Review: Recorded By Arizal Prelude “Log i”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Arizal, a 16 year old senior at Academy 14 in District 4, starts an extra credit assignment to formally apply to being a Record Keeper, global travelers who collect knowledge for the public. While recording her own record, her friends Lia and Rizella (also apparently eager to be Record Keepers) call and text her before her Tia tells her to clean her room. Next, she’ll interview a real Keeper.

OUR TAKE
Rooster Teeth has a bit of a spotty track record with 2D Animation, especially as of late. Aside from the surprise success of Camp Camp, X-Ray and Vav only had two seasons while Nomad of Nowhere (which just had a reposting on RT’s Animation channel to possibly drum up more hype) was plagued with creative and financial snags that led it to be quietly cancelled. Now we return to this side of the medium with “Recorded by Arizal”, a new series by Yssa Badiola following the titular Arizal in her pursuits to become a Record Keeper. Incidentally, “Record Keeper” was the original title for the series prior to being changed to its current name. How exactly this show will play out is still a bit of a mystery as this installment here is a prelude, meaning the actual story has yet to begin. This is a bit of a similar trick to RWBY’s color coded trailers that preceded its show, or Gen:LOCK’s debriefings with Dr. Weller about the pilots prior to the show’s beginning.

I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty unsure what to think about this approach. For one, we’re not at the start of the story yet. As Yssa notes in her intro to the prelude (so basically a prelude to the prelude), this is meant to be an “Episode 0”. The question that comes to mind for me then is “why AREN’T we starting at Episode 1?” What about these four prelude shorts couldn’t have been fitted into the actual first chapter of the series? Does that then make these shorts supplementary material? Will we be able to jump into the show from the first episode (which seems like common sense if you ask me) without watching these shorts? If not, then aren’t THESE the first episodes? And when does the actual official real show really start?

These have been the main things on my mind since watching this first short, mainly because it being so short doesn’t give me a whole lot to talk about. Yes, Arizal is cute as hell and Christine Marie Cabanos does bring a unique performance to her character compared to her anime dubbing. We get some little hintings at characters who we will hopefully get to know better IN THE ACTUAL SHOW as well as some key details about the world that we will also hopefully get to know better IN THE ACTUAL SHOW. I guess we’ll see how these other three shorts add up before determining if we can ultimately ignore them.