Hey guys! If you haven’t seen part 1, go check that out first~

Before we get started, I wanted to address something that may have been a little confusing. If you watched my first part of this review, I bitched about world building quite a lot, while congratulating it at the same time. Now, I want to talk about this for a bit, and explain why I like and dislike Ice’s world building in Dark Revolution. If you’d rather not hear me rant about this, skip ahead to this time in the video. All right, I’m going to assume you’re staying for this then, and go ahead and get started.

World building is tricky business, and can easily be too little, or too much if the writer isn’t careful. Now, I’m not an expert, and I don’t think anyone truly is, so take what I say with a grain of salt. They key to world building is introducing just enough to get the reader intrigued and make them feel as if they’re part of this world without overloading them. You also need to stay away from expositional dumps, where characters speak for the benefit of the viewer or reader. As an example, you wouldn’t want a character who turned to someone else and proceeded like so:

“Hey, you know the planet Sobek, the one with floating islands and where we’re going right now?”

“Of course I know that, that’s where I was born, friend of mine that I’ve known for six years.”

Honestly that was painful to write. Hopefully you understand what I’m saying though, you want the characters to speak and interact with each other as they would without an audience. If a character knows about certain aspects of the world, then they shouldn’t be explaining the details of such aspects to another character who knows about them already. This is super telling, and rather aggravating to watch and read.

Now, Ice doesn’t do this really with their series. It’s avoided that for the most part, give or take a few scenes that don’t seem to flow, but the issue I have is that, at a certain point, Ice began to overload me. Ice started off really well, noting the viewer’s intelligence and not talking down to them in their writing—and when I say ‘talking down to’ I’m referring to expositional dialogue which assumes the reader or watcher is an idiot. I really appreciated this at first, where I was thrown into this world but didn’t feel lost. Terms were repeated, such as Fee-yas, or however it was pronounced, in reference to our main characters. This helped me understand they aren’t human, and are instead a different species entirely. That is, if I am understanding properly. Regardless, they are different compared to me, so it works out all right.

But, as I mentioned before, at a certain point I became lost and confused as more and more terms and names were thrown at me that I had no context for. While lack of context can be okay if they are referred to more, or referenced to a few more times, I had already taken in so much with the series that I was just being overwhelmed. This could definitely be just me, but I feel like I needed a little bit more time to wrap my head around everything Ice was trying to introduce. Regardless, I applaud this massive world they’ve created, and I look forward to seeing more of it. Now, onto part 2 of the review!

When we left off at 13 minutes in, our MCs decided to head into town. We get a glimpse of more animals hanging about, suggesting our mains aren’t the only ones who can turn into different creatures, and Naboo and Mayon walk through the city streets. Naboo rudely mentions this place is a mess, and mentions an Emperor. Woah, wait, you’re saying there’s an Emperor? And this emperor allowed a city to be massacred? Or was the emperor the one who okayed the genocide? Was that the emperor back with that dude who wanted to be a man? Eventually, Naboo turns back into his animal form and sneaks behind some pots, listening in to some people talking about the Nameless god, one of which is the guy who stabbed their friend in the beginning. But…Isn’t it more telling if you turn into an animal to listen in? Doesn’t that reveal you’re from the city that was wiped out, or…? The conversation continues about how there’s still time to stop the Second Great Calamity, before one of the dudes notices them…from…over his shoulder…? Let’s be real, there’s no way he noticed them. If anyone noticed them, it would’ve been one of the people he was talking to.

Naboo and Mayon dash away, wondering the same thing, but are stopped by the closing gates. As they run to find their brother, Naboo is transported to some alternate time zone, where stabby dude greets him. Naboo attacks but is…pinned? By some black magic. Literally. It’s literally…anyway.

