Not bad, not really great.

Written by penguinspolarteddy on July 29, 2013 at 4:36 AM

This is one of those anime that have a pretty good setup, however in the end result only make me go "meh".
The very beginning of Arata the Legend seemed rather mediocre. We've had tons of anime with modern-era kids going to distant worlds or times, InuYasha probably only being the oldest of which. Then, they began to unfold the background story, the setup, and suddenly I was hooked. The story went at a crazed pace, however it had become interesting... however somewhere during those last 4-5 episodes it lost it again. The storyline is interesting enough for such an overused setup, with individual goals and problems and whatnot mixed in, still for that, the characters are just too unrelatable. I've seen too little of the otherworldly Arata to really begin to understand him, and the entire conflict between the real-world Arata and his "rival" was just dragged in by the head and shoulders. The dialogue doesn't really help to begin to understand them either, and while the visuals and music are definitely good enough, they aren't exactly helping the characters.
It's kinda a messed-up anime, one I'm not sure whether I can or can't like... I can say it's not average like I thought during the first minutes, and it's definitely not bad, however I can't really say I find it to be good either. It was awesome for a while, however it just lost my attention with the uncovering of the real reason for the "rivalry" of the main protagonist and antagonist.
6/10 from me, however if you don't mind conflicts and stuff being freaking exaggerated, Arata the Legend is probably fresher than you'd think from the setup alone.