Ranked #1966

Silent Mobius

Silent Mobius is a mish-mash of a lot of different things. It has magic, cyborgs, aliens, hackers, and that’s just when you scratch the surface. Usually when an anime tries to mix this many things together the result is pretty poor, but in the case of Silent Mobius it’s a complete success. One of the first things I noticed when watching Silent Mobius was how familiar it all felt. You have your “science project gone wrong” doomsday scenario followed by what can only be described as hell on Earth, and then we pan out to about 30 years later where a special organization (the AMP) exists to battle the threat and protect what’s left of the world around them. For some reason I felt like I’ve been here before. The second thing I noticed about the show? How badly some of the names translated into English. Katsumi Liqueur; Yuki Saiko; Lebia Maverick. The nice girl of the anime ironically has a last name that says otherwise, and the computer whiz of the show has a name that resembles a certain part of the female anatomy that male readers under the age of thirteen probably shouldn’t know about. It’s times like this when I can understand why some studios change the names of characters in the dubbing process.

Speaking of dubbing, Silent Mobius has one of the worst dubs I’ve heard in a while. Some of the characters are alright (not great, but alright) such as Kiddy and Katsumi, but other characters are so painful to listen to that it almost temps me to drop my final score of this anime down a few notches. The one voice actor who got on my nerves the most was Barry W. Levy who provided the voice for Robert (Roy) DeVice. I don’t know who his voice coach was, but he had this horrible habit of putting a period after every word he said (so.he.talked.like.this.), which got annoying quick. And don’t even get me started on his weak display of emotions. Every time there was an emotional scene with Roy (especially a crying scene) I wanted to close my eyes and pretend it wasn‘t happening. How this guy gets to play alongside Matthew Perry in an upcoming movie is beyond me, but since Silent Mobius came out nearly ten years ago I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. If all you have to do to escape Barry Levy’s voice (although granted he’s not the only crappy voice actor here, just my pick for bad tomato) is put up with reading subtitles I’d say it’s well worth it. Japanese audio is the way to go with this series, trust me.

One thing I found rather interesting was how the setting of the series was like a character all on it’s own. It’s very distinct and memorable. It’s almost like a futuristic post-apocalyptic version of Gotham, where governments have pretty much turned their heads away from the state of the city and have essentially helped in making it the mess that it is. Also much like Gotham the city has two sides to itself. It has its rather nice residential areas where people of higher class can live respectably, and then it has the broke down and poor parts where nobody (especially cops and AMP members) should ever go. One of the early episodes had our heroine-in-training Katsumi Liqueur and her soon to be boyfriend and fellow police officer Roy get trapped in the worst part of town after their vehicle crashes (with the help of a little sabotage, of course), and they had to make their way around without drawing attention to themselves, which meant they needed to change into something a little less “cop-like”. This is probably the first episode that really pulled me in because it gave so much life to the city depicted in the series. Later episodes further expand upon this, but they don’t forget about the cast members either.

Each of the characters of Silent Mobius have at least one episode almost entirely devoted to them, which is always a welcomed aspect when in need of a little character development. When the series first started it felt a lot like my first day of school. I didn’t know any of the characters, and certainly wasn’t able to remember any of their names, but by the end of the series, much like the end of the school year, I knew all of the characters by name and face alike. This is all thanks to some great character development and nicely spread screen time between them. The progress of the series is nicely paced as well, and just when you think you’ve got it pegged it throws at you an Alice in Wonderland tie-in and an episode about time travel to grab your attention incase its lost it. It’s true that Silent Mobius can be very predictable at times and some episodes do feel as though they’re dragging along, but for the most part it knows when to change it up by tossing in a couple of huge plot twists and killing off a character here and there that you probably didn’t expect to die.

The audio and animation quality of Silent Mobius are both equally as good. Not all of the music is something I would have on my MP3 player anytime soon, but the OP and ED themes (aside from the second ED, which I’m not a big fan of) both do their part respectively. The animation was overall very good but there are some recycled scenes here and there, and for an action anime I guess it would have been nice for things to be a bit more fluid, but it’s not something to complain too much about. One thing is for certain though: if you’re looking for blood and guts and/or sex this isn’t the anime for you. There is a little bit of mild violence sprinkled around throughout the series but nothing even close to excessive. And I think I can recall one sex scene with possibly some brief nudity, but nothing gratuitous at all. I also don't remember hearing much profanity. Also, if you're looking for a Sci-Fi anime with one of those deep philosophical and extremely technical plots I suggest avoiding this one and turning to something along the lines of Neon Genesis Evangelion instead. Silent Mobius is for younger teens and above, with an interesting Sci-Fi storyline that doesn’t go over viewers heads for a change, and has a nice dosage of romance, comedy, and mystery on the side. If you’re in the mood for a little Sci-Fi action that doesn’t require you to dust off the old Webster’s Dictionary, then I suggest giving Silent Mobius a try.

My Score: 8.5

Version Watched: English Dub read more