So I've been going over How to be an Adventurer again and while I do still like the series, I noticed that I liked it a lot more before I watched the full Danmachi series. Here, I'd like to go into detail on why that might be.
So for context Danmachi is an anime about a young boy who's joined a type of guild known as a familia, in which he goes on missions with the permission and blessings of a god or goddess. The main character, Bell Cranel, is a part of the Hestia Familia, one that starts off fairly weak due to being only one level 1 member but over the course of the series gains new members from the familia of Souma, Takemikazuchi, Haphaestus, and technically Ishtar. In addition, Bell himself gets to a fairly high level, making his familia somewhat of a glass cannon type, very powerful but of so few members that it can be easily extinguished. That said, until Season 2 of How to be an Adventurer finishes, I'll only be talking about elements present in Danmachi Season 1, since I don't know how far in advance Yaroshien planned.
Many of these characters are present for the first season, just a lot of events haven't taken place yet so we're going forward with that in mind. Now, for context, there are a lot of people out there who are against the idea of saying an abridged series is superior to the anime it's based on. Whether it's because of hindsight or simply quality, many would say you shouldn't say an abridged series is better because it wouldn't exist without the original. I'm not one of those people, however, I do feel wholeheartedly that Danmachi is superior to How to be an Adventurer. Hopefully, if Yaroshien ever sees this, he can use this as writing advice. If not, well, it'll exist here as a thought experiment anyway.
So I'm going to divide this into sections to organize my thoughts a bit better because I'm not entirely sure where I'm going to end. I do know, however, where I want to begin, so let's go ahead and do that.
Communication
Communication by definition is the conveyance of information from one party to another. In books, it's using sentences to build a scene. In animation, it's using motion and shot composition to convey what's going on. And in games, it's scenario building to allow players to build their own stories.
Now, one thing Danmachi has that a lot of other fully abridged works don't is a brand new world with elements that need to be explained. The primary works I'm going to be referencing are Dragon Ball Z Abridged by TeamFourStar, Sword Art Online Abridged by Something Witty Entertainment, and Panic at the Hakusho by The Schmuck Squad since they all have different enough styles that talking about them can highlight points.
Now, Danmachi is a series that more than any of these except for YuYu Hakusho does explain itself as it goes on but one could argue it explains too much. By this, I'm referring to exposition, using dialogue to convey what should be conveyed through visuals. Now Dragon Ball, YuYu Hakusho, and Sword Art Online do explain themselves quite a bit but a lot of the time it may not be necessary. Some elements may require a more in-depth look, such as certain abilities in YuYu Hakusho, or the way the Game Design works in SAO but for the most part, everything is fairly straightforward. This is because they all make use of things that are either completely ubiquitous based on premise or is simple enough to convey visually.
For example the Kamehameha in Dragon Ball is an energy beam Goku shoots out of his hands. It hits the opponent and deals damage. It's fairly straightforward and most abilities in the series work like this, so no further explanation is needed once you see it in action. YuYu Hakusho has a bit more variety but in general nothing's so complicated that it requires a huge amount of exposition. Spirit Gun? Energy Projectile. Spirit Sword? A literal lightsaber. Rose Whip? A Whip made out of a rose. Fist of the Mortal Flame? Falcon Punch. It's usually fairly straightforward.
In Danmachi though, there are a few things that could potentially get in the way of conveying that information. For starters, an easy way to communicate visually is to state the name of the ability and then use it immediately after, preferably with some recognizable or iconic visuals. Some of these things are easy enough. For example, Bell's Firebolt spell is a flaming projectile, he uses it the same episode he acquires it, and it's literally called firebolt, so everybody is generally going to understand that it's a flaming projectile. However, if you didn't watch the main Danmachi series, and I threw the terms Liaris Freese, Hestia Knife, and Argonaut at you, would you have any idea what I'm referring to? Well, more than likely not because I didn't when I watched How to be an Adventurer.
Keep in mind, I watched Danmachi afterward because How to be an Adventurer piqued my interest in the series and I was struck by how much terminology that Yaroshien didn't explain when I finished Danmachi. For instance, in Danmachi, Liaris Freese is a passive ability Bell has that augments how quickly he levels up and makes him immune to charms. In How to be an Adventurer, Hestia just passes it off as puberty, which I didn't know what to make of at the time. In Danmachi, Hestia Knife is stated to be a weapon that aligns itself with its first user and augments its own strength to match that wielder as he levels up. In How to be an Adveturer, Hestia says it's a knife that's generally as strong as its wielder, which you could extrapolate logically that it gets stronger as the wielder does, though the implication is that Hestia gave the knife its name when it was actually Hephaestus who named it so point number 2. Finally, Argonaut, in the anime, is described as a spell that only activates when Bell is at a disadvantage and gives him the chance to turn the tide. It is then used alongside firebolt, with the description playing over its first use because Argonaut was a spell that was not used immediately after acquired in the main series. In How to be an Adventurer, Argonaut has no description, just Hestia saying "Little man wants to be a big hero" followed by a later scene where Bell describes the sparkles as Unicorn shits, which was definitely a joke but whether Yaro was the one joking or Bell was unclear the way the scene played out. Bell then used a firebolt that was seemingly stronger than normal and it left me wondering how he did that or why. It didn't occur to me to think it was Argonaut because I had no context for what Argonaut even was.
