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May 15, 2013
Just finished watching Ixion Saga .Mixed Feelings about that one :
Ixion Saga can me summarized as an attempt to replicate the relaxed/wtf/lol?/laid-back style Gintama made popular in Anime .
In this style a lack of a greater overarching plot , comedy and dirty jokes , excellent sound-soundtrack choices and strange character are the standard .The style is great , Gintama that introduced it in the Anime industry a masterpiece .Let's see how Ixion Saga DT fared though :
Story-3
As i said before the specific sub-genre/style Ixion belongs to lacks plot lines as it's main points .Even though i take that as a given , still Ixion Saga
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could have fared much better: it tries to use the story both as a background and as a hook/point of interest , with the result being a failure in both attempts .The story is not absent - it is there , but it is ignored , resulting in some disbelief and boredom that could have been (easily ?Dont know .) avoided .The lack of progress endangers the whole series as the viewer can become tired of what seems as meaningless events , spawning at each episode like NPCs in a RPG game that is just too full of grind .And i know that the fans might defend the series reminding me that Ixion , like Gintama dont require a master story - yet still having seen and loved Gintama and even Sket , i have to commend that Ixion Saga's story can be compared with boring Pokemon episodes but not with the tense and emotional charged story arcs the two aforementioned shows field .
(Let it be known that the last episode has a much better written story than the rest of the show- a wonderful surprise rewarding us for making it to the end !)
Art-6
Nothing great , nothing good , nothing bad .
Lately Art seems to have been standardized .I kind of miss the variety the 90s and the 2000s had : each show had it's own style for good or for bad .And there were always glitches to be found .The much cheaper/improved technology of today has eliminated visual errors and unusual/unique art styles from most series today.
Sound-8
Ixion Saga has great sounds and soundtracks :the level was on par with Gintama !
Different music genres , familiar chords and styles , variation - the soundtracks were great and played a nice part in drawing you into the series . There was Rhythm and good taste in orchestration and song choices .And the most surprising fact is that i am not talking about the OP/ED - no , i actually didnt liked those two - i am talking about background themes .Very good on sound .
Characters-6
Ixion Saga's Chars are interesting and funny : each has his own fetish plus some perks - and each gets a decent amount of attention in the show .And here is where trouble ensues :
the characters while are interesting seem to have been made with some kind of character generator you can find for RPGs .They are too much replicas from the Gintama series- something that becomes even more obvious when you actually hear half the cast of Gintama playing as the main chars in Ixion Saga .There was a lack of originality - i find myself imagining the people that designed the character watching Gintama and saying to each other "Ok that was good , what can we use instead of that ?" .In short if you ve seen Gintama you ll see no new character concepts in Ixion Saga .They have somewhat recycled the chars from it .
Enjoyment 6 - Overall 5
Ixion Saga is a fun Anime and it sure is enjoying watching one .With all the the lack of originality it still has some entertaining value .However -and with that i sum it up - this show has copied Gintama at so many major points , so obviously that one can clearly feel the lack of dedication and investment from the creators .And since those two things are what make an Anime interesting and enjoying to watch i can say that this show is worth watching without lying .
Ixion Saga is for Gintama what the many industrial Harem anime are for their originals .
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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May 8, 2013
Seeing as most reviews praise Gantz wholeheartedly i find it worthwhile to express my opinion which is different .My review will contain some minor spoilers as i ll need them to make a point for my opinions .
Gantz up to chapter 280 seems like an entirely different manga when compared with what came next .That will be my main point .
Let's take it from the beginning :
The story is a story of horror,mystery,survival and - above all- character development .
And as every story it is mostly dependent on the charm of the characters to be successful-if the characters are unnatural or boring even the best
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story cant make up for it , and in contrast if they are believable and enchanting and fresh even a classical and otherwise overused story becomes equally enchanting .
So !
Enter Gantz
At the first chapters we are introduced to the presumes of the story and the characters that will unravel it.Our protagonist is like nothing you ve ever seen before : he is not a total loser and yet he is a misanthropist-he oozes with contempt for humans in general with a way that is more emotional than logical : he doesn't support misanthropy for the sake of an ideology , he feels it and one could say that even himself isn't entirely conscious of the fact .
