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SUICIDE SQUAD ISEKAI
Studio: Warner Bros. Japan, WIT Studio, DC Comics
Premiered: Season One debuted June 24, 2024 on Max, Hulu
Digital Release: Dec. 4, 2024
Description: In the crime-ridden city of Gotham, Amanda Waller, the head of A.R.G.U.S., has assembled a group of notorious criminals for a mission: Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Peacemaker, Clayface, and King Shark. These Super-Villains are sent into an otherworldly realm that’s connected to this world through a gate. It’s a world of swords and magic where orcs rampage and dragons rule the skies – an “Isekai!” With lethal explosives planted in their necks, there’s no running or hiding, and failing the mission means a one-way ticket to the afterlife! Can Harley Quinn and her crew conquer this perilous Isekasi realm?! Brace yourselves for the pulse-pounding saga of the elite task force known as the “Suicide Squad” as they embark on a jaw-dropping adventure!
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By James Harvey
Overflowing with style thanks to the excellent animation and kinetic action scenes, Suicide Squad Isekai is an action-packed anime that, for the most part, delivers. Even though it does lose some steam in the back half, the result of some pacing glitches and clunky story-telling, it stays a pretty strong effort which gleefully leans into the absurd. While it lacks some dramatic stakes, Suicide Squad Isekai makes up for it by just being plain ol’ fun!
Amanda Waller, the head of A.R.G.U.S., sends the Suicide Squad on a mission to another world – “Isekai”! Now, notorious criminals Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Peacemaker, Clayface, and King Shark must embark on a mission unlike any other through an otherworldly realm of swords, magic, orcs, and flying dragons. With unfathomable odds ahead of them, and even with the help of soldier Rick Flag, can the entire squad survive this treacherous journey through a whole new world?
As usual, spoilers will be kept to a minimum but there will be references to specific events and characters.
Even though the high stakes never truly feel palpable throughout the entirety of Suicide Squad Isekai‘s ten-episode run, the eclectic cast, light tone and enthralling action make this an extremely watchable and enjoyable experience. While the pacing can occasionally feel sluggish and the story sometimes slight and aimless, watching the squad hilariously adapt to their other-worldly setting, and deal with the fisticuffs that come with, do help make any shortcomings go down a little easier. For those who have been wanting more projects based on the Suicide Squad, and can stomach a bit of isekai wackiness, then this show should scratch that itch.
Not sure what an “isekai” is? Don’t worry, Clayface will break it all down in the first episode, and even a few more times throughout the ten-episode run for a couple well-earned meta chuckles (and he pretty accurately lays out the entire plot of the show in the second episode). It helps that Clayface legitimately ends up being one of the Task Force X’s funnest surprises, though the show makes it pretty clear who the real star of the squad is – Harley Quinn!
While the entire squad gets plenty of screen time and plot lines to enjoy, Harley Quinn is front and center right out of the gate. Suicide Squad Isekai opens with her and The Joker on a rampage, one which she’s eventually arrested for while her Clown Prince boyfriend escapes in a piano-controlled car (yes, you read that right). From there the show runs viewers through the usual Suicide Squad tropes pretty quickly and, by the end of the first episode, they’re already on their otherworldly mission and in deep, deep trouble.
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Beyond Harley Quinn and Clayface, who along with Princess Fiona land the most characterization and screen time in Suicide Squad Isekai, the rest of the cast doesn’t get that much character development or depth. King Shark is portrayed as a lumbering, violent (and almost always hungry) oaf and that’s basically it, for example. For the squad itself, Suicide Squad Isekai leans into and plays up the archetype for each respective member and not much else. While we do get to learn more about each major character in the show during its run, mostly courtesy of The Thinker and his “thinking cap,” what we do learn doesn’t tend to add any weight or even feel relevant at times.
That’s not to say that every character feels identical to each other, not at all, but not much work is done to add a lot of dimension to them. Still, the creators are clearly having fun playing with them, even if it appears there’s not much they can do besides softly poking fun at them and their assorted absurdities (especially when it comes to Peacemaker) while dropping them into one weird situation after another. While this take on Task Force X is a pretty slight and superficial, they still end up being a likable bunch that’ll elicit more than a few laughs during their mission (Deadshot’s past run-ins with The Ratcatcher is particularly hilarious).