What I'm getting at is that the reason Danmachi explained this stuff is because not all of it would be readily obvious just from viewing, something Yaroshien proved beyond a shadow of a doubt. Other things get a variety of treatment like this. For example, I'll get more into this when I talk about the characters but I want to clarify that not everything that needs explanation is given one in How to be an Adventurer. In Danmachi, Freja is interested in Bell because he's Hestia's first familia member and is also startlingly powerful, thus she wants him for herself. In How to be an Adventurer, Freja's motivations are as yet unclear and her sarcastic attitude, combined with how sinister she comes off makes it seem like she's just evil for the sake of it. On its own it's fine, but if her motivation was changed, it was probably for the worse, or at least hasn't been explained yet. And if it hasn't been changed, the conveyance of that motivation isn't all that good.
In addition, Welf Crozzo in both versions has a clear aversion to Enchanted weapons, something that Danmachi makes a deal out of how strange it is but why is not made entirely clear in this first season. To be clear, he does state why he doesn't like enchanted weapons, and he shows what happens to them when used but it takes a battle with Ryu in the second season to fully solidify this reasoning. In How to be an Adventurer, that issue is still there, shown when Haphaestus says to him "Stop being a little bitch and make enchanted weapons again." But for most of the series this seems almost irrelevant, to the point that it's not even brought up until Hestia and her group make it to the safe zone on the 18th Floor.
Liliruca Arde has this issue where she needs to buy her way out of her familia because she doesn't want to be an adventurer anymore but in How to be an Adventurer, it's not made clear why she needed money to buy her way out. I guess based on the actions of her former party members you could argue they didn't value her, but if that's the case, how is letting her leave of her own volition any different from leaving her for dead? I don't get it and that just isn't explained.
In addition, while the firebolt spell itself is pretty self-explanatory, what isn't is how he acquired it. In Danmachi, the idea is that Bell read an enchanted book, goes through a psychological test, and forms the spell from his own being. In How to be Adventurer, Bell reads the book as if its a harem manga, sort of like Danmachi itself, then he falls asleep, deals with his inner demons, and then suddenly has the spell for no real reason. If you see the connection between these events, good for you, because I honestly wasn't able to. Without Danmachi for reference, that entire sequence just seemed really disjointed.
Now look at much of Dragon Ball Z Abridged. A lot of abilities either didn't need explanation or were conveyed rather deftly. In Season 1, Piccolo calls attention to the Multi-Form by name followed by him and Krillin multiplying themselves. Although they yell Kage Bunshin no Jutsu as a Naruto reference, it's pretty obvious based on context that the multiform creates multiple users. This was well before Tien properly explained the move during the Cell Games. In addition, Goku's battle against Vegeta has him on the losing side but when he announces Kaioken, he suddenly does a lot better but ends up hurt, indicating that the Kaioken increases his power in exchange for hurting him. This is also well conveyed. These are two of the only abilities in all of Z that required any form of explanation and TeamFourStar managed it without needing any unnecessary words and without leaving any ambiguity.
SAO Abridged changes a lot of elements about SAO proper but it still makes an effort to explain the retcons as if it's its own dedicated series, showing how Something Witty understand audience participation.
Explanation is pretty minimal in Panic at the Hakusho. However, again, much of what needed explaining isn't actually present in these two episodes so everything else can be conveyed visually.
Characters
Okay, so the prior section was about the lack of information conveyance but I ultimately tried to keep it to things that Danmachi and How to be an Adventurer have in common to exemplify this. This is because any difference Yaroshien himself adds he would have to explain himself. You can't really blame Danmachi for not explaining elements of How to be an Adventurer but you can blame How to be an Adventurer for not explaining relevant elements of Danmachi. In this section, however, I'm going to go over changes in the character writing because some aspects of this baffle me to an extent.
I'm going to be ignoring Episode 2 largely as that episode is comprised very heavily of iconic movie and youtube quotes to the point that it actually contradicts character logic in a way other episodes don't. And since Yaroshien has stated that that's just how he wrote at the time, I won't harp on about that. I will, however, talk about other changes that I find confusing.
