First Look: Anime Overview: Suicide Squad Isekai (Patreon)

The Suicide Squad from DC Comics meets isekai….as both a (former) DC Comics nerd and an anime fan, I’ve been training my whole life for this.

So…was this series good? I wouldn’t call it that. Was it accurate to it’s source material? Nope. No way in hell. Was it still pretty fun to watch? Yeah, it mostly is!

This is a series that embraces how goofy it is. Not all the humor hits, but much of it is at least endearing. It’s an anime about watching a bunch of assholes cause chaos and fail hard, and it shines at doing that.

Probably the character I’m most disappointed with, despite the fact she gets the most screentime and is clearly the main character, is Harley. It’s easy to tell this anime started production with only the first Suicide Squad to go off of, because Harley and the Joker’s relationship is framed as positive and not abusive at all. Also, hilariously, the Joker is now full bishonen with a seductive voice and Hot Topic aesthetic.

Rather the chaotic, cheerfully murderous, and full of uncontrollable rage guy from the comics, he’s like, a pretty laid back mall goth and talks a lot about how the world is filthy (dude since when do you care).

He also doesn’t mention Batman once, which might be a copyright thing but adds to it all. He's less like the Joker and more like one of the many Joker-alike characters in anime: Hisoka from Hunter x Hunter, that guy from Metallic Rouge, the way he’s played seems so familiar.

Making the relationship with Harley healthy actually flattens her a lot as a character. Now she really was saved from her dull life by a man, her obsession with him is just annoying rather than sad, and she isn’t struggling with anything. There’s no conflict withing her. What really doesn’t help is the show frames her as “SUPER EMPOWERED” and the empowering thing is that a man showed her how to “be herself” (aka be just like him) and now she can’t go five minutes without talking about him, and she gets almost every creative thought and good idea she has from him…girl power, y’all!

On the other hand, she is incredibly fun to watch, with her boldness, her love of violence, and carefree attitude. It’s cute to watch her slowly form friendships with the team (and always adorable how Harley forms a friendship with King Shark in every continuity. She calls him Nana-chan!) She does things like randomly adopt a dragon and team up with orcs. She has a wonderful moment when attacked with mind control. She’s a character I like outside the stuff with the Joker, even if she isn’t really Harley.

And speaking of female characters done dirty, Amanda Waller does a lot of bad things, but I really can’t picture her getting behind colonizing another world and taking their resources. Yet here we are. She also has very little screentime in this, despite being so famously prominent in the end credits.

All the other members of the Squad basically have one trait we return to again and again, but the one trait is usually pretty fun (except for Peacemaker, who’s one thing is mentioning PEACE and AMERICA and boy does it get old), their team dynamic is fun and boy are they causing carnage. Again, they lack the depth of their comic counterparts and just kind of feel like their own thing, but while they’re shallow as hell, that doesn’t make them boring. Especially when the commit so much bombastic animated violence. The show has a ton of fun with its fight animation, and the effort really shows.

The isekai world is fairly generic, which seems to be part of the point, and the plot is paper thin, and this includes a villain who’s introduced late in the story, with no explanation of where she came from, why she’s doing what she’s doing and one of the dumbest designs I’ve ever seen...and the whole climax is built around her. It then pulls off a plot twist so brazenly nonsensical that is wraps around to being kind of impressive in its ridiculousness.

There is an effort made at character development in one respect- there's this whole character arc with the Generic Isekai Princess where Harley inspires her to speak up for herself and she decides to become as much like Harley as she can. Soooo I think this show really does think “empowering yourself” is actually copying another person and trying to become them, but hey, at least that other person is a woman this time. And there were a couple shippy moments with her and Harley, so that’s something.

(oh and on the topic of unfortunate implications, at one point Clayface makes fun of Deadshot's short dreads, saying his hair looks like "broccoli" and I have no idea why anybody let that through, especially on the DC side).

But at the end of they day, the one thing I wanted to happen--everyone getting magical girl transformation sequences--did in fact happen and it was great, so I can’t complain.

So yeah, this is a fine show to watch if you want a shallow, utterly brainless good time. It’s here to be goofy and action packed and nothing else. But if you really need these characters to resemble the comic characters, it’s not gonna be for you.