Review: Recorded By Arizal Prelude “Log ii”

OVERVIEW

Arizal interviews Dante, a veteran Keeper, about the perks and dangers of being a Keeper.

OUR TAKE

This one might SEEM shorter than last week based on the runtime, but it turns out that it’s actually LONGER by a few seconds if you take out the intro by Yssa. I certainly hope I’m not scrounging for things to talk about with the other two parts of this, but when these things run less than four minutes, having little to talk about tends to come up as the first thing to mention. Though thankfully, this week brings a bit more to chew on about the show than “well, THIS exists”. Specifically, we learn with Arizal about what makes a quintessential Record Keeper, as well as why it might not be as easy a job as she might have expected. The contrast between Dante’s photo and him on the live feed says quite a bit about how much the work can change you even without the horror stories of lost toilet paper he scares Arizal with, though that carries the point quite a bit as well.

This doesn’t beat seeing these things happen, of course, which I imagine we’ll probably get a better view of in the series itself, but it does lay out an underlying philosophy with Keepers in the field: Knowledge for its own sake. Basically a whole flock of Professor Zei from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Recording knowledge is, ideally, a neutral objective, but also something that some see benefit in manipulating. This implies being a Record Keeper is an occupation that requires great resolve and objectivity that could be constantly tested by those they encounter, which sounds like something that could be quite interesting to delve into in the main series. It also kinda already puts it a bit of a leg up on RWBY and how it’s handled introducing the concept of Huntsmen so far, whose mission statement seems rather straightforward but somehow has never really consolidated a clear work culture. And while we haven’t gotten a Record Keeper Prime Directive or the like, we already know quite a bit about how the job works and what potential story opportunities lie ahead.

Emphasis on “potential”, I should point out. RT Animated shows have been quite good at establishing POTENTIALLY interesting worlds, concepts, and characters, yet have rarely managed to follow through on those. This often leads to a lot of hype for little payoff, RWBY and Gen:LOCK being prime examples. Oddly enough, that potential seems to be enough for some fans, simply speculating on how cool things could possibly be apparently equating to them being already that cool, but not for me personally. Recorded By Arizal doesn’t seem to have as much hype behind it, but it still needs to deliver somewhere. Maybe not in the prelude, but definitely in the show itself. But while we wait for that, we’ve still got the other half of this prelude left to record. Let’s hope it’s a record worth keeping.