Suicide Squad Isekai: Season 1

August 31, 2024 10:00 AM - Season 1 (Full Season)

A group of supervillains, captured and put to forced labor by the US government, are sent on a mission to an extradimensional world reminiscent of Feudal Japan to do...I am actually not sure what, exactly, but there's a lot of fighting and swords and zombies and a dragon. It's an anime!
posted by kittens for breakfast (6 comments total)

I love the idea of this -- a Japanese studio making an anime set in the DC Universe -- but the final product left a little to be desired, mostly because this probably should've been a 90-minute movie. It is instead a roughly four-hour series, and there isn't anything like enough story to support it. The characters also stubbornly resist taking on even a second dimension, and while a cool character design that spouts catch phrases is fine enough for a relatively short film, you expect a little more out of a character you're going to spend ten episodes (!) with.

That said, the character designs are VERY cool (this version of Clayface seems wholly unique to Isekai, and is the one thing from this show I can easily see being incorporated into future DC projects), and the fight scenes are a lot of fun to watch. In general, it's a fun series that isn't a waste of time, but falls short of all that it could have been.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:08 AM on August 31 [2 favorites]

I didn't even know this existed, and with preposterous want-to-watch backlogs ahead of me... is it worth watching, or just an interesting curiosity? I used to second-screen this sort of thing, but as I age I find my ability to attention-split has atrophied.
posted by Shepherd at 4:43 AM on September 2

Oh, it's definitely most interesting as a novelty. Is it worth the time investment? It's a tough call, because you kind of have to give it all your attention unless you speak Japanese or turn on the English dub. (I would of course not recommend that!) I guess I'd suggest watching the first episode or two and checking your interest level; it doesn't really get a lot better or worse as it goes.

But if you only have time for one DC cartoon in your life, the Caped Crusader series on Prime is WAY better. I enjoyed Isekai, but I am as baffled by Max's decision to keep it but farm out Caped Crusader as I am...well, most of their decisions.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:10 AM on September 2 [1 favorite]

I agree, it would have been much better as a movie. Although I really enjoyed the finale, what with the magical girl transformations for all the major characters, I can't say it's worth watching the whole series for it if you have other things to watch.
posted by Quonab at 11:59 AM on September 3

The idea of anime DC Universe characters landing in historical Japan was already done in the movie Batman Ninja. I might check out this one if it's as batshit crazy as that one was.
posted by WhackyparseThis at 6:27 AM on September 4

Watched the first ep last night and ended up feeling kinda meh about it. Doing an anime that was kind of a blend of the characters from the two live-action movies was an interesting choice, but they spent too much time with Harley and Joker (although the car was cool) and while I liked it better than the first live-action movie (which is a very low bar), it wasn't nearly as good as the second one.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:37 AM on September 5