Probably the single biggest change made is to the front and center focus on sex and sexuality. Some of it is to be expected. For example, the Olympian Gods were known to frequently have sex with humans even in their original myths, and Freja is the Norse Goddess of Fertility so having her be completely asexual just wouldn't make sense.
On the other hand, there are other changes that seem harmless on the surface but may not be executed all that well. For instance, Liliruca being changed from a potential love interest into a regular friend is a fairly innocuous change, and the scene facilitating it is probably the best in How to be an Adventurer but so much outside of it doesn't help it all that well so it seems like a bright spot in an otherwise net loss.
In addition, Welf Crozzo is made gay, Ryu is a lesbian, and Aiz is a creepy stalker, all seemingly for no real reason. On the one hand, the former two things work as part of a larger character dynamic, with Welf's homosexuality being a point of bonding with him and Bell, and Ryu's lack of interest in men making it easier for Bell to relate to her as an overall person. On the other hand, these changes were seemingly only necessary because of the focus on sexuality and while you could argue that making Welf gay adds to his character, the same cannot be said for Ryu's lesbianism. Sure she may not be too kind toward men but that could've been possible regardless of her sexual orientation. I think more needed to be present in order to justify such a pointless change.
That said, of these three, Aiz takes the prize for most unnecessary change not only because I don't understand why it was made but also because the change detracts from her characterization. There are plenty of scenes that, while heavily altered, are present that don't make a lot of sense with this new characterization. For instance, the joke about Bete having a tiny dick is pretty immature overall and is not nearly as good of a reason for Aiz to dislike him as him just being full of himself, which is the main draw for liking Bell in general, that being that he's quite a bit more humble. Aiz beating the crap out of Bell doesn't make a lot of sense even in the inner workings that are elaborated on to some extent in How to be a Mage, especially since we don't know how Bell got into that situation in the first place, and it seems like that situation would've been easy enough for Bell to escape.
Then there are the Amazon sisters Tione and Tiona, who aren't necessarily all that different, though their interest in Bell doesn't really make much sense to me at least without the context from the main series. That said, every character seems to become much stronger by the time of the last 2 episodes. However, I don't attribute this to character development. Character development is a character changing but for it to classify, it has to be stimulated by things that occur within the series. If the character changes without a catalyst, it's just an inconsistency. The character changes don't make the characters inconsistent, however. Rather what I think is going on is that Yaroshien by this point has a better idea of how he wants these characters' personalities to work and is doing a better job of demonstrating it. This isn't better writing, however, it's better direction. The difference is that the writing is the quality of the script whereas the direction is more about the execution of the final product.
Odd Out of Place Details
The following is just going to be a collection of things about How to be an Adventurer that I noticed that bothered me since I don't know exactly how else to describe these things. None of these things are huge by any means but they all grate on me more and more as I think about them.
Okay so this one's pretty late in the series but it bothers me the most, Yaroshien choosing to use the Futurama meme of Snu Snu. For context, in Futurama there are a group of women on an amazon planet that are large, muscular, and illiterate. Because of this, they're barely able to speak English in any capacity. This is why the staff gave them the term Snu Snu. It's not that it's a made up group of words, it seems like it's a shorthand for snuggle and the amazons just say that because that's how they understand the term.
Meanwhile, Tione brings up to Bell that she would Snu Snu him if not for the fact that Aiz was watching them. Someone like Bell would probably have figured out by context that it meant sex, as would most of the viewers who hadn't seen Futurama, as the ones who had would've noticed the reference immediately. However, when the term is used later, Tiona explains that it means sex in amazoness. This grates on me for more or less a single reason: language.
You see, in Futurama, the amazons didn't necessarily have their own language, they just weren't very literate and thus not very articulate. So a nonsense word like snu snu doesn't have to make sense to a native English speaker because it's just a syllable used to convey some type of action. However, in How to be an Adventurer, firstly, Tione and Tiona are literate, we know this because they can speak full and complex English statements so such a syllable isn't really necessary. And secondly, it doesn't seem like the amazons should have their own language to begin with. Especially since it looks like everybody speaks the same language, why would the amazons not only have their own language but a language where its only known word is complete nonsense?
This bothers me because Yaroshien has been complemented in the past for the details he adds to the series that flesh out the world and the characters. However, I'm wondering how true that actually is. For instance, the scene where Hestia reads propaganda about half-elves seems like it fleshes out the world but all it does is serve to justify Hestia's hatred of Eina. Not only that but we never actually see the person spreading this propaganda so it ultimately has no payoff. It's really only there as a joke about racism.
