Ranked #3350

Kishin Houkou Demonbane (2006)

This anime is a bit too complicated for me. I don't know if it's just because I'm slow or what, but it had so many complicated terms and side stories I can barely catch up.

I did like the concept behind it. It was interesting, talking about grimoires and sorcery and combat, etc. but as I've said it tends to become complicated. The story is good, the execution, not so much. For one thing, there were way too many characters, and some of them popped up out of nowhere, in the middle of the story, making things more complicated. I ended the series without knowing what the woman-with-the-big-jugs' name was.

The relationship between Kurou and Al was kind of bothersome. I know that Al is probably a 1000 year old person, but she looks so young. If I hadn't known her age I would think that she was around 13-15. I'd guess Kurou would be about 20 (since he went to "college"). It's just weird for me to see them so intimate with each other. Oh well.. I guess anything can happen in anime world.

The graphics are great, specially the grimoires. They were all so nicely drawn. The guys weren't bad either, but Kurou's muscle tone kind of bothered me. He doesn't have a large frame, and yet you see muscles bulging out.

The music wasn't bad. Most of the music were very upbeat and had high energy, like the opening song. I think it was something about God and machines. The ending song was a bit depressing, but I like it. I seem to like depressing and nostalgic songs, which makes me want to rethink seeing a therapist, but it's a wonderful song. Sad, but wonderful.

I can't say it's one of my favorites, but it wasn't that bad either. I did finish it, and at the end of the series I kinda understood what it's about (but then again, I'm still not sure). read more

"Hey, let's buy some guy who can animate a few robot battles with some 3D software. We'll make up some dialogues as fillers and spice them up by throwing in a few old jokes and a crapload of terms from some successful fantasy-universe or something like that to make it look like some intelligent and thoroughly thought through show ... what do you think about this Lovecraft guy?"

I guess that's what a planning-session for Demonbane could have been like.

The battles themselves didn't look that bad, but then again: The ridiculous mecha design gets boring and the fights aren't much better in that regard. Most of the time I got the impression they didn't even bother thinking about details, but rather made a new 3D model and threw it at the main characters robot including some flashy sfx. Between the fights the viewer has to face a redicilous amount of Lovecraft-references that (apparently) don't add anything to the show but pure confusion of the viewer. I can't say whether this show may offer something for a person having read all the lovecraft stuff, but my guess would be, that even that is rather unlikely. read more