In the Land of Leadale

I guess I am going to start with what my expectations were. According to the trailer, it looked like a funny and charming show with a cool main female protagonist. According to the countless nice posters, we could expect a lot of traveling and discovering the many wonders of this fantasy world. And while the result did meet these expectations, I could find at least one huge “but” to every point. As far as the show's sense of humor is concerned, there are, on average, exactly two childish and two stupid jokes for every good joke. In practice, if you are lucky, you will have a couple of laughs, a couple of wry grins, and a few raised eyebrows, making for a rather unsatisfying comedy. The opening and end of the season are the highlights of a season with few charming moments. During the middle section, there were several episodes where I came out emotionally drained, and the overall vibe was not working. As far as the main female protagonist goes, I could root for her even though there were several moments where she acted weirdly (overly sensitive, bad-tempered). While it is clear that this was the driving force behind many of the supposedly funny moments, they were usually the exact moments the whole thing felt silly and not that funny. As for the other characters, I had a couple of favorites; however, not many to write home about. Then there is all the traveling. The back-and-forth journeys, which feel rather pointless, often lack any depth and an interesting or at least mysterious storyline; they just seemed almost pointless. The narrative fails to be interesting; again, it is sometimes rather silly with weird twists, and it did not even manage to sell me on its secrets, such as about other former players or their world. I wonder if there is any RPG game with a giant penguin as a meta boss. I liked the animation; everything was nice and colorful. Even the CGI looked pretty good, although unfortunately, it was a real shame that the narrative could not sell the locations enough, meaning there was no magical feeling when the female protagonist went to some new place. The only thing I am completely happy with was the soundtrack: it helped create the atmosphere as much as possible. In other words, I could not award In the Land of Leadale an above-average rating. As an adventure fantasy with a strong female protagonist, I found the whole anime series less entertaining and emotionally powerful than, say, the likes of I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed out My Level. Discovering and building a family was not enough to save it, so 5/10 at most. (23/03/2022)