Ranked #2601

Code:Breaker

NOTE: This is my first review at MAL, so please bear with me. Also, I haven’t read the manga AT ALL, and I don’t know if the manga’s story is similar to the anime’s. Consider this as a point of view of someone who just watched the anime. There are some spoilers along the way to explain my point in the review, so read at your own risk. :)

I remembered watching the first few episodes of Code:Breaker (together with a few more anime) when it was still being aired last year. I got curious since I thought, “Hey another super power-themed shonen anime! Cool!” After watching those few episodes, I stopped watching it and simply waited for the series to finish since I got tired of waiting for a new episode, which was released weekly.

While watching the last episodes of Code:Breaker, I got disappointed to this anime due to various reasons, but mainly I got disappointed because of the plot. Well, it started good, but how the series ended is just bland and generic. Perhaps most of us (if not all of us) have seen a story with a character betraying the good guys, working for the bad guy, and then in the end, betraying that bad guy and saying that he has been in league with the good guys all along. Well, we have that kind of cliché here. How about the Big Bad showing up after the bad guy gets defeated? We also have it here. The great presentation made at the start of the story was wasted by how they ended this series, which is cliché-filled, and done in a bad way at that.

Another thing here is the characterization of, well, the characters, which doesn’t seem real and human enough for me, and it shows more as the series progresses. Come on, someone who really IS evil doesn’t say he’s evil; rather, he would say that he’s the hero of justice (or something like that). Besides that, there are also some dialogues in this anime that I find weird and/or just simply wrong. And being an adaptation of a manga, the series’ ending is rather inconclusive, since 1) the manga is not yet finished and, 2) the adaptation is only 13 episodes long, which is very short. What I find wrong about its ending is that it never left me wanting for more.

With that said, the anime isn’t all bad points and no good points at all. Just as I said earlier, the way the story was presented in the beginning was great, with a certain number of people with superpowers (called Code:Breakers) are working for the government to eliminate (i.e.; kill) people that the government sees as evil. The character designs are also great, although the design for the Code:Breakers have varying touches of bishounen-ness in them.

So if you’re looking for a groundbreaking new anime, this certainly is NOT it. Maybe if you haven’t watched a lot of superpower-themed anime, you might enjoy this. Just “might”, though. read more

Adaptation:Breaker

Talk about a poor adaptation. After reading some of the manga, I was anticipating what this series could do when moved to the big stage aka. adapted into an anime. Not only does this series fail as an adaptation, but it fails as a stand-alone anime series. There were so many failures with this series that I don't even know where to begin. I guess let's start with the plot.

The plot itself is at least interesting. A select group of agents within the government, unbeknown to mankind with special abilities are hired to eliminate evil. This story follows one such agent who is assigned to protect a "rare breed", someone who has the ability to nullify special abilities. In my opinion, it's a decent plot...but the story's progression was weak and stereotypical. As the story progressed, it made for the reveal and story behind Hitomi seem underplayed. That's where the characters come in and it's probably the biggest weakness of this series.

Sakura Sakurakouji is quite possibly the worst lead character I've ever seen...at the very least the worst in a shonen series. While it's understandable that she has a strong sense of justice, she takes it to a downright ridiculously stupid degree. Her beliefs and her actions are so boneheaded that I groaned at least once in every episode where she said or did something. While yes, I'm aware her righteous actions in the manga are a little over the top, the anime blew it FAR out of proportion. At least for the most part Rei Ogami stayed in character...sort of. While most of the other characters did stay in character, I found how they re-worked the introduction of these characters apart from the manga to be underwhelming. As I mentioned before, that brings forth the antagonist, Hitomi. His story seemed so stereotypical that he was just a boring villain.

The scriptwriting was some of the most lackluster I had EVER seen in an anime. In fact, I'll just come out and say that this might be some of the worst script work I have EVER seen in an anime. It's amazing that this is the work of Yasuhiro Irie because I applauded his efforts with Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. The only thing I can guess is perhaps Irie bit off more than he could chew with this project. He was handling the direction, the series composition, the script writing, and the storyboard. He's not an experienced script writer and it showed in this series. This series reeked of under-staffing and Kinema Citrus should be ashamed that they didn't put in a better effort when it came to staffing.

My biggest complaint with this series is I think it strayed way too far from the manga. The manga did a stronger job of executing character development, comedy writing, and dramatic tension. The small nuances and stories that Kinema Citrus decided to cut out from the manga slightly ruined the bonding the characters had in this series. While I know Kinema Citrus isn't exactly the biggest or strongest production company on the market, I think their handling of the Code:Breaker series was far too ambitious for them. Code:Breaker is a long-running manga series. It's the sort of series that needs to be tackled by a production company that can put out episodes on a weekly basis like Studio Perriot (and that's not a compliment of Studio Perriot's work). Trying to condense Code:Breaker's plot into a 12 episode season just isn't possible without ruining the story and characters in any way, shape, or form. The animation and music was nothing special. Nothing about it was really all that memorable, although I did like the OP and ED. I didn't love them or found them captivating, but they were catchy enough for me to like.

Overall, it's just a really poor adaptation. I'm not usually one who rips an anime for straying from it's predecessor but the problem is Code:Breaker did nothing for me as a stand-alone series to separate it from it's manga counterpart. Even looking at it from just an anime viewer's POV, it's a bland, boring, predictable, and stereotypical. It doesn't do anything to stand out, as an anime or an adaptation. If you're a fan of the Code:Breaker manga, I don't recommend watching this. If you do watch this anime and do like certain elements behind it, I would recommend giving the manga a chance. It's an entertaining read and was far better than this. read more