The anime/manga sub genre known as Isekai involves a person or a group of individuals from earth and modern times being transported to a fantastical land (often fictional) and having adventures in said world, typically with the goal of returning home. What´s it´s relation to comic book supervillain characters? None. It's such an incredibly weird mix of ideas that it could either work decently or come off as otaku pandering. I think the former is the case.
Suicide Squad Isekai features recognizable members of Amanda Waller´s villain group (Deadshot, Peacemaker, King Shark, Clayface and Harley Quinn of course) being sent to a mythical land ruled by Queen Aldora, who often deploys her troops to fight against Orcs and monsters that attack the kingdom. The Suicide Squad now has the task to help the Queen in the war as well as aiding and finding the previous Suicide Squad that went missing six months ago, which will prove to be hard as they seem to be heavily hostile.
With wit, self awareness and a thrilling plot, the show manages to entertain all throughout. Touching subjects like fraternity, redemption, goodness, morality and freedom. The characters work well off each other and their chemistry carries the show for most of it. You would think that rebooting the Suicide Squad in animated form would be tiresome, and a lot of the reintroductions do feel repetitive, but they toss that aside early on in favor of moving forward with the story.
The direction by Eri Osada (Jujutsu Kaisen) is more than competent and satisfyingly brings to life the writing by Tappei Nagatsuki (creator of Re:Zero) and Eiji Umehara (Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song), which is simple but charged with enough clever details and comedic scenes to keep you engaged.
Harley is certainly the highlight, her kooky and quirky attitude instills a lot of effective and much needed comedic relief to the situations the members of the group find themselves in. She often comes up with funny one liners or with a deranged plan that actually ends up working.
Quinn also has a rivalry with Katana, this gives us a very impressively animated fight with Katana in the first episode and a second one later on, the execution of these fights is a demonstration of the talents of the skilled and proficient animators.
The overall aesthetic of the show is also very well done even if the animation is somewhat stiff at moments and the settings themselves are somewhat generic and routinary when it comes to the fantasy genre. Since the show itself parodies the very concept of a Suicide Squad isekai the fact that it comments on it´s somewhat overdone world and tropes makes it more digestible. The 3D is also very nicely implemented for the most part.
I think they could have gone further with the concept and they could have had more fun with the idea of anime tropes and cliches, going into more inventive plots with each episode, but instead they decided to go with a more extended story that relies on continuity. It's not bad, but I think the show would have benefited from more character driven episodes that tackled specific arcs for each member or something in that vein.
The overall word building is surprisingly more well thought than expected, with a very intriguing political plot regarding the kingdom´s princess and her mother. Both the princess and the Squad battle against repressive forces that put their freedom in peril for political reasons, making it a very rebellious work and anti-authoritarian, even slightly touching upon class divides and the perversion of power. However it is still merely a setting for the humor and action to take place, it's all evenly handled but it could have used room for a more thorough exploration of these subjects.
I would recommend it if you are looking for a short and sweet series to pass the time. It's a solid watch that wont demand much from you and that actually has some charm because of it´s bizarre ideas.
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