Online game adaptationby Brains Base
Currently streaming on Crunchyroll

Premise: Kon Hokaze meets a girl in an online game and thinks he’s about to get lucky, but instead she catapults him into a fantasy world where he gets caught up in a chase between a fleeing princess and her fabulously attired pursuers

Dragonzigg’s Verdict: Edge of Madness

There’s a surprising amount of potential in this knockabout comedy adventure, and I ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I would. Mostly this is due to it’s sly sense of humour, and there’s always an undercurrent of uncertainty about how seriously it’s taking the current situation. Kon is an engagingly grounded protagonist, who’s goofy enough to avoid being a jerk, and his supporting cast are extremely endearing, especially the snarky eight year old princess, who gets a lot of good laughs just with her down to earth grasp of the situation.

Indeed, if I have a problem with the show, it’s probably that it’s not even more wacky than it already is.  At the moment Ixion Saga DT walks the line between a jokey fantasy show and a flat out gag anime, and I’d sort of like it to fall into the gag anime camp and embrace the parodic elements, since they’re by far and away the most fun part of the show. On the other hand, it’s a delicate balance and there’s certainly still merit to be found in the fantasy world that they’ve arrived in, so how that balances out will have to be seen. I’ll happily confess several jokes in this episode got me to laugh out loud, including the ridiculously snazzy boots and Kon’s amazingly brutal crotch kick.  If they can keep me chuckling, then I’ll be happy to keep watching.

Lifesong’s Verdict: Generically Awesome!

Hey wait! Is that a good verdict or not? Honestly, I’m not really sure, but this first episode was fun. Basically this anime starts by transporting our video game playing protagonist into a hyper generic fantasy roleplaying game where he takes out the bad guy by landing on him with his desk chair; the bad who is named “Variation” by the way.

The thing with Ixion is that it is so generic it hurts, but at the same time it subverts so many of the tropes it pulls out ever so slightly with something amusingly self-aware. For example we also have a bad guy who’s name abbreviates into “ED for short”, and several other hard to miss generic RPG jokes that fit the theme here painfully well. So yeah, I actually enjoyed enjoyed this first episode a moderate amount. Brains Base did a great job at directing something silly here, and may have another winner if they can keep up the fun in coming episodes.

Jel’s Verdict: A Swift Kick To Your… Boredom

Brain’s Base must have had so much fun adapting a mobile game with presumably no story the last time they did it that they had to come back for more. This go-round they’re taking on a game that hasn’t even been released yet and based on what I’ve seen they’ve once again taken a LOT of creative license here. Given the results, I am totally OK with that.

Rather than a stiff serious interpretation of the game’s fantasy setting, we get ourselves a self aware, comedic take on events that is just plain fun. The other guys covered the specifics on it, but I will say it’s about time someone proved shouting your attack name and powering up for an hour is highly impractical. My gut instinct is to agree with Zigg and say they should just go totally over the top with the humor, but I enjoyed Ixion enough I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. I’m not anticipating a masterpiece, but hopefully it will stay as amusing as this first episode.

Iro’s Verdict: Amusingly Subversive

I was prepared to dislike this, whether it was because of the generic looks or the mostly unimpressive production values, but I rather enjoyed this first episode. Brain’s Base manages to make the show self aware enough to barely avoid being obnoxious, while still being funny. It’s a typical trapped-in-another-world plot, and everything goes down in a predictable way until its twisted into a lame joke, but they’re just lame enough to draw chuckles. Whether it be the empire suddenly whipping out machine guns and rocket launchers instead of swords, or the hero buying the gaudy dragon boots instead of the plain heroic ones, it all plays on what you’d expect from a completely formula show, while still somehow being formula.