The idea of the unworthy at the hostess of fertility is used as a joke for the first two episodes but it's never made clear what makes someone unworthy. Even Bell himself finds out that he is worthy but he never finds out why. I guess, using Seer's jokes as what we have to go on, that the worthy are men who can defy his urges, and the unworthy are hornballs, thus the room for the unworthy is where they go to fuck Mamamia. Without knowing for certain though, it's just a random joke, it adds nothing to the series.
Then in Episode 6 or 7 when Hestia wants to send out a search party to rescue Bell for "fuck aerobics" Eina is uncharacteristically antagonistic about it. Putting to one side that that doesn't make sense even in the context of changes to Eina's character, when Hestia asks to speak to the manager, Eina puts on a fake mustache and uses a really bad southern american accent. Again, ignoring the fact that there shouldn't even be an america given the time frame, when Hestia says she doesn't want to play this game, Eina rips off the mustache and replies "Then don't hit start." Now this is transparently a reference to old video game consoles in which the way you get past the splash screen is to hit the start button, a dedicated button on most controllers pre-PS4 but again, ignoring how this joke will age now that start buttons are becoming a rarer occurrence, Eina has no reason to even know what a start button is given that there are no video game consoles in the entire series.
Sure Bell had a joke earlier about elevators only to be proven wrong about one. However, we do see in the series that Elevators exist elsewhere so it's not like Bell was wishing for something he didn't know existed, he just thought that particular complex didn't have one. This entire scene with Eina though relies on a lot of jokes that don't make sense in the context of the series. And between the references having no context in universe and Eina being out of character in this scene, it ultimately results in a bunch of reference jokes that aren't even that funny even if you do get them.
Augments and Neutrals
Everything before this probably made it sound like I dislike How to be an Adventurer so let me just quote Zeus real quick. "I'm not a dick, so I don't criticize and not give a solution." So in that spirit, let's go over things Yaroshien did right. Because there are things I think are valid praise here.
Firstly, the gods have way more personality. Barring Hestia, nearly every god is given solid characterization without too many changes. In particular, Loki as a trickster who's just happy perving on Aiz makes a surprising amount of sense and explains why nobody would suspect Freja of any evil besides free prostitution. Takemikazuchi and Mioch also have distinct personalities but are actually handled very differently from the anime. They're both made bolder but not to the point of irritation. Mioch's interactions with Hestia are some of the most entertaining because he's a funny irish stereotype and Take's interactions with Hestia really sell that the two are the best of friends in a way the anime simply didn't.
Liliruca also being changed from a harem element to just a regular friend is a welcome change. Although I think it'd still make more sense for her to be part of the harem, the scene facilitating this change is easily the best in the whole series and Bell's reason for rescuing her makes way more sense in this version given what we came to know about him in Danmachi. Also having Lili just be friends is a way to break the tradition of women becoming part of a harem in a way that satisfies, unlike Ryu who is simultaneously a lesbian and standoffish.
Speaking of Ryu, though, while I don't necessarily agree with the changes to her character, her portrayal, line deliveries, and dialogue are easily some of the best writing the series has and her voice actress deserves major props for selling the whole "I'm barely hiding my hatred for you" thing she has going on. I don't know what she did exactly but whatever it was, she should keep doing it.
Welf's changes don't make too much sense but the gayness being something he and Bell can bond over is something that adds a little bit of spice to their dynamic and is also well seeded by the scene of Bell facing his inner demons. Other things in the series are changed, added or removed just to facilitate some joke but in this case I think the payoff was worth it.
Also while I don't like Aiz' creepy stalker thing as much as her main Danmachi portrayal, it at least creates a nice joke where Aiz and Hestia finally meet and Hestia gets territorial for a much better reason than "Because I'm the goddess and I say so."
Also, making Hestia's feelings front and center helps facilitate some things that I thought were weird in Danmachi season 1. In the anime, Hestia holds back her feelings for Bell because it's implied that his admiration of Aiz is what makes Liaris Freece work. Although season 2 suggests that it's just a general desire to be better since Aiz is pushed into the back in Season 2, so it's nice that that little misunderstanding is removed in favor of a territorial girlfriend.
I would complement the presentation elements like the editing, sound, voice acting, etc. However, everybody who has seen Yaroshien before knows that that stuff is standard fare for him. He and his team if he has one are really good at the whole presentation thing so I don't think I need to go over what makes it good. Just keep it up, Yaro.
Conclusion
When all is said and done, I just want How to be an Adventurer to be a better series. To aid that goal, let's go over just the cliffnotes of my advice real quick: explain necessary elements a little better, think out your jokes and references before you make them, and try to find better reasons for the character's dynamics with each other. Especially Ryu because I don't know how you expect to work with her going into Season 2.
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