Well I'm a philosopher myself afterall so scenes as such was quite familiar to my eye. This, alongside with the philosophic ideals presented in many of the NVL textbox scenes, especially prior the start of a chapter, might comes of as pretentious to some people, although I highly disagree. Another thing that might bother and off-putting people is the verbose prose, though it was presented with utmost eloquence, I believe not everyone are prone of it. First, let's just imagine how many people who will scream of edgy because of the involvement of Nazi, the prologue, and how the protagonist weapon is a sharp guillotine. However despite my praise towards it, I'd still have to say that Dies Irae isn't a work that can be enjoyable to everyone, despite have a very broad appeal value. Dies Irae has both ADV and NVL textbox type, in which most of the easy read belongs to the ADV while most of the heavier one or those that switched from Ren's perspective belongs to the NVL textbox. Other historico-mythological references/quotes/terminologies such as Nietzsche also prevalent on it. The fights still carries upon hedge of ideological clashes with powerlevel system and long powerup arias taken from plays/literature/other classic media to make it loooks cool, yet remain grounded to the meanings of the said aria and its correlations to the abilities and relics. The people who used to say that Dies Irae is the apotheosis of chuuni actions were right.
DIES IRAE WIKI LONGINUS CODE
I used to think that nothing can top the chuuni dose of Fate series, 11eyes, or Code Geass but today, I've been proven wrong. Even if you're an avid fan of this genre, you'll most likely to found it to be fun due to taking the genre tropes up to eleven. However, despite of its commentary nature, it actually acknowledged all of them in a comical hyperbolic way that it doesn't comes of as a mere hate speech towards the genre. Speaking about criticism, it also takes a further step on criticizing how the characters set of thoughts are absurd, flawed, and at a certain degree, contradictory as how I have stated before.
Our protagonist Ren, however, despite having some bit of development and heavily criticized in Rea's route, outshined by many others, due to his base personality being of standard 'hero' protagonist. Some of them have leitmotif as well, making them feels more epic and memorable. That being said, all the other characters of Dies Irae, are heavily likable, such as Reinhard due to his sheer charisma, Eleonore due to her undying loyalty to Reinhard, Shirou for being Shirou, and many others. He is also has the most enchanting speaking manner out of them. He speaks as if a whisper of a cunning evil snake, which fit to his very nature. Kousuke Toriumi outdid himself at voicing him. Outstanding, no need other words to describe. His voice acting, albeit most of the voice actor/actress perform greatly, stood out the most. While my favorite male character would be Mercurius, since everytime he appeared, especially if backed up with the "Unus Mundus" soundtrack, it will always lead to a mysterious and contemplative vibes, either it be pondering some philosophical lines he spoke, or wondering aboit his existence. My favorite female character would be Rusalka Schwegelin due to her petite body and flirtatious and quite nimble personality, also due to some of the highlight scenes during Rea's route.