Suicide Squad Isekai‘s choice to play it safe with its cast of characters unfortunately carries over to its story and setting, as well. They’re both ultimately well-executed and littered with cool beats and the odd wild idea here and there but, for the most part, neither take full advantage of or really push the somewhat absurd situations the squad find themselves in. It’s a pretty standard ‘fairy-tale kingdom’-type backdrop, packed with the usual tropes – castles, kingdoms, knights, orcs, dragons, queens, kings, princesses, and so on – but outside of a few quirks they’re not reimagined or tweaked in any substantial way.
Since Amanda Waller gives the squad a pretty simple mission on this other world – to establish a base and relationship with this bizarre place to exchange resources – Suicide Squad Isekai understandably conjurs a few obstacles to lengthen things out and justify the show’s ten-episode run. There’s frequent battles between opposing forces within the kingdom, as well as a few fights with a previously sent “Suicide Squad,” all of whom have been corrupted by mysterious forces. The anime throws plenty at our heroes – and allows for appearances by the likes of Katana, Killer Croc, Enchantress, The Thinker, among others – but these bumps tend to drag out the experience rather than add something positive to it.
Throwing the Suicide Squad into a magical land is a neat idea, especially since such a location nicely juxaposes this collection of cads, but the execution ends up a little pedestrian given the potential. The setting, especially when it comes to all the drama that comes with the kingdom politics, can occasionally be a bit of a drag on both the plot and pacing when the show shifts away from the squad and their mission, but there’s just not enough material here. It’s a neat idea to throw these bad guys into a situation that’s totally at odds with who they are as characters, but it ends up falling a little short despite the odd bits of fun here and there.
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What never falls to impress, however, is Suicide Squad Isekai‘s gorgeous animation. It’s bright, gorgeous, fluid and nearly jumps off the screen. Forget the mostly-stiff work we’ve seen in the majority of DC Comics’ recent animation projects, what we get here is loose and electric. Now, Suicide Squad Isekai is definitely a case of style over substnace, but one could argue that Task Force X has never looked better than right here in this off-the-wall series.
The fight scenes, such as an early one between Harley and Katana, looks pretty spectacular, and most of the fisticuffs the team endures in that otherworldly realm are pretty jaw-dropping. The show does however gloss over some of the battle sequences, likely due to budgetary reasons, using essentially a topographic map and minimal animation to skip over them. Even with all that, Suicide Squad Isekai stands as one of the best looking DC Comics-based animation projects this year.
The voice acting in both the subtitled and dubbed versions of Suicide Squad Isekai is pretty solid here, as well. The actors for the Japanese-language version unsurprisingly tend to have more of a natural cadence to their performance, but the English-language cast also put in admirable work. No one sounds miscast and everyone seems to hit their marks, even when spouting some occasionally clunky and unwieldy exposition.
Given that Harley Quinn is essentially the star of Suicide Squad Isekai, it’s no surprise that actors Karlii Hoch (English) and Anna Nagase (Japanese) get to vamp it up the most, and both clearly having an absolute blast along with the rest of the cast. And really, there is a lot to enjoy about Suicide Squad Isekai. It’s legitimately fun at times, the characters look great thanks to Naoto Hosoda, Akira Amano, and Wit Studio’s combined efforts, and even has a killer score by Kenichiro Suehiro and some legitimately catchy-as-hell intro and outro tunes.
The directing by Eri Osada is also sharp and flashy, giving us some occasionally jaw-dropping action sequences. All of this is unfortunately taken down a few pegs by an paltry and poorly-paced story by writers Tappei Nagatsuki and Eiji Umehara, who can’t quite come up with enough story and character beats to adequately fill all ten episodes, resulting in a show that periodically drags itself from plot point to plot point.
Suicide Squad Isekai might not exactly be the anime that fans of Task Force X expect, but that doesn’t mean it should be discounted. The premise might fall a little flat, and the series itself can occasionally drag due to a slender script, but there’s still a good amount of fun to be had and some superb animation to behold. Even though it does ultimately fall short of expectations overall, there’s still enough action and laughs – and even a few wacky twists and surprises – to offer up a pretty lively experience that should keep most fans tuned in for all ten episodes. Give it a Shot!
Suicide Squad Isekai is now streaming on Max and Hulu.
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