He introduces himself as the Demon of Destruction, claiming he’s the only one without a counterpart. I glanced back at the opening to find that there was only ten created by that god spirit, which means something, I’m sure. Naboo says all of this is just a myth, then we get a glimpse at his…hand? What. Okay. What. Destruction says he’s Naboo’s ally, says that he’s willing to help Naboo’s half-siblings escape if Naboo helps him with something. This proves that Naboo isn’t directly related to his family, which is something I questioned from the beginning. Destruction says he wants Naboo to create a tangible illusion, and this is where different elemental magic is referenced and sort of commented on, and I just can’t help but wonder…why didn’t they use any of these abilities when fighting in the city? Why have none of these come in handy, why didn’t anyway fight with them? I guess the reason why the appearance of magic throws me off is because it doesn’t seem to be used or noted at all in the first half of the episode. I mean, it makes sense that they can use it, I guess, because they can change forms, but since none of them used any other kinds of magic to fight with, I believed that there was no such thing and that form changing was the only kind of magic someone could do.

Naboo says he’s not adept at this kind of magic, and Destruction says he can pull strings to allow him to practice all the elemental magic and that he can teach Naboo how to create tangible illusions. So…why do you need Naboo to do this, then? This seems ridiculous. Why not do this yourself? Is there some sort of fingerprint left on magic spells that casts blame on the caster, meaning the caster can somehow be identified and Destruction doesn’t want to be directly linked to this?

We jump back to Mayon, who gets cornered by other creatures and humans alike. So…how do they know he’s from the city, exactly? Is his exact species somehow recognizable? Is no one else able to turn into a fox like him? Regardless, he…teleports? Away? Why didn’t he do this sooner? I mean, couldn’t he have teleported to a roof and scanned the city from up high while trying to find his siblings? I’m going to go out on a limb and say he can’t teleport more athan himself anywhere, which is why he and Naboo didn’t just teleport outside the gate, but now that he’s alone, you’d think maybe he’d…use this ability of his more liberally.

He meets up with his brother, who wonders how vanishing is possible—okay, but Mayon can teleport? So? I don’t see how this is surprising in the least? In the sky, a creature appears, and Naboo shows up and leads the group through a spoopy door. This teleports them outside the city. Big bro gets pretty upset at Naboo for creating what we now know was a Cheetu Dragon, the thing that everyone keeps mentioning, and that this was going to signify the beginning of the second Great Calamity, which’ll probably ruffle a few feathers in the city. You know. Everyone will just be a little perturbed. Little bothered. Just slightly.

Naboo then shows that he’s gone through a lot inside that time warp, and that he should be dead after everything he’s gone through. Which…makes me feel cheated. I really wish I could’ve seen this. The interactions between Destruction and Naboo, more world building between their arguments, see more of Naboo’s character and his growing fear of Destruction. I would’ve really loved to see this, and I’m bummed I didn’t get to.

The group laments that perhaps nowhere is safe anymore, and the episode ends rather suddenly. By that, I mean there was no big hurrah, or intense ending, or cliffhanger. Perhaps one more dramatic line would’ve sold me on the ending, but at this point I’m just being knickpicky.

And that was Dark Revolution! For all my bitching and whining, I did really enjoy this first episode. I think the animation is definitely something to be amazed at, the amount of effort and time that went into this is definitely apparent, and I did enjoy the music choices, though nothing really stood out to me as something striking or different. I mention this because I’ve been asked before to note music more often, and while my musical ear is not as well tuned as some of my comrades, I will make a bigger effort to note it. The story is definitely promising, and I do really look forward to seeing more of this series in the future. It has issues, obviously, but so does everything. I’d suggest everyone to go watch this, because I absolutely loved it, and I don’t pull punches when I find something I love.

Do you agree with me? Maybe you hate everything I just said. Let’s have a discussion about it in the comment section below. Want to draw some expressions for me to use in my videos? There’s a link to my character in the description. Also down there, you can find me on my many social media sites. Thank you all for watching, I’m Knightmare, make sure to hit like, subscribe, and I’ll see you guys next time.