Most fantasy anime hand you a world worth saving. This one hands you Morte, a girl so done with a planet where humans are cattle that her plan is to erase the whole thing, and it dares you to root for her. Kyrie is the passive kid who happens to carry the power to actually pull the trigger, and the tension of him being dragged along by other people's convictions is the show's real engine. Then there's Taupy, a plush bear beastman with pistols and the voice of a chain-smoking veteran, which tells you exactly how seriously this thing takes itself. The sand seas and the ships that sail them look great in motion, and the fights keep pace even when the sword-and-sorcery bones underneath are as stock as they come. It's a 13-episode game ad, sure, but it's a game ad with a destruction committee you'd actually buy drinks for.

Humans are not the dominant species in this world. They are kept as livestock by the beastmen who rule over them, and sand takes the place that water and fire would normally fill. Kyrie is brought into a group called the World Destruction Committee, which wants to bring the world to an end, and Kyrie is the only one with the power to make that happen. The 13-episode fantasy adventure is a spinoff of SEGA's 2008 Nintendo DS role-playing game.