Berserk

Synopsis

Guts (or Gatsu if you prefer) is a huge, burly guy with a remarkably large sword who joins a mercenary group known as the Band of the Hawk. His exploits with this group mirror their meteoric rise into the ranks of the Midland Army during the endless battles of the war between the Kingdom of Midland and the Chuda Empire. The Band of the Hawk's charismatic leader, Griffith, seems destined for greatness, and over the years, he seems to attract the attention of those who would see him either honored or dead.

Perhaps it may very well be that something is about to go very, very wrong.

Review

(original 1998 review with slight editions)

Dark, brooding, violent. I'd heard that Berserk was a pretty good series, but after the first couple of episodes, I was pretty well turned off. I guess I wasn't in the mood to see people getting slashed by swords, or maybe I was saving up all my daily fantasy angst for Valkyrie Profile. I dunno. But so far, the animation is dark (oh, Darkside Blues dark), the atmosphere thick and heavy even during daylight scenes, and though the fights look rather interesting (I didn't know you could balance on a sword like that!), most of the time, everyone just seems to be sitting around waiting to get killed.

"Yawn, I think I'll just sit here and - Aargh! Avenge me, Gatsu!" Berserk!

That's what was going through my mind when I was watching this. Really.

The dreary, depressing tone of this series just doesn't mesh well with this reviewer, and though I'm quite certain that Berserk actually gets pretty decent later on, I was just unimpressed with what I saw. The dialogue didn't seem to be very important, and the music wasn't particularly memorable. I don't even think the medieval setting seemed quite right. And though the characters seemed rather well developed, seeing as the episodes I saw were all flashback, I had the distinctive feeling that everyone was already dead.

Oh, and the bad guys are so obvious, they make Boris and Natasha look subtle. "Haha, I'm going to kill this innocent bystander!" Berserk!

I guess one has to be in a certain mindset to enjoy this, but I just couldn't get into it. (At least Valkyrie Profile has a hilariously deadpan Valkyrie as a lead) This hardly means that no one should watch this - in fact, I know a few people who would really like it (though none of them live with me). Maybe unless you enjoy feeling Berserk, or don't mind watching X for breakfast, it would probably be a good idea to pass this anime by. Or on second thought, it just might be that the first few episodes just plain suck, and the rest of this series is a magnum opus of anime just waiting to be discovered.

Well, I haven't seen them yet, so I can't exactly figure them into the review.

ADDENDUM
And oh my, what a difference a few episodes make.

Berserk has the same problem that many other anime have - a lousy beginning that camouflages an exceptionally well-done middle sequence. Once you get past the murky and muddled exposition, you get to actually meet the cast as more than just the standard fantasy archetypes.

Guts (Gatsu), for example, is more than just the stoic, battle-hardened fighter he seems to be at first. He is a truly interesting head case, a product of years of systematic abuse and ill fortune. He is constantly battling demons, both metaphorical and real, and often wonders aloud about his lot in life. Griffith, on the other hand, is a surprisingly gentle soul, with a mind and wit as sharp as his blade. His beauty seems eerily unfitting for a field of death, and yet when Guts and Griffith fight side by side, covered in the blood of their enemies, it is like they are gods of war, kindred spirits with little else to define their lives.

The rest of the Band of the Hawk is made up of very real people, and it's almost a shame to realize that these are men (and in the case of Caska, women) joined together in the cause of bringing death to their enemies. They are killers, takers of lives, even as they pretend to live "normal" lives as mercenaries.

Even the antagonists, the men of Chuda, are portrayed as very human. Guards wonder aloud when they get to go home, or comment on the weather, in the moments before the Band takes their lives. The incompetent, egotistical Sir Adon struts and pontificates on his family's eternally expanding "tradition", while his troops pay the consequences of his folly when the Band of the Hawk takes advantage of it.

It's a good thing that the plot and writing for this series are excellent, because much of the rest of it is not. The opening and ending themes are two of the least appropriate songs I have ever heard for an anime series. Whiny subpar J-rock in less-than-fluent English simply does not cut it for dark fantasy, or any other sort of anime for that matter. They're terrible! On the other hand, Hirasawa Susumu's (Millennium Actress) background tracks are rather memorable, especially the battle song, "Forces", which seems to be an object lesson in how to use a synthesizer and reverb completely wrong, and yet still come up with something interesting and fresh anyway. Hirasawa's music is an acquired taste, to be sure - people either love it or hate it.

Technically, the animation is just this side of serviceable, but it doesn't need to be great. After all, war is ugly. The directorial staff makes judicious use of dramatic pauses and speed lines for effect, often using cinematographic shots in place of animation that would otherwise be substandard. There is a staggering amount of violence, with blood gouting and spraying everywhere like a classic Kurosawa film.

