Review: Blade of the Immortal (無限の住人)

Posted by ranpha on 4th April 2009
Posted in: anime review. Tagged: . 3 comments

https://abfttw.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pOsptckBLLe0ZbWftbfTm7H1_QtlOSDTwK6Q_Ik7LuEw1wvRkSJMDdN3ftPVB2eKntsyt8FWnaSUbtiwPYWzdmw/%5BKSN-AEN%5DBlade_of_the_Immortal_-_01_HD%5B11B946A5%5D.mp4_snapshot_2009.03.31.22_07_59_mainmaleprotagonist.jpg
Our main male protagonist is still kicking ass even when his brain is busted.

At first, I planned to watch an older but immensely popular anime series that was aired last century (title withheld to create the air of suspense), but the last subbed episode of Blade of the Immortal comes out and I know right away that I have to watch it. Then midway of watching that anime, Tytania (a series I heard people say is similar to Legend of Galactic Heroes) also finished being subbed. Therefore, I will watch these two anime first before I start watching this mysterious anime title after them. Blade of the Immortal is a 2008 anime; therefore it will compete with Wolf and Spice for Anime of the Year 2008 title.

Story:-
Manji, a samurai that is immortal because of a certain encounter, is enlisted by a damsel-in-distress who wants to take revenge for the death of her parents. The not-so-dynamic duo then embarks into a journey to find the killers of her parents so that Manji can hack them to death.

The 13 episodes covers only maybe one-third of the manga storyline (which I read), in a slightly watered-down version. While the story itself is very good, its presentation is not exactly outstanding and surprisingly ordinary (the presentation in the manga version is better IMO). The presentation become worse as the series progressed, and the premature ending mercifully puts an end to this. Nevertheless, this anime has a good pacing, although I think it may have slowed slightly towards the end too.

Character developments are also done well, but I can help but think that this aspect could have become much better if the series has more episodes (The lack of episodes is probably the only weakness this anime has). It (character developments) revolves around the two main protagonists this time around, but I know the other characters will also have their own upgrades when the story develops further as it is in the manga. There are no strong characters in this anime though, because in essence Blade of the Immortal (manga or anime) is strongly story-driven instead of being powered by immense characters the way titles like Urusei Yatsura did.

The ending is decent and paved the way for a second season that I will definitely watch. Although I have not heard any news about a new season yet, unlike Nodame Cantabile series that will have a third season later this year.

 

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Our hero also like to put women in their place in this chauvinistic Japan.

Character Design:-
Character designs in this anime is excellent (a trademark of this series really), with diverse types of characters. Almost all the important characters are imported from the manga very well. This anime is more seinen-like like Nodame Cantabile is, although I have issues with the hair colors of some of the characters. Definitely a positive point for this anime.

Voice Acting:-
Voice acting in this anime is also great, with Manji the main male protagonist being outstanding. Others have done a decent job too, although it will be hard for me to judge based on low airtime that some characters has. Also a positive point of this anime.

Music:-
The OST in this anime is great, with some nice insert songs too. The OP theme is also decent but not so for the ED theme. Another positive point of this anime.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation in this anime is fluid even in fast-paced scenes. The choreography in this samurai series is excellent and more down-to-earth compared to similar series like Rurouni Kenshin or Samurai Deeper Kyo that put a lot of emphasis on overelaborate techniques. The director has done well except for the presentation issues I have mentioned in the story section.

Conclusion:-
8 out of 10. I am looking forward for a possible second season of this excellent series. Still, Wolf and Spice’s reign as the holder of Anime of the Year 2008 title continues. Tytania is the next anime that will be reviewed in this blog later.

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Some of the sick and sadistic things that happened in this anime.

Review: Speed Grapher (スピードグラファー)

Posted by ranpha on 28th March 2009
Posted in: anime review. Tagged: . 1 comment


To all underage girls out there, if you see someone staring at you like this, run to the nearest police station immediately. The main male protagonist may be looking at you!

Speed Grapher is the second straight Gonzo anime being reviewed here after Blassreiter, and boy the former is so much better than the latter. Has Gonzo regressed between the space of 3 years between the productions of these two anime titles? Speed Grapher is a 2005 anime, so there will be no change of guard for the title holders for now.

 


THIS IS WHAT HE WILL DO TO YOU IF YOU DID NOT HEED MY ADVICE!!!

Story:-
Our main male protagonist Tatsumi ‘Middle-aged Bastard Lolicon’ Saiga who works as a cameraman, infiltrates a rumored secret club that was attended by who’s who in Japan. There, during a ceremony, he meets with Tennouzu ‘Easily Exploitable Underage Girl’ Kagura, who gives him a mysterious power of blowing things up with his camera. Unmasked during the ceremony, Saiga and Kagura has to do a Will Smith (Enemy of the State) and runs across Japan as the Prime Minister himself wants them dead.

If you like fast-paced action-packed story, you will get it here. The story is so much better than the one in Blassreiter, it flows thick and fast, Euphoria battles comes and goes, plot twists appears here and then, all the way to the end. The ending is admittedly predictable, but it is still a decent one. There are a couple of flashback/recap episodes too, but they are much better executed than the ones in Blassreiter. Plus, many of the necessary flashbacks are slipped into normal episodes too, which helped spread the wealth instead of cramming them into specific episodes.

Character developments are done very well too, with the main male protagonist and the main antagonist being the best of the bunch. My only complaint is the minimal developments for the main female protagonist though. Plus there are some holes in the story character-wise, for example, where is the Euphoria priest gone after Saiga snatched Kagura from the wedding ceremony. He didn’t die, but he didn’t appear after that incident either.


The unique method that this anime used for the recap episode.