He is human , he is one of us , he knows how to love but living in a real world he knows better how to hate and how to become disappointed . He is truly a teenager in a rebellious phase with the true meaning - he is disappointed, alone , conflicted and with a rampaging libido that as is natural to real rebellious teenagers , ignores restrains and ethics if given the chance .
He is a real person and a one of a kind protagonist .
He is jealous of many things and his heroic self-titled friend seems to be like an open wound for him : something that reminds him of himself and of the lofty ideals of childhood .He lusts for a girl that clearly is yet another real person-conflicted,good and evil,painful and harmful and still beautiful .
I have just described the protagonist as he is for at least the first arc , let's take a look on the rest of the cast :
We have the aforementioned girl , who is a great character but unfortunately doesn't stay in the story for long as a main character .The two main characters besides our anti-hero protagonist is his heroic friend and yet another anti-hero , a cool expert on Gatnz warfare and above all a survivor that has experienced Gantz from before the protagonist get's thrown into it .
One quickly learns to identify and love almost every character of the cast and by doing that , experiencing a truly humane experience : the love is human and the good and heroic ideals and morals are human but so is rage,despair,sadness,disappointment and lust and evil .Life is humane but Death is too , even if we would like it otherwise .
And as the story progresses their emotions constantly renew themselves - they outgrow themselves sometimes to overcome challenges while other times they retreat to their fears because of them .
They learn to appreciate life and truly despair about death , they learn their limits and they learn the pleasure of breaking through them .
And then the setting slowly changes along with the characters .I may not be an expert but either the character of the author and his ideals changed with time or some marketing advisers had their say .
Enter Arc Two-Allien Invasion
The story loses much of it's mystery as many things are revealed . The horror continues but on a much grander scale , as whole countries get wiped off the map .The secret survival story turns now to open warfare and battle with the invaders .
Much of the original cast besides the main characters has died and new people have filled the gaps time and time again .
But here is when things went sour : the characters are not themselves anymore .
Up until chapter 380 we will see our anti-social hero becoming yet another knight in shining armor , ready to save his newly acquired damsel in distress , always winning heroically after overcoming huge difficulties .Where did the inner conflicts go , where did the contempt and the rejection of the world ended up to ?I have no idea and obviously neither the characters do .
The only thing that happened in our beloved's anti-hero protagonist life that may have changed him was that he acquired a girlfriend .Now,now a first girlfriend may be a major event in every mans life but what we see isnt actually the protagonist we knew effected by his girlfriend : it is someone of the much overused characters from industrial Anime-not even manga- that is overpowered , deeply troubled and saddened by the world yet eager to serve and protect everyone , cool and dressed in black , faithful beyond comparison to his love and unbeatable ( except when it gives a chance for his damsel to save him , thus proving once more her love to him )
And what about the other main characters of the cast you say ?Well as i already told you the most interesting girl that appeared since the beginning , the one that preferred the protagonist friend instead of him , is out long ago .
The cool and expert warrior/survivalist is shown to be completely stupid and week , revealing his characters in his last moments as a truly lame and powerless child - a change of character that really surprised me since he was build as the cold and cautious murderer type for all the past story .And it was a bad surprise .
Finally the only one to remain somewhat faithful to himself is the heroic friend of the protagonist that still appears as a hero - only this time he is more of a sidekick or the hero of a minor plot line if compared to the truly epic feats of the incredible and godly reborn protagonist .
And finally - the author makes some very sad attempts to fill the gap caused by the lack of character consistency with some pseudo-philosophical touches that literally would have maked the original protagonist beat himself ( and probably the author) up if he could .
Plus there was a plot line about the brother of the protagonist being a vampire or something that gets completely forgotten for the time being - he doesn't appear EVER again , something that makes him look like he was from some filler chapter/episode that an assistant came up with because the author was sick in a hospital in the meantime .
The only thing that improved in the second arc of the manga was the background art , with grand scenes of carnage and technological sci-fi environments.But i suspect that could mainly attributed to the money spent on assistants and not on the author or anyone else .
To sum it up i ve got to say that Gantz is a truly unique manga and it is worth reading .It is good and that is a fact .
The reason i am disappointed is because it started out (and continued for quite some time ) as a masterpiece .