And much like most Kurosawa films, the lesson here is that, beneath all that metal armor, these soldiers are people.

Berserk, at its core, is a tragedy of immense proportions. Eventually, the Band's fortune will run out - even the best soldiers can only last so long in a war that never seems destined to end.

There is a lot more than can probably be said about this title, and certainly as the series continues to progress, I'll get to writing it down. However, let this be known - Berserk is not an easy series to fall in love with, and perhaps it may not be the sort of series that will sit well with many viewers - but it is extremely well-done and deserves to be looked at by those people who want a fantasy that's more realistic than the idealized questing of Lodoss or the antics of Rune Soldier and Dragon Half.

If you want fantasy that really makes you think, then don't let the name fool you. Berserk is not about turning your brain off. Not one bit.

Battle Skipper: The Movie

Synopsis

When a wicked and power hungry young debutante plots hatches a plot to take over the world, the only people seemingly standing between her and her plan are the mysterious vigilantes known as the Exstars who used modified versions of mecha called battle skippers. A coincidence and a childish crush will bring two young innocent girls straight into this battle between the Exstars and their nemesis who seeks their battle skippers for herself.

Review

Well, I've seen a lot worse, which is a bit sad when I think about it.

The first strike against this production is the incoherent plot. I've seen enough anime that I don't always expect plots to be, and this is being charitable, 100 percent logical but I do, at minimum, expect them to have some sort of internal consistency. Battle Skipper features a number of odd plot twists and directions that honestly made me wonder if different people were writing the different scenes and not paying any attention to what happened previously. Key plot points in one episode would seemingly be absent or ignored in the following episode with no explanation. Even the main basis of the plot, the apparent desire of the villain to acquire the Exstars' battle skippers makes increasingly little sense (despite a very lame attempt to justify it with one special feature of the aforementioned battle skippers) as you see the type of resources and military hardware that she has available. If the show took itself a bit less seriously, perhaps it could have gotten away with a lot of this but given how seriously the plot takes itself at times, the poor writing stands out all that much more. A final scene that offers some brief explanation for certain glaring plot questions didn't do much to mollify me.

The battle skippers represent one of the single lamest mecha designs I have ever seen in an anime title. It honestly would have made for better scenes if the characters were using some sort of hovertank or anything else instead of the clumsy and unpractical pieces of metal that the were supposed to be impressing the viewer. I actually laughed aloud during the first scene in which a battle skipper appeared. They offered a lame attempt to anthropomorphize the mecha by giving them AI that spoke in the Kansai dialect. This was supposed to be rather amusing comedy gold, "Oh, look at these silly mecha talking like Osakans!" but it ended up seeming very forced and pointless.

These unappealing designs did not stem from a sadistic mecha artists but rather the show's true origin: a series of TOMY wire-controlled fighting robot toys . Through the help of several helpful DVD extras, I had a chance to view the Japanese commercials for the original battle skipper toys. Honestly, I think they look a bit silly even as toy but I'm not a Japanese child, so it isn't as if TOMY had to appeal to me. Interestingly enough, the original toy commercials have short anime sequences that feature characters and settings that have absolutely nothing to do with the actual OAV series. I'm not going to dismiss Battle Skipper out of hand for being a glorified advertisement for a goofy toy but I only wish they would have put some more effort into making it a higher quality production. A ninety minute fully animated OAV series costs quite a bit of yen to produce.

While the show's animation wasn't awful, it was far from the spectacular and the action sequences, for the most part, were rather uninspired. Given how much plot emphasis was made on the special abilities of the Exstars' battle skippers, I was a bit surprised to see those abilities almost never used. The series also treats us to several hand-to-hand fights between the ExstarsEand their foes. All these scenes occur after a stock transformation sequence which, I'm guessing, was supposed to imply that that the transformation enhanced their combat abilities but it was never particularly clear to me. I also was rather unimpressed that they had to use a stock transformation sequence for an OAV series that was only three episodes long.

The character work was barely decent. At times, it just seemed like they had too many characters and that they were more concerned about making sure certain standard character types were present (tough girl, smart girl, cute girl, elegant girl, et cetera) than in actually developing the characters. The characters, I suppose, were likable enough when I watched the title but their lack of depth also made them quickly forgettable. The AIs in the battle skippers received so little screen time, it almost seemed pointless to present them as sentient. They simply ended up being more characters in an already crowded and undeveloped cast. The music, for that matter, was equally forgettable.

Battle Programmer Shirase

Synopsis

Shirase Satoshi is a computer programmer (and slight pervert) who lives in a house taken care of by his relatives. Frequently, Amano Misao (who Shirase is an uncle of, even though Misao considers him to be like an older borther) comes by to give him food and keep him company, but she is unaware that Shirase is the well-known hacker Battle Programmer Shirase (BPS). He doesn't work for money, but usually is paid for his work by other methods. To put it in a better way, he does odd jobs for odd payment (usually a very rare piece of computer equipment). These are his tales.

