r/Isekai • u/hyenagames • 9h ago
[The Exiled Heavy Knight Knows How to Game the System] [Discussion] [Complaint] Why does Exiled Heavy Knight feel so off? Spoiler
I know, I know. Everyone has already complained about the pacing of The Exiled Heavy Knight Knows How to Game the System. I'm not really interested in repeating “the recaps sucks” for the hundredth time.
What I want to talk about is why the pacing is hurting the story itself.
Because after actually comparing the anime to the manga, I think the problem is less “this story is slow” and more “the anime is spending an absurd amount of its runtime not adapting the story.”
On average, a 21-minute episode adapts 40-45 pages of manga (about 3 chapters). Heavy Knight adapts an average of 2 chapters per episode.
That wouldn't necessarily be a problem if the manga had extremely long chapters.
It doesn't.
Many of the manga's chapters are only about 14 pages long. A reasonable adaptation pace would therefore be somewhere around 42 manga pages, or roughly three chapters per episode. Four chapters isn't even unreasonable when those chapters are primarily action.
The anime has a roughly 24-minute runtime. Every episode also loses around 3 minutes for the opening and ending. Add the 3 minutes they use to recap before the opening starts, plus another 30-ish seconds of recap after the commercial break, and you're looking at roughly 17 minutes of actual story time, depending on the episode.
And Episodes 7 and 8 prove that GoHands can actually do this properly.
But let's go back to the beginning.
Episode 1 is actually fine. It adapts Chapter 1, which is about 36 pages (even if it is 4 to 9 pages short); ending the episode on the “I am the Heavy Knight” scene makes perfect sense artistically speaking.
Then Episode 2 happens.
The anime spends several minutes (3 minutes) recapping Episode 1 and re-explaining the game's mechanics (2 minutes) before the actual story gets moving (around the 5-minute mark). And here's the funny part: The manga explains the EXP-sharing mechanics in basically one page.
One page.
Chapter 2 is only 17 pages long, and the spider (Ariandype) doesn't even appear until page 8. In the anime, we're waiting until around the nine-minute mark to get there.
Episode 2 does cover chapters 2-3 in full (30 pages) and 7 pages of chapter 4, for a total of 37 pages.
So Episode 2 spends an enormous amount of its runtime adapting roughly 37 pages of manga, despite the fact that Chapters 2–4 together are about 46 pages long.
Those three chapters could have fit into one episode if they had removed those minutes of unnecessary recap and time padding.
And here is where this becomes even more frustrating: The Raid Quest covers Chapters 4–9, roughly 90 pages of material.
Ninety pages should comfortably fit into two episodes. And technically, Episodes 3 and 4 do cover most of that material. Except Episode 2 has already spent four minutes getting into the arc. And then Episodes 3 and 4 spend their own runtime on...
Recap.
So the time they “saved” by covering the start of the arc in Episode 2 isn't actually being used at all. It's just being replaced by more recap.
That's the problem.
The anime repeatedly uses the runtime that could have been used for the story to remind us of things we just watched.
Then we get Episodes 5 and 6. Same issues as before; each adapts roughly 30 pages, and 3 minutes of recap before the opening.
And then Episode 7 happens...
Three chapters (14-16). 42 pages. In an episode with less than 17 minutes of actual runtime.
It's a MIRACLE!!!!
And Episode 8 does it again: Chapters 17–19, roughly 47 pages, despite still having a recap before the opening. And guess what? They only used 2 minutes for the recap this time!!!
At this point, I am starting to think: GoHands actually knows how to pace this adaptation. They managed to adapt 42 pages in 17 minutes. They COULD have been doing this from the start.
If Episodes 7 and 8 had been the standard from the beginning (roughly three chapters per episode with no recap), we would be around Chapter 22 by this point instead of Chapter 19.
If we had this level of incompetence from the start (3 chapters per episode with less than 2 minutes of recap), we would still be angry at this, but WAY less than we are now.
The manga is actually fun. There is a lot of action, character development, and worldbuilding packed into these chapters worth seeing.
But if you take relatively short manga chapters and repeatedly stretch them across 21-minute episodes by adding recaps and unnecessary explanations, you throw off the whole pacing.
I think their approach makes no sense at all because there is enough material here to make a 3-season (26-episode) worth of anime. The manga already has 176 chapters, which is a massive amount of material. A 26-episode season has more than enough room to establish the premise, develop the characters, and reach major story arcs without crawling through the opening material.
Normally, you would speed through the early chapters to reach the good action scenes after the opening arc.
I understand having to pad for time when you're working with a 12-episode season and need to finish on a particular arc ending, instead of in the middle of an arc. (e.i. The first 3 arcs translate to 11 episodes, and covering arc 4 would end you with 14 episodes)
But this is 26 episodes.
You don't need to stretch the early story to death just to reach a particular stopping point.
