Mobile giant LINE and Marvelous' The Thousand Noble Musketeers anime debuted last month, offering a new take on the "weapons as hot guys" trend. The anime is based on a mobile game of the same name with characters based on American Revolutionary War era rifles, the Austrian royal Habsburg family (yeah, the one with the infamous jaws, and sultans of the Ottoman Empire.

The anime and game are hoping to entice female viewers and players, but recent episodes by studio TMS Entertainment are gaining attention for production issues, not the bevy of cute guys to ogle. Viewers in Japan are posting screen caps from the show and sharing their disappointment about the production's "collapse," with some viewers even calling the show unwatchable in its current state.

For reference, this is how the characters in the image, Sakai and Kunitomo, are supposed to appear, ideally.

Other screen grabs show characters', especially the eyes, are offset. In one instance, a mouth with no apparent owner, floats in the corner of a frame.

Yuichiro Umehara just returned to his role as Ieyasu last week after taking a leave from work to treat a medical condition.

Sentai FIlmworks describes the series:

The Thousand Musketeers TV series follows the struggle of a ragtag resistance effort battling against the World Empire, a tyrannical regime intent on oppressing lives and suppressing liberty. Although modern weapons are forbidden, the resistance fighters repurpose antique weapons that had been regarded as works of art, not deadly arms. But the balance of power changes as these relics of ancient wars respond to the plight of the resistance and come to life as noble musketeers who take up the weapons they were born from and fight to bring a sliver of hope back to the world!

The streaming service Hidive is streaming the series as it airs in Japan.

The game launched on iOS and Android on March 22. The game is also inspiring an ongoing manga adaptation by Miki Daichi that launched in Kadokawa's Young Ace magazine on June 4.

[Via Yara-on!]