Review

I'll admit that I am not a big fan of ecchi anime. In fact, it is one of my least favorite genres. Even knowing that BPS is an ecchi comedy which also features fan service by underage girls, it is hard, if not impossible, for me to hate this series. In other words, it is like Love Love, only this has more substance than the aforementioned horror story, with less fan service.

First, I might want to mention that BPS is a massive commercial. Subliminal advertising has never reached a point like this in a program. I think I counted Intel, Jolt Cola, DHL, Sony, and Pioneer (which was parodied) among many others. Of those, it seems DHL is the most used.

Another odd point is the way this program shatters the fourth wall in the last episode (Episode 5, Part 3). In said episode, the producers are thanking its loyal viewers as well as, according to them, "Those outside the broadcast area who took special measures to watch the show on their PC monitors." This sentence is referring to the fansubbers as well as those who view the fansubs, making BPS one of the first few programs to acknowledge fansubs. It also mentions "and to everybody who watched it subtitled overseas without permission: The head director, Hayashi Hiroki, representing the entire staff, would like to say 'I'm really sorry'."

Now that the references have been handed out, it's time for the review to start, and I will like to single out the music first. This show has a few catchy tunes, including the "In the last episode" tune (which sounds like an electronic/hip-hop crossover), the OP "Suddenly" (a very catchy electronic-style song with a rather interesting vocalist), and the ED "Pure Enough" is a fun little ditty with a laughter-inducing intro. These are actually quite good songs and can be sung along to.

For an ecchi anime, this anime has some rather decent characters. Shirase is your lazy man with the skills and popular name as well as an impressive collection of CPU hardware as well as a somewhat perverted persona. Misao is the girl who is rather shy except to her "onii-chan" (Shirase) and a few others. In the later episodes, a girl named Yon-chan (I forget her actual name) comes in. She is the new student visiting Japan who is really a hacker in the service of the US Navy, despite being about the same age as Misao. Akizuki is a man who is part of both the plot and a common gag involving Misao and Shirase (more on that later) and is in every episode episode, but in a different profession each time (like Alexei Sayle in The Young Ones). On the opposite side of the good guy/bad guy spectrum is Ose Rintarou, the "America King". He fills in the part of the foil of Shirase in the first four episodes, then abruptly stops after episode 4 (though the show provides a good enough reason for this). Most of the other characters are mostly in there for filler.

Plotwise, this show has a rather strange habit of using running gags and a separate plot for each episode, but stringing a backstory together, even though the backstory is very vague. One of the common running gags involves Misao, Shirase, and Akizuki (though in one case involves Yon-chan instead of Misao). Usually, Akizuki barges into the scene and just prior the his entrance, something happens (like an earthquake) that throws Misao and Shirase into a rather intimate position that was not intended. Akizuki then starts a sequence involving self-grief in seeing this (even though he is misunderstanding the scene), but midway through the sequence, Misao ends the so called "intimate position" while Akizuki continues the grief, ending with him abruptly stopping and acting like he never saw anything (which cues laughter from nowhere in particular. I'm serious!). This scene always plays out the same way. At first, the scene made me confused, but afterward started making me barely laugh each time. Another gag is the showing off of Shirase's "attacks", but without the lengthly intro or colorful lighting usually used in shows like Sailor Moon. The plot also spoons out a ton of computer jargon, so good luck recognizing everything.

As for the artwork, it is, to put it simply, quite impressive. The colors mix well in the scenes and casts a look that is both mundane as well as animated, which had me in awe at it. Even the worst scenes artwise were still nice and colorful. The neighborhood was full of life. The school was nice looking. There was very little that was not impressive (which is rare since in a show like this, the fanservice is what gets the better treatment). The animation is just like the artwork in that it works out the scenes in grand ways. There is room for improvement with the animation quality, but the way the show flows made me forget that fact.

To end the main part of the review, I will do the voices. The way this anime handles the vocals is very neat, but not exactly perfect. The characters and voices match up rather well (Misao=cute girl. Shirase=lazy.) and left me with little regret of having watched this.

Probably my only problems with this show are the small episode count (15 episodes was a rather small time limit and didn't get too far into Shirase's backstory as well as Rintarou's, but giving a small bit of info behind Misao, probably trying to prove that this Misao won't be having a blonde-haired evil alter-ego) and the fact that the last episode seemed to have a rather stupid ending. Other than that, this program is certainly worth a bright star in my book, even with the underage fan service (since it, unlike Love Love, didn't spoon it into your mouth all at one time, but had very little actual fan service) and the innuendo.