Zenshu has me intrigued. Natsuko Hirose is a successful animator who, after her first anime was a runaway success, is now struggling with her second project and is taking on more and more of the work. As a result, she dies from overwork and wakes up in her favorite anime, A Tale of Perishing. This anime was very dark with the world suffering and possibly destroyed, while also psychologically breaking its lead hero, Luke Braveheart. Natsuko’s knowledge of the story leads her to try to warn the hero’s party of what is coming, and when a major event starts to happen, her brush starts talking to her to draw. In doing so she is able to create whatever she draws and change the story.
As dark a premise as this sounds, there is a lot of humor mixed in as well. For most of the episode we never see Natsuko’s face because her long hair blocks it, showing that she doesn’t care about her appearance. The hero’s party at first thinks she is a monster. She freaks out that she shouldn’t be in an Isekai because she wasn’t a NEET and had a job so she doesn’t qualify. Also one of the members of the party is called Unio, who looks like a cute stuffed animal but who also is supposed to die tragically and start Luke’s fall into despair. So there are a lot of tonal shifts.
This was very much a set-up episode, building up Natsuko’s back story of a love of creating, and how A Tale of Perishing inspired her to become an animator when many others didn’t get it. Next she acclimates to where she is and tries to figure out what to do. She gets into fights with the heroes, and tells them off for being rude for not giving her food. Then there is the final reveal of her powers when danger is coming. Seeing the animation of her creating in this world was very detailed. Her desk and drawing material just appear in wonderful colors and build up what she creates to change the plot and save the day. It was pretty and I enjoyed it, but I hope that not every time she draws it is that intricate because it took a lot of time.
The first episode of Zenshu whetted my appetite to see how this story is going to move forward. Now that the rest of the cast knows Natsuko’s worth, what will the dynamic be between them? The world has been devastated and the threat is cataclysmic in scope. How dark will they go with this concept? Luke seems to be the generic hero character but we get clips of his future of depression and deeper depths. Natsuko already has a built-in reason to care about these characters with her love of this story, yet seems to dislike them as people at least to start with, which is a fun change from the usual storyline of people getting isekaied into a world they know and love.
I can see a show like this taking a while to fully come into focus, but right now I am willing to see where it goes.
Zenshu will air on Crunchyroll Sunday, January 5, 2025.
