Well, the TBATE anime just got announced.
And I am dreading it. Every hardcore fan of TBATE that I've talked to is—if not dreading the anime—then they're worried about it. Among the people who truly care for the source material, nobody is purely looking forward to what should be a really good thing. The story itself is generic isekai for the first five volumes, and there's nothing worthwhile to put on the screen.
Your only options for an anime adaptation are an extremely rushed first few arcs, or seasons of slop. There is no winning here, especially as more and more worrying news surfaces about the chosen studio.
I love TBATE. I've written 1.3 million words on this story as a fanfic because I love it. I deeply care for the characters there and want to see them given their worth, but I do not think that will happen.
I'm worried about this for more reasons than one. I've felt for a long time that TurtleMe—the author of TBATE—has been emotionally done with the story for a while. I got the sense during the middle parts of Volume 10 when the story itself started to stagnate in readership and characters and opportunities kind of fell flat, as well as when certain chapters and arcs were deliberately rushed through Volume 11.
Adding onto that, Volume 11 might have been the most disappointing ending to a book I've ever read. TBATE isn't anything truly special, but what set it apart was the Legacy plotline that set up unique avenues for Arthur to explore and grow. And that was fumbled, pushed aside, and rushed past. So much of what made TBATE great was lost in that ending.
I can't help but worry that this anime will be more of the same. I worry it's going to be a Record of Ragnarok anime situation or another Rings of Power. I worry that we're approaching the domain of a cash grab rather than something crafted with love.
Ultimately, the only way I can kinda cope with the falloff of this story I love so deeply is by writing my fanfiction and pretending that this is my fix. I'm feeling a lot of things, and most of them are worry and dread. I can pretend that I'm not a man watching the thing he loved gradually wither away into dust, powerless to do anything but watch.
I don't know. I feel like I needed to say my piece about it considering how much investment I've put into the story for so long. At the end of the day, I'm just a man yapping on the internet. No matter what happens, though, I'll be writing DN in the background, hoping as I always do.