Dies Irae (Review)
Dies Irae is a Bit of a Hot Mess.
If there’s one thing that’s for certain, it’s that there is A LOT going on in Dies Irae for an 18-episode anime. It’s a series that will completely lose you if you dare to even blink much less forget to pause when you take a pee break. In fact, it’s just a cumbersome anime in general. So much is happening, and there are so many characters that I found myself getting lost more than a few times as I trudged through this series. The saving grace is that it is a very cool looking series, if not a bit overdesigned. Like so many other anime I’ve seen based on “light novels” or video games, it seems to forget that some people aren’t familiar with the source material and in doing so loses a lot of its potential.
I don’t even know where to start describing the plot of Dies Irae. It’s got Nazis, magical powers, giant titans, and a strange version of Valhalla. Basically, the series starts with an episode 0 (that’s more confusing than anything else) that reveals a group of magic-wielding Nazis in the 1940s who revive an ancient order in an attempt to remake the world as they desire. Cut to modern-day Japan and, of course, there’s a Japanese high scholar named Ren Fuji (Brandon McInnis) who discovers he’s been given magical abilities that allow him to fight back against these Nazis (automatically making him a good guy without any more character development required). So, he does exactly that as he learns of their evil plan to commit mass murder and reshape reality. If that seems pretty straight forward, don’t let that fool you. There are twists and turns, characters revealing their alliances are never what you think, and more and more absurd (and complicated) elements stuffed into the story all the time. It’s honestly a lot to take in, and I’m not sure it’s worth it in the end.
Look, I think we can all agree that Nazis are always the bad guys, and if you don’t believe that then I don’t really care what you think. Dies Irae has a lot of Nazis in it. I’m talking a slew of Nazis. A gaggle of Nazis. A pandemonium of Nazis! Seriously, there are so many that I couldn’t keep them all straight, much less remember their names or motives. That being said, it was easy to recognize them when they did pop up in an “oh yeah, that guy” sort of way since A.C.G.T Inc (Animated Computer Generated Technology) put so much effort into all the characters’ designs. While I appreciate just how detail-oriented the look of Dies Irae is,, that didn’t compensate for the severe lack of character development. There were some hints at a few backstories, but Dies Irae never lets us genuinely get to know a lot of the villains. Instead, it just hopes that if it makes a villain look menacing enough that should be enough. Alas, that makes many of the heroes’ victories in the series hollow since there’s no way to tell just how big the obstacles were that they’ve managed to overcome. That said, the animation in Dies Irae is damn good.
Director Susumu Kudō put a lot into making sure that Dies Irae packed a visual punch. I mentioned the designs of the characters earlier, and I just want to emphasize that it must have been an absolute nightmare having to redraw the characters over and over again. Toss in the dynamic cinematography of the battles, a few overly dramatic flashbacks and visions, and the strange nature of some of the powers, and Dies Irae is impressive in all that it accomplishes in that regard. The studio also used shadows and highlights to add a lot of depth and weight to many of the scenes, which sucked me in even when I had no idea what was going on. Surprisingly, given the name of the animation studio, it was the moments with heavy CGI that were the weakest. I’ve never been a fan of anime using more traditional looking art with CGI since the differences are so jarring, and given the effort put into Dies Irae this was a poor choice. Luckily, those scenes are few and far between.
My biggest complaint about Dies Irae overall is that it never knows just how far to go with anything. For one thing, the series features Nazis but seems to shy away from the whole Aryan Übermensch, anti-semitic genocide thing. They come up with a magical reason for mass murder and mention the Übermensch aspect, but never address any of the superior race issues or condemn the characters for any racist, misogynistic, or anti-LGBTQ comments. I get that they’re Nazis and we know that they are bad, but I feel like one of the heroes should have stressed that they were bad because they were actually Nazis too. At the same time, there are some elements that are pushed way too far, most notably the character of Wolfgang Schreiber (Mikaela Krantz). While I liked the androgynous, possibly trans, aspect to the character, the final reveal is pretty messed up and seems out of place given just how dark it is compared to everything else. I won’t spoil the twist for you, but I’m still uncomfortable with it and its implications for the character. Oh, and the German accents get a little goofy at times.
Perhaps the best way to describe Dies Irae is hit or miss. It certainly manages to stick the landing when it comes to the visuals but misses the mark when it comes to an equally over-designed story. It’s like living with ADD; everything is intriguing and exciting, but you have no idea what to focus on and just keep jumping from one thing to another. While I enjoyed the depth of the lore behind the story, I feel like it should have stuck more to that, like the Fate/Stay series do. Instead, it threw way too many characters in on top of it, with a lot of conflicting goals, and pushed through it all as fast as it could. While not necessarily a bad series, Dies Irae is pretty “meh.” The pros and the cons essentially cancel each other out making it an anime that you won’t suffer through, but definitely doesn’t prove to be memorable.
