Plunderer First Impressions

“You see how everyone has a number on some part of their body? This world is ruled by numbers.”

I’ve been a bit busy as of late, and have been a little behind on this season’s anime, but I made sure to check out Plunderer because descriptions of the premise appeared to imply that this was a series that was just a bit too odd for its own good. You know the type of premise where the odds are 10:1 that the show is going to be fanservice-laden schlock, but there is a narrow possibility that it could work? Plunderer caught my eye for having a central concept where humans have a number imprinted on their bodies that lists a certain number of a particular action they can perform before they are spirited away to something called the abyss. On paper this is an unwieldy idea, but so is the idea of a giant hole that contains riches but can mutate your body when you leave it. My point is, the real promise of a show lies in its delivery of the premise and not the premise itself, but the odds of Plunderer turning out to be something on par with Made in Abyss were slim to nonexistent. So does Plunderer have a solid delivery that overcomes and elevates the awkward aspects of the core ideas?… Look, you can already see the rating I gave it. There’s no point in being coy. The show is every bit the mess its synopsis suggests it might be.

Our main character is a young woman, named Hina, whose mother was dragged into the Abyss when Hina was only a child. She told Hina to seek out a samurai smelling of sunflowers… Hold on. That might not be correct. She told her to seek out the “Legendary Ace,” a hero wearing a star on his person. After five years of searching, she finds herself in a town where she encounters a creepy masked letch named Licht, who is clearly another of our protagonists. I say he’s clearly a protagonist because, of the two male characters to appear in this first episode, he’s the one who sexually harasses Hina. The other goes for sexual assault and physically abuses her, so clearly Licht is the heroic one. To put it bluntly, this show is really bad. Even if you can look past its creepy aspects, it’s obnoxiously blunt about introducing arbitrary rules and complicating the already peculiar setting. I hate this show, from its world’s stupid mechanics to the fact that Hina’s count is on her inner thigh to its cloying character designs. This is the type of series where a character actually explains the nature of the world to the main character despite the fact Hina HAS BEEN TRAVELING THIS WORLD FOR FIVE YEARS!!! If you want to watch a version of this show that at least isn’t insufferable, just go check out Seven Deadly Sins. I don’t care for it, but it’s the exact same plot with more polish and without the clumsy number gimmicks.

The production is being handled by Geek Toys. I’d never heard of them, and it turns out there is a reason for that. This is only the 3rd series they’ve produced with the other two being RErideD and something called Hensuki: Are You Willing to Fall in Love with a Pervert, as Long as She’s a Cutie?… I think I’m good with not learning more than that title. It’s probably fair to say we are not currently dealing with a high class studio. The characters’ “numbers” have clearly just been slapped on in editing in a move as inelegant as one would expect from this show. I described the character designs as being cloying earlier, but it’s difficult to summarize them all with one single word. Hina’s appearance is exploitative with her high skirt and “Count” located on her inner thigh, Licht is creepy with his kabuki mask and his “comedic” distortions, and the restaurateur Nana has a button down shirt designed so the buttons only go up to the bottom of her ample bosom. I’ve definitely encountered more cheaply constructed anime, but I’m struggling to think of ones where I’ve found the design aesthetic to be more… cringe inducing.

Before I wrap up a few Notes and Nitpicks:

• The villain of this first episode mocks Hina for her search and the fact that she has walked over 40,000 kilometers searching for someone who probably doesn’t exist. He’s never shown to be told how Hina accumulates her number, so this comes across as a sloppy way of having the villain throw Hina’s efforts in her face.
• By my calculation, Hina’s been walking 5 hours a day (not accounting for meals or breaks) every day for five years. This show is stupid.
• One of the rules of Plunderer’s world is that a person cannot refuse an order from someone with a higher ‘Count’ than them. This has creepy implications if you think about it for more than a second, but also seems to be arbitrary as hell.