Leviathan

To get it across nice and quick. Should you watch this? Yeah Give it a shot. Animation is pretty. Sharp is really charming. World is interesting enough.

Most of the "issues" with this show come from the source material that being a young adult book. Melodramatic, world building isn't super deep, story plot points you can see coming from miles away and themes being whatever. But those don't break it or drag it down, just make it less then exceptional.


Something notable about this is the animation and mechanics of piloting the storm walker as something genuinely stunning. Getting a understand how this machine ... works and in how short of a time it's done is an achievement.

That's all.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic — and just as dangerous."
— Arthur C. Clarke.

A brief preface: I haven't read the trilogy, so to a large extent, though not entirely, my assessment will be not as a reader, but as an ordinary viewer, which I'm sure most of us are.

In 2009, American writer Scott Westerfeld wrote the first book of the trilogy of the same name, entitled Leviathan, which takes place in an alternate version of World War I. The book tells the story of the hostility between two sides: Darwinists and Mechanists. Two more books were released, continuing the story. The trilogy ... itself was very popular with many readers, receiving various awards at the time, such as the Aurealis Award, and now, in 2024, Netflix has announced an entire anime series, which, to everyone's disappointment, consists of 12 episodes and adapts LITERALLY THREE BOOKS. Peter Jackson, with his Lord of the Rings trilogy, couldn't have dreamed of such a thing even in his worst nightmares...

As I said, the plot covers the events of World War I taking place in an alternate universe where the coalitions we know have been replaced by two warring factions: the Darwinists and the Mechanists:

Darwinists (the British Empire and its allies) are people who use biological technologies (biopunk) developed with the help of Darwin.

Mechanists (Austria-Hungary, Germany, and their allies) are people who use advanced mechanisms and technologies based on steam engines (steampunk).

These are two completely different ideologies, with their own views on the concept of "technological progress," a kind of enmity between those who extol the machine revolution and those who extol nature as a gift and an inexhaustible resource. But how is this enmity portrayed in the series? In a completely childish way, that is, it is not portrayed at all. Battles are decided in a fraction of a second with seemingly meaningless actions. Critics themselves presented the Leviathan trilogy as "a mixture for young people," but the adaptation itself raises questions without providing answers, apparently considering "young people" to be fools. The only explanation for the ideological confrontation is "we think they are bad, and their technology is nonsense," without any philosophy or analysis. The war itself is shown through roughly the same prism: nothing happens in it, all the characters tread water and invent problems out of thin air. But what does the entire viewing time of the series consist of? Battles and drama.

The main characters of this work are two characters, Alexander and Derin, each of whom belongs to a certain side, apparently for the convenience of the author in showing the life and character of each of the warring coalitions? No.

Each of these characters has their own story. Alexander is the direct heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, who lost his parents and is on the run, while Derin is a girl who lost her father and, in order to join the army, cut her hair short and began to pretend to be a boy. At first, in the early episodes, a lot of attention was paid to character development. Alexander resisted the burden placed on his shoulders, and Derin skillfully used her voice and underwent military training, but everything went awry when the characters came face to face, and too much screen time was devoted to their relationship. Yes, of course, this is important because the characters are truly opposed to each other, and this is excellent ground for ideological disputes, but, as I mentioned earlier, this was not given attention, and their motivations became unclear. As for the secondary characters, they are empty shells created for the masses and to advance the plot.

One reader noted: "Perhaps one of the main advantages of the novel is its vivid descriptions of unusual creatures and mechanisms," which we hardly see in the anime adaptation. Of course, we are given a good visual representation of the technologies on both sides, but the principle behind how they work remains behind the scenes. The mechanics' technology is just a pile of iron that somehow works with a steam engine, but when it comes to the Darwinists, things are much more interesting. To understand the biologists' technology, we need to turn to Leviathan itself. What is it? The biblical Leviathan from our world is a sea monster, a symbol of chaos and untamed power. In Leviathan itself, it is also a sea monster, a whale raised into the sky with the help of biotechnology. Its engines are huge jellyfish that emit hydrogen, and inside the whale itself are beehives, which are fermented by bacteria, causing the whale to fart and emit hydrogen again. Science fiction is one of the genres of the work, and yet it is really funny.

Looking at all the flaws, it's worth mentioning the pros, and that's obviously the animation. When Netflix announced the adaptation, it was revealed that Orange, known for spectacular 3D works such as Beastars and Trigun Stampede, would be the studio behind it. Therefore, I think no one had any doubts that the picture would turn out to be truly colorful, and that's how it turned out. The technology is shown in detail, the characters have their own style, and their emotions and movements are well portrayed. The low frame rate will, of course, seem overly "eye-searing" to some, but this is common for 3D anime, especially if you have seen other works. The Hollywood standard of 24 frames per second is unacceptable for Japanese animation, where the frame rate is deliberately reduced for both 2D and 3D animation.

If we compare people's reviews of the book trilogy and the ratings of the anime show, we can come to a simple conclusion: the adaptation did not do its job well. If the book received good reviews, then the adaptation seems like some kind of unfinished experiment. Its main problem lies precisely in the timing, in which it is impossible to combine the abundance of dialogue/scenes with a competent disclosure of the characters and the war in which they find themselves. The production team bet on spectacle, but they lost that bet. Even the Harry Potter film universe cut out a lot of material, which they want to compensate for with the release of the series, but here the creators decided to cram a huge number of pages into a mere 12 episodes, very clever. Read the books, friends. Maybe someday I'll start reading books instead of watching adaptations like this.

This was pretty garbage. And it's such a waste too, since the first episode set up the world up so well. I mean an alternate WW1 universe with mechs and zeppelins, it could've been so sick.

Now I don't want to write a super detailed review on this, but it handles like a typical modern Disney film, with the typical lesbian involved, the simple lessons learned, and previously stated, wasted potential. I mean for one, take the Sultan shown around episode 6, when Mr. Sharp first meets him, he's hyped up to be a main antagonist, with ... a giant mech behind him handling the negotiations. But what happens to the Sultan? He's just forgotten about. This could've been an epic and excellent way to show off Alex's handling of the mech and his care for freeing the ottoman people, especially with how much the Sultan's mech was hyped up, even being in the opening. And I'm only mentioning this example here, but there's so many other unexplored routes that could've happened.

Animation is okay for 3d animation, but that's not saying much considering just how bad most 3d animation looks, but I guess it doesn't hamper the show too much.

The main character Alexender also doesn't make much sense, it's shown that he truly loved his mother and father, yet when their killed he's only depressed for a few episodes, then it just kind of ends. Again, wasted potential here, this could've been an amazing way to deal with revenge and letting things ago. This also applies to when Klopp dies.

Now I do want to mention that this is an adaptation of a book from 2007, so I can't blame the director and animation studios too much. I haven't read the book, so it could amazing compared to the anime, or even worse.

So, to summarize, this anime is wasted potential. With an amazing first episode, yet with the rest of the show failing to follow through, ultimately falling apart. And in the first episode, Alexender is shown to talented. He's playing chess with himself, which would signal to the viewer that he's at least somewhat of a strategist, but no. No revenge or hatred on Serbia for his parents' death, no hatred for the Sultan's men killing Klopp... I mean seriously? So, for my final rating, it's extremely mid, being a 5/10 and I'd only recommend this if you like the visuals.

(P.S tho, the piano intro song is amazing)