English Dub Season Review: Chronos Ruler Season One

People who manipulate time fight against monsters who eat time.

Overview (Minor Spoilers)

Kiri Putin is a Chronos Ruler, one of a select number of people who can use an artifact called an Oath of Time to manipulate the relative time of particular objects. He and his travelling companion are hunting for Horologs, monsters attracted to those with regrets. These monsters eat the time of people, causing them to age regress into nothingness. Who is Kiri’s companion you ask? Well, this irresponsible guy, young enough to be Kiri’s younger brother, is Victo Putin… Kiri’s father. Victo, also a chronos ruler, was attacked by a horolog, and currently has his oath of time affixed in the wound to keep any more of his time from escaping. On their journey, they are seeking the horolog that ate his time, hoping to get it back. Unfortunately, the horolog attack has also erased his memories, so he doesn’t even know where to start searching.

Along the way, they run into a girl named Mina, who claims to be Victo’s wife. She has come to bring him back to headquarters, hoping to find more clues from his last mission. Instead, they find themselves in a convoluted plot to kill Victo and take his Oath of Time, as it is actually the original one. Only, they aren’t trying to kill him… then they are… then they…. You know what? Let’s just forget that part of the plot. He finds out that his last mission took him back to his hometown. So the gang, now plus one rather oversensitive guy trying to pass himself off as a supervillain, go back to his roots. There, they find the town is stuck in a time loop, repeating the same day over and over. That day was early in Victo’s life when his parents were still alive. Things start to become dire when they discover that there are men who can command horologs, and some are very interested in the town. Can they figure out the mystery? Will Victo get his time back?

Our Take

So, I see the first episode, and I am digging it. There is some insane direction and animation going on. Kiri hunting the horolog in the first few minutes is an exhilarating trip. As the two of them bounce from building to building, clashing in mid-air, the camera flies around and in between them. As they do so, the characters flip between traditional and CG animation, and the direction allows them to do so without you really noticing the switch. It’s complicated in its cinematography, and I appreciate the lengths it goes to. We then have an episode that introduces the two main characters and their abilities well, while tying the plot to a side character’s emotional story. Wrap it all up with another epic battle, and you have all the makings of a great pilot.

Too bad the rest of the show is garbage. Immediately after, we are drawn into a convoluted plotline consisting of a series of fake-outs and illogical twists. When you get to the point where someone reveals that they just lied about lying about lying about lying, you may have jumped the shark, my friend. Characters bring up plot points, only to invalidate them in the same breath. The sad part is, once we get to Victo’s hometown, the plot takes an uptick. There seems to be enough mystery and character development to make the series good again. Unfortunately, the last episode takes everything that it did and makes it meaningless. Other characters don’t behave as if they really have the backstory they say they have, or that monsters have the powers we are told they do. One of the biggest problems with this is Mina. She is a descendant of Chronos, god of time. As such, she is ageless, immune to horolog bites, and her blood purifies them into dust. Yet, when we are introduced to her, she shows off her scar that is supposedly from a horolog. Later, a horolog attacks her, and despite the fact that it is a time-eating light beam, it cuts her, and the blood has no effect. I wish I could actually go into all of the logical issues I had with the writing of this show, but we would literally be here for about three thousand words.

The series feels highly derivative in its concepts. Their use of time manipulation pretty much plays out like any other action anime would use mana, or spirit particles, or whatever MP-dujour they use. Speeding up or slowing down the time of an object will not impart onto it new kinetic energy, yet they use it to fling cards, water shots, wind blades, and the like. As long as you think of their abilities as another form of anime magic, it all makes sense. When you take the characters at their word for what is supposed to be happening, none of it makes any logical sense.

The animation can’t keep up, either. The second episode uses CG maybe once, and has mainstream looking direction throughout. After the second episode, it looks just like any other late 90’s anime. The final episode is cobbled together bits of mediocre animation cycled and recycled, and laced together with chunks of terrible animation errors.

The voice acting was shaky. Mina (portrayed by Jad Saxton) started off as an obnoxious mass of shriek. As the story continued, Saxton seemed to understand her character better, and the Mina gained more depth in her voice acting. Austin Tindle, voicing the moronic Blaze, brings some levity to the party, and at the same time, he illustrates how absurd the plot gets. Dude gets seriously bi-polar, even in his voice. Unfortunately, most of the other characters have a single note to their vocals, so you don’t get much out of them. When you get to the final episode, again, everything goes down the tubes.

Best Way To Watch

Watch the first episode and then skip to… another series. You’ll be left thinking about a series filled with a gloomy ennui and incredible action sequences. Not the derivative, convoluted dung heap with mediocre everything to its name.