rank among the best of the season overall.

While many Arknights side stories are exercises in fun or worldbuilding, one of them, “Darknights Memoir,” is essential to the climax of the first main arc. That's where the anime is at right now, and that's the story that this episode tries to tell. “Darknights Memoir” is, in a sentence, a backstory for W that reframes her character from a maniacal bomb-toting villain into a complicated anti-hero with a surprising amount of emotional ties to Rhodes Island's protagonists.

I specifically wrote “tries to tell” there because the episode stumbles over itself trying to cram in as much as it can. The season premiere was information-dense and dialogue-heavy, but its structure was sound and made space for breathing room. This week's installment feels a bit like watching a video on 1.5x speed. The breakneck pacing is most noticeable in the tempo of the dialogue, which leaves little room for natural pauses or moments of contemplation. I'm an experienced subtitle reader, and I even had trouble keeping up! This narrative velocity also muddles the timeline jumping back and forth across W's story, which deadens the explosive force of her character arc full of deception, death, and redemption. I'm familiar with the in-game event, and if I felt dizzy watching this, I can't imagine how anime-only Arknights enjoyers might feel.

Despite that hefty main criticism, I'm still giving this episode a decent score. It may be a highlight reel of “Darknights Memoir,” but it's an excellently crafted highlight reel. It chooses its scenes well (I would have docked a full star if we didn't see Ines and W locking their blades together). It's bookended smartly. And most importantly, the storyboarding remains cinematic and picks up a lot of the slack left over from the buckwild pacing. While moments may be short, they still have impact. My favorite example is the debut of the pre-amnesiac Doctor, who coldly congratulates a wounded W on a mercenary job well done. It's a disorienting story beat for the audience, who up to this point have known the present-day Doctor as a quieter and kinder presence, and the adaptation matches that energy with a concatenation of topsy-turvy Dutch angles. That's the kind of decision that elevates the Arknights anime above most of its gacha-based peers.

Ultimately, I wish “Darknights Memoir” could have gotten more time and space, and I hope this doesn't portend further pacing issues down the line. The adaptation will need to edit judiciously if it wants to fit the conclusion to this arc into this season without the rest of the episodes feeling similarly rushed. However, given the strength of the anime's visual storytelling, I think it has a chance of succeeding.

Wow, I'm pretty excited for the rest of Rise from Ember now. This episode is my favorite of the three Arknights season premieres so far, and it also corresponds with the point at which I thought the game's story really came into its own, so I'd call this an auspicious start.

“Start” is not the best word, however, because the narrative picks up immediately after the conclusion of the second season, which finished airing almost two years ago. The episode spends zero time catching the audience back up, so you might want or require a refresher. I must also echo my sentiments about the second season premiere, which is that there is little here for you if you aren't already an Arknights fan or intimately familiar with the prior seasons. Newcomers are going to be bewildered by a torrent of arguments about factions and events that have no context for.

On the other hand, if you're already a card-carrying member of Rhodes Island, I think the unapologetic complexity is this premiere's greatest asset. I love dialogue-heavy political thrillers, and the vast majority of this episode works within that mode. Tensions between Ursus and Yan (Arknights' rough equivalents of Russia and China, respectively) complicate the present crisis, in which the terrorist cell Reunion is planning to ram the mobile city Chernobog (Chernobyl) straight into Lungmen (Hong Kong). That in itself is a juicy dilemma with intriguing real-world analogues, but Arknights also layers further personal and political dramas on top of that, especially regarding the now-former police chief Ch'en. War, oppression, abandonment, betrayal, grief, and anger all permeate the considerably dour episode.

While it's not a “fun” story, Yuki Watanabe's adaptation at Yostar Pictures continues to add a prestige sheen on top of every scene it touches. The muted palette, gorgeous character art (illustrator Kuroblood's furry OCs get so much love here), dynamic storyboarding, and evocative voice acting transmute the mobile game's visual novel presentation into a cinematic drama spanning a wide emotional and atmospheric spectrum. The quiet pathos of the opening, in which the Doctor lays FrostNova to rest within the cavernous and sterile walls of Rhodes Island, contrasts nicely against the quick, fiery, and well-choreographed fight scenes instigated by Ch'en. It looks like the anime staff is refining its strengths, and that, too, is encouraging.

Regardless, if you're not a daily Arknights player like me, I think you'll likely find the show impenetrable, if not catastrophically self-absorbed at this point. Does a story about cat girls with rock cancer and big jackets really need to be so melodramatic and byzantine? Probably not, but that's also what I like about it.