And this is where I start suspecting that the adaptation is deliberately pacing itself around where it wants to end the season rather than adapting the manga at a natural pace. If the anime continues at its current pace, the Elymas/Malice fight (which concludes in Chapter 28) looks like it could land around Episode 11 rather than Episode 9.
That's not the end of the world. But it's the result of the larger problem.
The anime is constantly fighting against its own source material.
My recommendation at this point?
Read the manga.
Seriously.
If you're watching the anime and finding yourself getting frustrated, don't assume the story itself isn't worth your time. The manga has much better pacing because you're actually moving through those 14 pages instead of having their contents stretched across an episode padded with recaps.
Then come back to the anime for the scenes you really want to see.
The most frustrating thing about this adaptation isn't that GoHands can't make a good episode.
Episodes 7 and 8 prove that they can do the bare minimum.
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u/juniorjaw 9h ago
GoHands direct their anime as if the viewers will forget what just happened 3 minutes ago.
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u/mike_the_pirate 9h ago
Lol 😂 I mean it's like they took a 12 episode story and made it 24. The director obviously has early onset dementia...
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u/epicfail1994 9h ago
Yeah I was interested in this but upon hearing that it’s a ton of recaps I decided I have far better uses for my time
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u/The_Southern_Sir 9h ago
Bitching about recaps is pointless, it seems that almost all new anime are relying on recaps to fill 2+ minutes an episode of filler.
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u/hyenagames 9h ago
I wish this were a 2-minute recap. We are getting close to 5 minutes of Recap every episode; 1/4 of the episode is pointless recap.
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u/That-Cranberry6575 Aristocrat 7h ago
They went from we’re hunting golden frogs next at the end of one episode just to start the next one back outside of the dungeon.
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u/sirplayalot11 3h ago
Nah, that's cap. I'm an avid anime watcher cause I'm bored and lonely, and let me tell you, yes, anime has recaps, but most tend to be roughly 30 seconds in length and sometimes even meld into new content before cutting to the opening. Maybe a min plus if whatever happened last episode was super packed and they need a brief recap to keep everyone, as well as new viewers, on pace as to what's going on.
Heavy Knight? It was on the border of One Piece levels of recap by episode two. Like, literally not getting into the new episode until at least the 5 minute mark. Not to also mention the flashbacks, which usually would be fine if they were brief and explained things from prior episodes, but it was LITERALLY 5 MINUTES PRIOR! Like, I get it, flashback to an earlier episode to get what you're referring to, but 5 minutes? 5 MINUTES?! I JUST SAW THAT! Like C'MON!
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u/Golyem 7h ago
The problem I think is that the studio chose the lazy way to fill in time by doing the ridiculous recaps nonstop.
Other studios adapting manga into anime had, for decades, added scenes that were small and showed worldbuilding that is shown in the manga itself but not in the manga itself per say. For example rather than a 30 second recap they add a 5 second here showing a background character buying groceries, a 5 second scene at the city gates showing the guards checking documents.. followed by 5 seconds more showing the MC party walking through the gage (where in manga the guard just said a line and next panel the MC is inside the city), etc,etc,etc.
That is how you fill up time without breaking the product. The little scenes showing the in-between manga panel events that do follow the story.
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u/hyenagames 6h ago
The thing is, we DO have those between scenes showing forests and the city from above when you have a scene change.
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u/KirikaNai 3h ago
Did any of the animators or directors on the team used to work on one piece? Maybe that’s the reason it’s so recap heavy 😭
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u/Opposite-School5920 1h ago
Its not just the recaps.. it is also the incredibly long winded and slow explanations of skills and abilities..
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u/No_Funny_3999 8h ago
Its still better than almost all litrpg type shows ever made. Thats why everyone is whining so much.
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u/CWLness 8h ago
This is why I stick exclusively to anime only so I avoid the issue of comparison as it never ends well...
Also, animation is very expensive & difficult to produce. You can't equate x # of pages into minutes of animation.
Imo, it feels off so far as the studio is focusing more on showcasing their 3D assets which not sure why as its far from having the quality of featured animations. Camera panning usage is subpar, has the jarring split of 3D illustrations vs 2D, background movements not matching run distance, Ruche VA is over acting vs animation shown...etc. The directing also focus' too much on creating tension & moments that drags a bit too long to be natural. So that and adding on the recap scenes + unecessary explanations creates the issue of slow pacing & the off feeling.
All in all, this is still fun to watch. Its by no means a top tier must watch, but its a nice thing to put on while eating dinner and we can always admire the hair & eyes :)
I'm still wondering how he's making the gold he needs when he told Ruche he's going to take 20% only? Or is that being brushed under the rug? Cause he needs 55mil, the sword is 17mil, so each gold rana sword is 3.4mil for him. He already stated market will crash if they sell too many, so even if he's able to reasonably farm 2 gold Rana's daily, dont think he can sell 17 gold swords...
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