Character Design:-
Character design in this anime is excellent, with main antagonist, Shinsen Tennouzu and Hibari Ginza being outstanding. For all the attention that the main female protagonist has within the context of the storyline, her design is surprisingly ordinary. Her mother Shinsen Tennouzu is an ex-model and this fact shows in her character design, but you cannot say the same thing for the main female protagonist who is supposed to be a Goddess for a super-secret exclusive club. This is the only flaw on an otherwise excellent overall character design, but still a positive point of this anime.


One the the best-designed Euphoria monster.

Voice Acting:-
The voice acting in this anime are done well too, with the main male protagonist, main antagonist, Shinsen Tennouzu and Hibari Ginza doing well over the others. This is also a positive point of the anime.


A scene very common in a tentacle-rape hentai video.

Music:-
This anime has done much better in this section compared to Blassreiter, although not perfectly. The OST is excellent, but from the themes, only the 1st ED theme is worth listening to.


A picture that you will see frequently in this anime.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation in this anime is decent, but sometimes suffers from stuttering (I wonder if those are intentional) and get worse sometimes in fast-paced scenes. Choreography is average though despite plenty of action and Euphoria vs. Euphoria duels. The directing is done very well, managing to keep the anime good from start to the end.


In the anime, usually it was the hero's right eye that will be bulging like above, not the left as shown above. An oversight by the director?

Conclusion:-
9 out of 10. This is a very well-done shounen anime with plenty of action. My anime marathon continues with another title that you will not expect me of watching!


There are many perverts in this anime, inclusive of the main male protagonist. Here is another one of them, in a scene that will not be alien in hentai videos.

Review: Blassreiter (ブラスレイター)

Posted by ranpha on 25th March 2009
Posted in: anime review. Tagged: . Leave a Comment


Blassreiter Protein 101 explained.

The first review of this month is for the anime Blassreiter as promised in my last Nodame Cantabile S2 review. This year, I have watched very few anime (very busy with real life) than I used to and I have written only 4 reviews so far this year, inclusive of this one. As a consequence of that, I got plenty of titles queuing inside my hard disks waiting to be watched before being burned into archival DVDs. As I should have more free time for now and also April, there should be more reviews then in this blog in the next couple of months. Blassreiter is a 2008 anime, thus it will compete with Wolf and Spice for the Anime Of The Year 2008 title.

Story:-
Somewhere in Germany, the country was plagued by the emergence of zombies with superhuman powers that comes out from nowhere. To combat the zombies, an organization called XAT (forgot what its full name is) is tasked to combat this menace. As expected, XAT has plenty of problems dealing with the superhuman zombies, thus our main male protagonist who has plenty of emo issues has to come out riding his Knight Rider-like bike that he can change at will, to save the day.

This anime is a rough cross between Darker Than Black (without the Pizza Hut sponsorship) and Karas, and initially, this anime started very well until the death of Gerd Frentzen at episode 6. Then the storyline petered out somewhat in quality after that before taking the plunge into a ravine (just like Gerd Frentzen is) starting from the 2 flashback episodes in the middle of the series.

The most defining aspect of this anime is its high character churn rate, with many characters dies left and right. That would have been a good thing for this anime, if not for the fact that this anime also revives dead characters more often than the DragonBall series. The high character churn rate has the biggest impact upon character developments, because naturally, dead characters cannot have improvements upon their characters. Speaking about character developments, this anime has too little of it amongst multiple characters, and this can be fatal for a story-driven anime like Blassreiter is.

In this anime of two halves, when the story is still good in the first half, the story still flows fluidly from scene to scene, from episodes to episodes. When the story went bad in the second half after the two flashback episodes, other problems like scene transitions problems (good example is when the main male protagonist was reunited with her sister in the flashback sequence, then she died, and she was alive again and then reunited again) and erratic pacing (like how the main male protagonist shows up at the Zeppelin air base when 30 seconds earlier, he is shown transforming miles away at Zwolf HQ). These problems did not occur at all in the first half of the anime. What gives?

But most of the damage dealt to this anime was done purely by some of the bizarre turn of events the second half of the anime. The quick death of Beatrice and Victor, killed by characters whose character developments did not commensurate any deserved capability upgrades, is ridiculous enough (Amanda claimed in the latter parts of the series that she has changed, but actually I don’t see any character growth/developments happening to her to justify her claim), but when Snow appeared, the death knell for this anime has been rung. Snow is a definite proof that the anime is just going through its motion toward the ordinary and cliché-laden ending (that has a time-jump too).


The main female protagonist with one of the expendable characters.

Character Design:-
The character design in this anime is good, with the main male protagonist being the best of them all. About the Blassreiter design, the Gerd Frentzen's white Blassreiter that reminded me a lot of the final form of Haseo from the dot Hack GU trilogy is excellent, it put every other Blassreiters on its shade. Definitely a positive point for this anime.

Voice Acting:-
The voice acting in this anime is just average, with no one being vastly better than everyone else.

Music:-
This anime fared very badly in this section, even worse than the storyline itself. The OST is almost non-existent and the OP/ED themes are uninspiring (yeah, all of them).

Animation/Direction:-
The animation quality in this anime is great, even in fast-paced scenes. Integration between 2D and CGI is not fully seamless and this is noticeable in certain action scenes, but it should not be able to distract you from enjoying the anime. The choreography of the action scenes are decent, but can be too fast at times. But the choreography of the dogfights near the end of the series are excellent and very well done (probably only the best thing about the second half of this anime).

Conclusion:-
6 out of 10. Wolf and Spice still reigns as the best 2008 anime I have watched to date. Still plenty of anime to watch though. Bounen no Xamdou, Speed Grapher and Cassehern SINS amongst others, which one I will watch? You will have to wait until the next entry of this blog to find out the answer.


One of the CGI battles laden with special effects.

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