There are really few manga that can compete with the first arc of it and even if you take the second arc as a given , it still remains a good manga .Just be prepared for the second arc - who knows depending on what you like you may even like it more than the first .
But that was surely not the case for me .
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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May 8, 2013
Seeing as there is already a review that expresses my opinions about this anime , i ll try to keep it short in order to offer something to the potential viewers .If you want something short that doesn't contain any spoilers read on .
This Anime is entertaining .And too short to tell the honest truth !
The story is good and it has the potential to be great-the presumes/the world that was conceived for the story to take place is enchanting ,the art is good and some moments great, the sound is decent and is even noticeable good when you begin watching (and that says
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something since in most series you never pay much attention to the sound )the characters are likeable and fun to behold-despite or because they are powerful : it is rare to see powerful characters that actually flaunt the fact that they are Over-Powered around and still like them.
The pace is great- i wouldn't have it otherwise .But when you reach the end of it you are certain that the whole season is merely the first quarter of a much larger saga of at least 30 or so episodes.
To sum it up ,this is a great anime that is worth watching ,but the fact that it is clearly only the first part of a story reduces it to being simply good :it cant be said for sure if in next seasons that could come it will still remain such an enjoyment yet if it does it will certainly make this series one of the most enjoying to be seen .
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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May 8, 2013
Fullmetal Alchemist was and still remains one of the few anime that takes itself completely seriously .
Now , now don't get me wrong , there are many,many wonderful series out there .But yet most of them fail to inspire in you the respect Fullmetal Alchemist does .To put it simply you can feel and understand the care/respect with which the creators handled it - it gives off a vibe that you would get from reading a book ,one that the author would have spend most of his life working on .
That can clearly be seen from the ending - where unlike other anime , you
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get the feeling that it was truly meant to end at that point - the story is over as it should be - after all it was not made to entertain a crowd constantly , it was made to be told , for the mere sake of it .And all stories must end at some point .
As far as the Story goes it is simply perfect : you may or may not like steam punk , you may or may not like strategy and war descriptions , yet even then , if you want to be honest you cant avoid praising the consistency, the twists and pace .
Referring once more to my previous analogy about a book , Fullmetal Alchemist really breaks any chains that a story being told in Anime format might be constrained from and manages to make you forget that you are watching anime .You are watching a story - the format is irrelevant - the tale you are experiencing will always have it's value - no mater in what format it is presented .
Following up , an integral part of the story - of each and every story - are the characters .
Once again Fullmetal Alchemist shines , binding excellent story development with an also great character development .The characters are human , there are always stronger and smarter people than them , they make mistakes and they pay for them , they have emotions and inner conflicts that are subtly viewed , they quickly get not only your interest and your sympathy , but also your anger and sadness as you observe them in their week moments staying true to their logic and way of thinking , that is not always the best to use for the situations they find themselves into .
The Art is good , as good as you ll ever want it to be in Fullmetal .And with that phrase i mean that -as i said before- you forget that you are watching anime , you don't care about the Art or the background details because you are immersed in the story so much .Fullmetal Alchemist made it clear to me that when a Anime is more than just good , you don't focus on the art when watching it .
The Sound is great : the soundtracks fit the story and the moments they accompany just perfect and they even have value independently - as songs and not just soundtracks.A great job was done with the sound - you ll find yourself moved because of it , experience the same emotions as the character because of it .
The enjoyment that the series give you is high quality to say the least : you can both relax and take it in or use it to feed your mind with thoughts and philosophical question .How do you use what you get is entirely up to you and your mood -but weather you are sad or happy , tired or eager to work on new ideas in your mind , Fullmetal Alchemist will seem to you like it was made for the exact time you are watching it and the mood you have at the moment .
Overall Fullmetal Alchemist is a unique gem that still shines amongst all the anime produced until now .It is outstanding and it sets a standard that i have never seen in any other series (with the exception perhaps of Legends of The Galactic Heroes ) and that no other series try to reach unfortunately .
Fullmetal Alchemist doesn't care that it is an Anime series , it competes with the greatest films and the classical books on equal footing - refusing to be taken lightly .If you haven't seen it yet you still have no idea why anime can be considered meaningful art .
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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