So due to the copious amounts of fluffy white stuff falling from the sky, I have been cooped up inside watching anime and knitting random articles of clothing to keep my father warm. One of the anime I have come into contact with is Sands of Destruction.

Meh...the opening was forgettable. The music was okay and the animation was okay. All in all, it was simply okay.

Sands of Destruction is based on a Japanese RPG of the same name. It takes place in a world ruled by anthropomorphic creatures called Beasts and all the oceans of the world have turned to sand. Humans are slaves and there are some Beast-Men (half human, half beast) who are kind of like the middle class of society. The main protagonist of the story, Kyrie Illunis, was working in a Beast-Men cafe until a member of the "World Destruction Committee", a girl named Morte, reveals him to be a human posing as a Beast-Man. Morte is in possession of a ball called the Destruct Code which will destroy the world when set off. Morte and Kyrie strike up a....friendship, and they travel the world with a talking bear so that they can destroy the world.

This is one of those anime that you really want to be good. Unfortunately, not so. The first episode was great. The premise is fantastic and the voice-acting was really good. But then the story came up..... I don't know what happened! Here was an anime that had promise and could have been really amazing, but it completely fell flat.

There were tons of holes in the story, I wasn't convinced by the characters, there was practically no chemistry between Kyrie and Morte (supposed "love interests"), and there was this talking teddy bear that said "kuma" at the end of every sentence. IT WAS FRICKIN' OBNOXIOUS! The characters even commented on how weird it sounded. And then, when the teddy bear says that he can't do that, kuma, it is a symbol of honor in my tribe, kuma, you kind of expect him to go on about his tribe and where he came from. And does he? NO! Instead, they fill up the space with the three of them walking down the hall. And another thing that bugged me, while they are walking, the Destruct Code gets pick-pocketed by some random fox-chick, and Morte doesn't notice? She's supposed to be this bad-ass warrior babe and she doesn't even notice that she's been robbed? Highly unlikely.

And then there's the issue of the animation... It started out good; the beginning was well-animated and convincing. But then as the episodes progressed, the animation quickly went downhill. The facial expressions of the characters didn't match with the emotion in the voices and made it seem like they were just coming out of a Botox session and their faces were frozen.

All in all, I wish this could've been better, but sadly, it wasn't.

Art: 10

Originality: 22

Dialogue: 10

Story: 11

Total Score: 53

Well, that's all for now, folks! Stay warm.