REVIEW: ‘New Saga’ Offers A Satisfying Regression Experience

New Saga from Studio Clutch is an interesting regression anime that blends many of the standard fantasy anime tropes with impeccable worldbuilding and narrative progression. While many of the anime’s elements are familiar, it executes them incredibly well, resulting in a viewing experience with few drawbacks.

New Saga starts with a detailed but short exposition dump. It explains the thousands of years of conflicts between humanoids and demonic creatures, their nature, and history. After thousands of years, the races coexisted for quite some time, but the reign of a new demon lord eventually disrupted this peace. This prompts another war, forcing the protagonist, Kyle (Yuma Uchida), and his friends to participate.

Kyle makes it to the end of the demon lord’s fortress and even defeats him, but not before losing all his friends, family, and loved ones in the long battle. Despite being the grand hero, Kyle laments over his tribulations as he prepares to succumb to his wounds.

New Saga avoids excessive exposition while raising the stakes for Kyle.

Unsurprisingly, this doesn’t happen as he instead finds a relic on the demon lord’s throne, which takes him four years back in time. He happily reunites with his friends and his mom, then proclaims his goal of preventing the same future, no matter what.

The first episode of New Saga does an excellent job of making viewers care for the characters and, by extension, the overarching narrative and Kyle’s grand time-defying quest. It also helps that the anime displays excellent worldbuilding from the outset, showing and telling us about the various races, their history, the magic system, and abilities, all while avoiding excessive exposition.

It also fantastically shows how high the stakes are for Kyle and the human race in tow, as if he fails his quest, the war between the races will break out, leading to the same grim future. All these elements combined make for a highly engaging start that makes viewers care about the narrative from the get-go.

The subtle political plays between kingdoms become a highlight as the season goes on.

Subsequent episodes show Kyle using his knowledge of the future methodically and intelligently. His plan to become a hero, leverage his renown, and make connections to gain power to help in the war to come and rally others is fantastic. Each episode contributes well to it.

Throughout the season, Kyle makes numerous moves, resulting in several pivotal moments. These include getting wealth and several powerful magic weapons early, saving a princess that was otherwise fated to die, and killing a demon before he becomes a threat, to name a few.

Kyle manages to accomplish all this in a short time, and you can’t help but admire how well he executes these plans and how impeccably well-paced the anime is. Nothing feels skipped, rushed, or too long. Additionally, watching the subtle political plays between kingdoms through Kyle and his actions, especially at the tail end of the season, is quite entertaining. Each major event is portrayed quite well.

However, while Kyle succeeds in all his plans so far, the anime also does well to adapt how changing the future will inevitably alter outcomes and how future events will unfold along a path he cannot foresee. We already see the result of his changes, like characters that were once allies becoming enemies, and how letting a demon report back to the current demon king will inevitably lead to a different future he won’t be familiar with.

These inclusions demonstrate the thoughtfulness of the anime’s narrative, making it incredibly engaging. Moreover, the anime’s characters, especially the four main characters making up Kyle’s party, are incredibly endearing. Watching their humorous interactions is always great.

However, while a lot happens in the first season, it’s clear that a lot more needs to be done in Kyle’s journey, and as a result, many more episodes are needed to adapt the full story. This is especially because the final episode leaves things on a cliffhanger with Kyle meeting someone important, which is disappointing.

Sotsu and Studio Clutch deliver solid fights in New Saga.

In addition to the narrative, New Saga features several animated fights by Sotsu and Studio Clutch. While they’re all decently animated, there aren’t many action scenes in the season, and the few there are are too short. Only Kyle’s fight with a hydra and the demon lord are memorable and show decent choreography. The rest pale in comparison. Outside fight scenes, the overall visuals are solid but not astounding.

Models are crisp and decently detailed, and special effects, character motions, and expressions are standard and inoffensive. The only issue is the few ugly CG models of horses and miscellaneous objects, but they’re rarely distracting.

Overall, New Saga is an incredibly entertaining anime with an outstanding, well-thought-out narrative. While its production quality is middling, the characters, worldbuilding, and story more than make up for it.

New Saga streaming now on Crunchyroll.