Purely by virtue of the fact that we're writing (and in my case, also editing video) about anime and manga, it's only a matter of time, as a member of &TEAM ANN, before you have to approach the editors with a strange question. “Would we say Crocs are more of a fashion item, or a weird item?“ and “Can I review the officially licensed Death Note TRIPP pants?” are only some examples of bizarre things I've asked during my time here. And yet, it was this anime— Petals of Reincarnation (POR)—that forced me to ask what's sure to be the all-time strangest question I've ever had to ask the wonderful editors we have here at ANN, which I hope will never have to be asked a second time: “I know as a general rule of thumb we're encouraged to avoid swearing in our reviews. But if an anime is trying to make us second-guess whether the literal avatar of Hitler is a bad guy, I can't help but want to call it Absolute Fucking Bullshit. May I use this phrase in my review?”
It almost feels like I'd be letting POR off easy by just calling it “convoluted,” because it's so much more (worse) than that. Still, it bears saying plainly that the story of POR is incredibly convoluted. Here's the elevator pitch: There's this edgy high school guy named Touya Senji, who's really frustrated that he doesn't have a talent. He's tried a little bit of everything, but nothing has ever really stuck. We'll resist the urge to grab him by the collar and say that the kind of talent he's looking for is a mirage and that what looks, to him, like natural talent is actually a direct result of sticking with something and practicing. Anyways, he's approached one day by a girl named Luo Buffet Haito, who has the reincarnated swordsmanship talent of Miyamoto Musashi. It's through her that he learns about the Returners—a group of people with the reincarnated talents of historical figures. Touya soon joins the ranks of the Returners with the thieving talent of history's own Goemon Ishikawa, which he decides he'll use to steal the talents of everyone else. Except, that is, for the many times he doesn't.
What this description naturally fails to communicate to avoid spoilers is that about halfway through the series there's a rugpull that, suffice it to say, turns everything we'd learned up until that point on its head. The series then becomes less about fight scenes that are shockingly underwhelming for how much potential they have, and more about the machinations of certain Returners. Again, it's impossible to talk about this in any detail without spoiling a lot. But what I can, at least, tell you is that once the series reaches this point (and you'll know it when you see it, trust me), the capital-W What is going on and Why changes on what feels like an almost episode-by-episode basis, before finally ending on a strange, unsatisfying note without any substantial resolution.
For every bit that already seems like it becomes hard to keep up with and tricky to parse, I promise you that it's at least 10 times more incoherent. So thoroughly lost in its own edginess and arbitrary need for things to be happening all the time, this anime quite literally loses the plot all the time. It's a dangerous mix of too many things happening with too much frequency, explanations being few and far between, and plenty of obvious questions being left unaddressed. It's not a matter of if, but when you will lose track of whatever's going on.
One might forgive how nonsensical the story is if the characters were more engaging, but as you might have guessed, they aren't. To be fair, Touya is so poorly written, contradictory, and makes so many wild, illogical decisions that he's at least entertaining if you have the right mindset and relent to going with the senseless flow of this series. Otherwise, you're just going to get cuts from all his edge. No one else in the main cast is any more noteworthy, or written with any more consistency. As for the side characters, there are so many that it's rare for them to get more than 2 minutes of collective screen time—it's nigh impossible for any of them to stand out, let alone be memorable.
And then, there's the history of it all. As mentioned earlier, the talents everyone has are reincarnations of historical figures, whose names (and to a certain extent, identities) they also take on. It's not quite a Fate/stay night -esque situation where it's essentially just the historical figures themselves, and yet this anime wants us to get the vibe that it is anyway. So you must understand, it thereby becomes Absolute Fucking Bullshit when the anime wants us to, for example, second-guess whether or not Hitler—or more specifically, the avatar of Hitler who's using his name—was entirely a bad guy. Which, yes, is bafflingly a thing this anime does.
As for production value, it's more misses than hits, but not completely without its merits. There are times when the visuals are quite stylish and show off really interesting storyboarding and overall direction. Also, I love the coloration in this series, which favors a lot of really high contrast. Unfortunately, neither of these is default, and the cool visual moments, especially, mostly peter out as the series progresses. This is to say nothing of the backgrounds, which look way too filtered and like they're trying way too hard to make that high-contrast coloration. As for voice acting, the sub is fine—nothing especially impressive, but everyone does a serviceable job. The dub , meanwhile, is flat in its best moments, and in its worst, displays some pretty questionable ADR direction, especially about stifled performances that perhaps are a result of voice actors prioritizing maintaining the accents some of the characters have (suffice to say, some voice actors are more convincing than others). The music, finally, is unimpressive—not particularly bad nor good, but something you're doomed to forget about as soon as you decide you're done with the series.