Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Witchblade anime review

It took some time, but I finally got through my backlog of Witchblade anime. Now I have heard awful stuff about the anime, mainly from fans of the original American comic who decried the Anime-sation of their favourite comic. I can't blame them, the art direction for one is completely different - being anime and all. But one pet complaint I heard from them is pretty unsubstantiated, that being that the anime series somehow borders on softcore. Which is all bollocks if they actually watched the anime in the first place. Sure, fan service do occur plenty, but I would consider Witchblade to be pretty mild. At most I would compare Witchblade's ecchi level to that of a censored Ghost in the Shell. And it isn't like the American Witchblade had no boobies. Regardless, what is it with people who hates skins but loves violence?


The anime does start out rather slowly. We are introduced to Masane Amaha and her daughter Rihoku, who are running away from a child welfare organisation who are seeking to remove Rihoku from Masane's custody because she does not have the capabilities to raise a daughter. Eventually succeeding in keeping her daughter, Masane is hired by Reiji Takayama of Douji Group Industries, a weapons manufacture, to combat malfunctioned 'Ex-cons', a group of weapons made of human corpse. This is because she has the power of the Witchblade, whom she came to possess some six years earlier when an earthquake destroyed Tokyo. The Wicthblade has the power to provide the bearer with superhuman abilities, and Masane's reappearance has ignited a rivalry between the Douji Group and NSFW, an origination researching into creating Witchblade clones dubbed the Cloneblades wielder.


A number of important characters were established early on, but their back story weren't explained much. Many came off as two-dimensional particularly Yuusuke Tozawa, a freelance photographer, whom initially came off as someone who would do anything for a scoop, including exposing the Witchblade project. As the series progress eventually he is shown to have a deeper understanding with Masane and her daughter. The producers of the series seems to realise that the time spent working on Masane's relationship with secondary characters would do well and even dedicated an entire episode for the purpose when Masane gets a day off. Masane's relationship with her daughter is also tested when Rihoku is proven to be not her biological son and that her real mother was revealed to be a rival Cloneblade.


Disappointing to a series like this however are the action sequences themselves. Typically of any Japanese anime, these are bland and as a result we are not accustomed to seeing fast action. Fortunately fight scenes rarely occur, and even then those that do occur brief. Most of the time, the anime focuses on a number of storyline like Masane's relationship with Rihoku, Douji's internal office politics and NSFW's research into human cloning. This is why I actually continued watching Witchblade because the story keeps getting better as back story of important characters are explored further and new plotlines emerging. Towards the end it would be challenging not to feel sorry for some of the main characters. Even Masane's enemies are often portrayed in a kindly way and their deaths are usually a form of release from a terrible burden.


The quality of the animations isn't the best. I would rate it as pretty average, certainly no where near on par with The Melancholy of Haruhi Suziyama or Nana. But as a TV anime, I would say it is good enough to enjoy, though no where near the details of Top Cow's Witchblade comics and Witchblade Takeru mangas. Voice over are another matter though with the cast of Japanese voice actors giving their absolute finest here.

You can preorder a limited edition Witchblade boxset here or get the first volume here.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Jon Choo said...

Thanks, but I have to delete your comment for spam linking. Bye.

Unknown said...

Stumbling through the internet, I managed to come across your blog and I must say it’s the best so far concerning the anime. Most other reviews seem to be commenting only on the “sexual” side of things and not allowing the story to unfold. I look forward to reading more of your reviews soon.

Jon Choo said...

Thanks, I do try my best. :)

Mitch said...

what?!? the melancholy of haruhi suzumiya is no where near as good as witch blade. ur just saying it because ur one of those die hard haruhi fans (like everyone else i find on the net.....) witchblade had far more storyline and character depthness, making up for the lack of fight scene. And the relationship between mother and daughter was so strong throughout that it was difficult to hold back tears, especially at the final episodes.
but i do have to agree with Andrew, your reveiw did have to do more with the actual anime and storyline than the sexual side of the show.

Anonymous said...

You Stick it to all those american comic book guy's asses that won't even conside the level of complexity of the Japanese Series... ... and if I'm correct their beloved Top cow comic book company had to say the Japanese could make the series first

Anonymous said...

I have 2 issues with your review:

1.The kid's name is 'Rihoko'
2.At one point in the review, you put "son" instead of "daughter".

But other than that, your review is good. I don't mean to be all 'grr' with my issues with your review, i'm just kinda OCD. Lol.