Ishura Might Be One of the Most Unusual Anime Projects in Recent Years, Yet It's Incredibly Underwatched Outside of Japan

Summary:

• Ishura is a very unique political action-fantasy series with isekai elements that is airing this season.
• The anime has a lot of characters and adapts its source material without heavily compressing it — a rarity these days.
• It actually has a steady following among Japanese fans.

Ishura is definitely not an anime many Western fans are watching this season. The light novel it’s based on isn’t very popular, and the anime didn’t seem to have much promotion. Despite that, it seems to be doing well in Japan — and it’s frankly incredible it is even being made the way it is.

What is it about?

Ishura is technically an isekai series. Multiple characters of the anime came from “the Beyond” — other worlds — because they were too strong to be contained there. That said, we’re not always following them. Ishura doesn’t even have a clear protagonist and switches between different points of view every episode.

The anime combines political intrigue and crazy action, and needs you to like both to be properly enjoyed. Around two dozen characters with unique names, skills and abilities are involved in a political scenario of an upcoming war between a Kingdom and its breakaway state.

Remembering all these characters also requires effort, and many fans who aren’t used to complex anime plots will definitely struggle with it.

A very unusual adaptation

The way Ishura is adapted is just bizarre. The first volume is almost 500 pages long, which is decently above average for a light novel. What’s even weirder is the pacing of the anime, however.

Most light novels these days adapt between 3 and 5 volumes per cour. Ishura’s first 3 episodes adapted only 6 of the 23 chapters of the first volume. This means that most likely, the anime is going to cover only the first volume — making fans hope for more.

This also means the adaptation is extremely solid (outside of the excessive use of 3D CGI). Barely anything is skipped, and the source readers are happy with how the anime is turning out.

It’s actually popular, but mostly in Japan

Out of all the official uploads of the openings of the season, Ishura’s opening has more views than almost any other series this season. At 1.6 million views, the anime definitely has a following, but it’s mostly in Japan.

The light novels actually ranked first in the tankobon section of the Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi! guidebook in 2021. The English translation got way less traction — and the anime adaptation of Ishura is streamed on Disney+ and Hulu, which are not among the more popular streaming services.

The confusing nature of the first episodes also scared off many viewers. With many fans being used to how quickly anime gets to the main point, something on the level of Ishura, which would probably only finish introducing its characters in Episode 5, is not something they’re willing to watch.

If you aren’t scared by complicated plots, you should definitely give it a try