Ranked #2172

Project ARMS

I can't believe that no one has written a review for this series yet. Anyway, here's my attempt at one:

STORY: Okay the story for Project ARMS is one of the much over-used simple plots that seem to plague the shounen genre. It's about a kid, Ryo, who was in an accident as a child, which you never figure out exactly what it was, and later finds out that he and others have these nanomechines inside their bodies codenamed ARMS. And to make matters worse an evil organization, the Agregori (I hope that's how you spell it.), wants the ARMS subjects and will stop at nothing to get them using a wide varitiety of freaks and such to do the dirty work.
Not. Very. Original. At. All.

The only saving grace of this series's sorry story is the fact that it has many references to Lewis Carol's works, mainly the Alice in Wonderland books but others as well, which does add a certain feeling of depth to the whole thing. Each of the character's ARMS are assigned a name that correlates with a character from Carol's works and the ARMS powers fit that character, I will discuss this more in the character section.

But the story is a mediocre attempt at best, at worst an overplayed stereotypical story. However, there is a surprising plot twist somewhere around episode twelve that just slaps you in the face. Completely and utterly unexpected and later on there's another one that isn't quite as shocking but rather more funny and unexpected.

ART: Now onto something else that's not too good. The art really is quite bad for the most part. In some cases the characters cast no shadow on the ground at all. It's pretty terrible, and some of the fight scenes are so jerkily animated that you cannot see the violence that is happening even if you watch it in slow-motion frame by frame. (Note: this is mainly in the first ten episodes, after that it significantly improves.)

However, the artists must have skipped out on these parts to better animate the ARMS themselves, the nanomachinery looks very cool and in some instances very freaky. Espiecially in the later episodes in which the ARMS learn even more powers and grow into something even more awesome. Quite cool stuff, also some of the battles are really excellent towards the latter part of the series. It's just getting there that's hard.

SOUND: The sound of this series is atrocious. About the only saving grace is the fact that the opening and ending themes are quite catchy and good and the main backround music is quite creepy. It involves an organ and strings and just sounds like it belongs in an old Hitchcock film. That's the only reason why I gave this section a 3.

Let's talk about the voice acting, in one word: BAD. This is for both the sub and the dub, the voice actors for the dub are relatively well-known for the most part but this series certainly isn't their best work. The dialogue is cheesy and makes you wince or just laugh at the sheer horridness of it and these times occur at several moments throughout the series. It just really isn't very good. (Once again, as the series progresses it gets noticeably better ... either that or you just become accustomed to it.)

CHARACTER: The character's general personalities are for the most part your standard shounen stereotypes: you've got the dashing hero who's afraid of his abilities, the screaming angry teen, the frightened timid teen, the love-intrest, the other love-intrest, the enemy you love to hate, the girl that has a dark past and is angrier that the angry screaming teen, the enemy that you actually kind of like, the enemies that have a change of heart, any and every stereotype that you've seen thousands of times is here. That said, those tried and true archetypes still work in this series and mesh together just as good as they do in every other series that has them in it.

As said before, there is the tie-in with Lewis Carol's works. The ARMS are each named after a character and they each portray their assigned character rather well. These include: White Rabbit, Jabberwock, White Knight, Queen of Hearts, and Gryphon. Also, there are a couple of plot twists involving certain characters that you really don't expect. One of which is rather comical and badass at the same time. (Unfortunately I can't give it away without ruining the moment.)

ENJOYMENT: As you can see, I gave everything up to now a 5 or lower, so how can my enjoyment be an 8 ... I had better start explaining that hadn't I? This series, though less than mediocore in most parts, just has something about it that seems to attract to it. I loved it and my friends who have seen it loved it as well. I have it listed under my favorites for this reason and it is probably in the top 10 of all the anime I have ever seen. For what reason?

... I don't know. You'll just have to watch it yourself and you'll most likely see what I mean. There's just something about it that grips you in a way. That's all I can say.

OVERALL: This series, through scores alone, should get a 4 but since I enjoyed it so much I had to bump it up a notch. If I could I'd say that it was an eight but that would be a down-right lie and wouldn't be fair to anyone who wanted to know what the series was like.

So as a summery, it's a mediocre shounen series with lots of violence and not much plot, shallow characters, bad voice acting, and something else that I can't quite explain in words.

In other words, check it out ... if nothing else you'll get a kick out of the bad voice acting. read more

Before writing anything, I hate long reviews so mine will be as short as possible.

The first very thing is that this is the most underrating anime I've ever seen and oh I watched a lot like more than 100 anime. I can't find the reason why this anime has this unfair score. The story isn't unique but isn't bad. The characters are amazing although they aren't the best of course. The Seiyū (Voice actors) are nice and most of them are famous.

Well, I enjoyed it a lot and I highly recommend this anime if you have it and have a second thought about it due to its score or other reviews.

GO AND WATCH IT YOURSELF AND YOU WILL KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT AND PLEASE CHANGE THIS THE UNFAIR RATING SO OTHER WON'T HAVE THIS SECOND THOUGHT LIKE ME AND YOU. read more