Review: Monochrome Factor (モノクローム・ファクター)

The main male protagonist frolicking with his willing and submissive boyfriend as the foreplay for…

The next random anime I picked from my backlog is Monochrome Factor. This is a 2008 anime, so I suppose that it will compete with Wolf and Spice for the ‘Anime of the Year 2008’ title. Whether this anime really have the credentials to do so is high questionable though, so to find out if this anime can do it, please read this blog’s entry all the way to the end.

…the hot stimulating yaoi scenes that comes afterwards. This is the most SFW screenshot of that particular scene as the main protagonist started to have his way with him.

Story:-
The world is under siege from fiendish being from the Shadow World, thus our main male protagonist was recruited by a fishy white-haired bishounen character to stop them on their tracks. Together, alongside with some other unimportant characters, they went ahead and try to save the world from devastation.

This 24-episode anime is your typical shounen anime where the hero has to defend the world from being conquered by some evil forces etc. In other words, originality is not a strong point of this anime, and the unoriginal storyline here is not exactly a great one either. A weakness that this anime has that I want to highlight in this review is that there are too many ‘monster of the week’ episodes, which does have multiple consequences upon the rating of this anime.

Those ‘monster of the week’ episodes rarely helps at advancing the storyline, and just like what the white-haired bishounen character says in one of those episodes, it doesn’t help advancing character developments either. And with the fact that these useless filler episodes are usually bunched together consecutively, they become a big hindrance for the pacing of this anime’s main storyline. There are 24 episodes in this anime, and I estimate that at least 10 episodes can be eliminated just like that, maybe even half of the series if the director can manage the story’s flow and pacing efficiently. Character developments was also slowed down by the filler episodes, although I suspect that this anime is unique with the fact that the throttling of character developments are intentionally done as required by the needs of the storyline. The best character here is probably the main protagonist himself, although he is the one affected most by the throttling phenomenon.

The presentation of the ending (the last three episodes) was also affected negatively by the abundance of filler episodes here, because those fillers caused a semblance of discontinuation between the penultimate developments of the main storyline (happened maybe about 5 or 6 episodes before) and the ending itself. Having those episodes before the ending really screw up the flow of the storyline, after all, when the anime reaches its (crappy) climax, you have to see more fillers before you see the conclusion. This event is common in One Piece anime, where fillers are arbitrarily inserted in the middle of a canon arc in effort not to let the anime catch up to the manga too fast. The ending incidentally prepares the anime for a second season, but I think if the director cuts out all the ‘monster of the week’ episodes, then let the current ending happened in the middle of the series and fill the second half of the series with materials for second season, this anime would have scored higher in this review.

He is another object of the main male protagonist's sexual desires. He resented that incident so much, he is involved in that lame 'plot twist' at the end of the series.

Character Design:-
Just like Tytania and Nabari no Ou amongst others, this anime has plenty of pretty male characters (and has the minimum amount of female characters it can get away with). There are not many black-haired Japanese in here, although to be fair there are hints that there are extensive hair dyes usage in this anime. Definitely a positive point for this anime.

The fact that his servants are also sex-starved maniacs who will fulfill their desires with him doesn't help either.

Voice Acting:-
Voice acting in this anime is decent overall, with the white-haired creepy bishounen’s voice actor having the best gigs behind that microphone.

Music:-
Here is where this anime falls flat on its face, neither the OST or any of the OP/ED themes are any good.

These people are some examples of the monsters in the filler episodes.

Animation/Direction:-
The blurry animation techniques in action scenes I have mentioned in the same section in my Nabari no Ou review is also present here. Now I know that this annoying technique is not an aberration; this may herald a new age of headache-inducing action scenes in Japan’s shounen anime titles in the future. One point deducted from this anime’s evaluation just because of this. Animation quality in normal scenes, even fast-paced ones, are good though. Choreography in this anime is average, leading to many uninspiring battles. The directing is average, but for all the faults mentioned in the story section above, he/she has done well in camera works etc.

This is the annoying blurry animation techniques that caused this anime to lose a point off the final evaluation.

Conclusion:-
6 out of 10. Wolf and Spice will retain the ‘Anime of the Year 2008’ title. If there is a new season of this anime planned, I may watch it too.

Every shounen anime always have their own share of idiots in it, like the sibling characters above.