I think they've added too many things into too small of an episode. You have another world with animals, a human of unknown origin, racism towards that human (which has little sense, really), mentor with some hidden agenda and some special blood, some sword, that was chained-up and being referenced as a friend, octopus that is called a flower, seeds (both literal and not)... And we somehow need to start caring for all of that within 20 minutes.
If it was a 40 minutes episode - maybe they could have done it better, but as is it just did not spur enough of curiosity on my side. I also do not like the design of the sword and those pants that are cut near girl's butt for no apparent reason.
