Arknights is a Chinese mobile game from developer Hypergryph, released in 2019 and spread internationally in 2020, where it became something of a sensation. Not just for its dark military aesthetic crossed with striking character designs, but also for its large, often humorous marketing campaign. Just like games such as Fate/Grand Order before it, the audience can only take so much teasing from gorgeous animated commercials before they demand a TV/film adaptation. After a nine-minute anniversary short, Holy Knight Light, fans got a taste of what a full Arknights show might look like. Almost two years later and now the story has its first legitimate adaptation.
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Wake Up, Doctor
The protagonist, Doctor, wakes up after having been given medical attention, just as a group called Reunion is storming the hideout. As Doctor is being escorted away, they reveal that they have no memory of what happened before the attack, causing dismay among his allies. The tension can be felt, even with the audience given as little context as the amnesiac himself.
In this world, there are those infected with Oripathy, an infection that causes people to slowly crystalize until their body fractures and spreads the disease. The cost seems to outweigh the primary benefit, which is the ability to cast magic. The world of Terra is prejudiced against those who possess Oripathy, even though it isn’t spread through touch.
A terrorist group named Reunion wages war against the government of Ursus, and though they were once merely activists, they became tired of the prejudice. The protagonists are stuck in the middle, members of Rhodes Island, a group researching a cure for Oripathy and attempting to save those stuck in the midst of the war between the two factions.
Presentation is by far this show’s greatest weapon, and between the colors, the scenery, and the aspect ratio, Arknights looks very different from a lot of contemporary anime. Mobile game commercials often present a broad anime aesthetic, but they’re created so short and bursting with style that they often look different from any actual anime.
It’s also worth considering the cultural blend of influences that inspired the original game, it being a Chinese game and Chinese animation (donghua) having a noticeable difference in style. So it’s natural that this anime would feel slightly different, translating an art style that is very against the grain.
The sense of space can be hypnotic, and the characters traverse this huge underground facility with spiraling staircases and huge, liminal spaces. Outside, the overcast sky lets the tension loom like the storm in the distance, which the characters refer to as a “catastrophe.” It’s unclear what that means or why such a catastrophe happens.
Adapting A Tower Defense Game
Whatever form a narrative takes in a mobile game will undoubtedly be difficult to translate into a serialized narrative without taking liberties to account for pacing and a shift in priorities. At the most limited capacity, a game demands consistent and structured gameplay, with narrative serving as a break from gameplay.
Obviously, AAA gaming has intermixed story and gameplay considerably in the past three decades, but mobile games still remain challenging to translate one-to-one. Even Fate/Grand Order’s most well-received adaptations like Babylonia or Camelot have received criticism for pacing or the omission of certain story beats.
With that said, Arknights’ premiere does a fine job of introducing audiences to the world of Terra through the eyes of the protagonist much in the same way a game might. Perhaps the amnesia trope and the resulting exposition can come off as a tiresome conceit to the mobile game’s trappings, but it’s all in service of translating the game’s mechanics into a functional story.
For what it’s worth, it accomplishes that competently, but if that qualifier sounds a bit dry and sapped of enthusiasm, it’s because the premiere is only alright. Competency isn’t inherently an appraisal of success but a recognition of hitting the fundamentals, which is to say that the Arknights show may pique one’s interest, but it might take another episode or two to really grip the audience.
The premiere of Arknights might not be as fun as 2020’s Holy Knight Light, but it possesses a similar passion behind it. Having the protagonist command the characters via essentially a smartphone is on the nose, but played straight in a way that’s commendable. It will be exciting to see how this world expands and learn why so many have been drawn to Arknights before now.
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