Arknights: Perish in Frost

Rebel organization Reunion has reduced the city of Chernobog to ashes and despair. That is only the beginning of its uprising against the nations prejudiced toward those infected with the highly contagious and deadly disease Oripathy. Now, the rebels have set their sights on Lungmen—a prosperous city infamous for its inhumane treatment of the sick. After witnessing Reunion destroy her homeland, Chief Ch'en of the Lungmen Guard Department's Special Inspection Unit leads her squad to defend her city.

Meanwhile, Amiya, the Doctor, and the rest of the advanced pharmaceutical company Rhodes Island continue to oppose Reunion on all fronts. However, they soon find themselves in a deadlock against a powerful enemy: FrostNova, a Reunion commander whose fearsome wintry powers cause anyone unfortunate enough to stand in her way to slowly perish in frost.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Amiya Main

Kurosawa, Tomoyo Japanese

FrostNova Main

Takagaki, Ayahi Japanese

Ch'en Main

Ishigami, Shizuka Japanese

Doctor Main

Kaida, Yuki Japanese

W Supporting

Taketatsu, Ayana Japanese

Texas Supporting

Tadokoro, Azusa Japanese

Exusiai Supporting

Iwami, Manaka Japanese

Kal'tsit Supporting

Hikasa, Youko Japanese

Talulah Supporting

Sakamoto, Maaya Japanese

Hoshiguma Supporting

Yasuno, Kiyono Japanese

Pei, Yanjie Producer

Hata, Takehiro Producer

Watanabe, Yuuki Director, Sound Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Nishikawa, Masaki Episode Director, Assistant Director

Reviews

May 11, 2024

Evalith

Recommended

Arknights Perish in Frost is a solid substitute for the game's main story, elevating certain parts but dropping the ball on some. This season was produced fully in house by Yostar Pictures, an experimental decision and it shows as the quality of the drawings, cinematography and animation has clearly improved compared to season 1, though despite the improvement, Yostar Pictures is a young studio that couldn't maintain the high quality for all episodes, and one episode in particular suffered severely for it. The pacing was a bit too fast and could've used 2 more episodes for more breathing room, but at times the faster pacing ... also cut some weak content from the game, and the rearranging of events helped the story flow better than the disorienting pacing and perspective shifts the game has at times. While season 1 lacked blood at some key moments, season 2 was more than willing to show some brutality, even surpassing the game at some points.

Through the impressively expressive character drawings, immersive atmosphere and tension filled scenes, they manage to draw you in and get you invested in characters you barely know or only just met, ally and foe alike. You get to understand both sides of the conflict and their flaws. How those in control weaponize fear and anger to make people fight and kill each other when they would otherwise share mutual interests.
This isn't a story where systematic problems are easily solved by the protagonists, this is a story that doesn't fear stating reality, the reality that conflict won't just disappear if today's problems and issues are solved, but that's not to confuse the story with being overly cynical or depressing, there is always someone fighting for a better world, slowly, but surely making change, carrying the torch for those who've lost their lives for a better tomorrow they'll never see.

The voice acting is absolutely top tier with Ayahi Takagaki playing Frostnova especially giving a heartbreaking performance, headphones recommended!
The art style is strikingly good, the atmosphere, the multiple layers of rain to give it that realistic depth, the subtle rain drops slowly running down a window, the way things are framed like it's live action, how visually dark it's willing to get without compromising the amount of fore/background detail, the music being spine-chilling and the realistic sound effects rather than bass boosted sound effects that feel inescapable nowadays. Yostar Pictures has done a fantastic job in all these, though my biggest complaint here would be that we don't see many civilians that inhabit what should be a very populated city.

Since the start of Studio Yostar Pictures they've worked on both these seasons like it was 1 season split in 2 cours. They've done a solid job so far, but there's still plenty of room for improvement. Now that they've hopefully had some breathing room I'm looking forward to the next season with high expectations.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jan 14, 2024

Camo_III

Mixed Feelings

Lots of potential, but ultimately falls a little short. I think the anime could have been significantly improved if they made one or all three of the following better:
- Fight scenes - they seemed particularly boring, and with the budget they had they should have focused on at least one or two good ones
- Characterization - I feel like we should've had more time with people on reunion's side, but honestly a longer runtime would've been necessary for that. Fleshing out Frostnova a little more could've been done and maybe the Rhodes Island operators too.
- Worldbuilding - the backgrounds and background characters are noticeably dull, ... in fact we only ever see civilians a few times in what is essentially downtown Hong Kong. Rooms are empty, roadways clear of all debris, etc. Doesn't feel very "lived in". Why doesn't Lungmen have any aircraft like R.I.? Why is the only thing the security forces or even enemies do is stand around? Why do they just fight in blobs and not in formations? Honestly if they nailed this it would've just been an automatic 10/10.

Only writing this review cause I love the world Arknights is set in and unfortunately the anime doesn't do it much justice. At least character design is on point.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jan 28, 2024

Senpaika

Not Recommended

Funny

Arknights is a good animation that meets a horrible story. It is such a boring show because of the no-brainer story that any 5-year-old could write. You don't get any real action, nothing. Most episodes feel so boring and when it comes to action scenes they are the most boring ones I have ever seen. They would be even more enjoyable if they straight-up inserted a tower defence scene from the mobile game. The enemies have such boring personalities with no real character, fights make no sense and on top of it, most of the time you will be more like let's play the actual ... game then watch this.
The only plus about this show is a good-looking animation.
If you enjoyed the previous Arknights series and still can remember anything from them, you will enjoy this one too because it's exactly the same copy-paste boring anime as the previous iterations.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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