s.CRY.ed

Okay kids, time for some real talk. Dub Scryed is the best God damned show ever made, and will ever be made, in the history and future of visual entertainment. It's about this badass dude with a nuclear-powered arm and a jet engine on his back who takes shit from no man. Basically he enjoys his life living in an abandoned dentist's office in the slums with his loli fangirl until some uniformed douchebags from the city across the way show up to wreck his stuff and kidnap him. From that point on he, Kazuma The Shell Bullet (the main character. last names are for ... pussies), devotes his life to kicking their asses, especially this one pompus, justice-obsessed guy named Ryuho. He's pretty much your cliche bishounen hero and serves as the other main character of the show.

The main theme of the series is their rivalry in particular. No matter what else goes on in this show, it all ultimately boils down to our badass hero and our girly nerd hero wanting to beat the shit out of each other.

But seriously now, Scryed is basically what you'd get if you took Naruto, Bleach, DBZ and Code Geass, cut out the filler, terrible writing, homoerotic overtones and everything else that brings those shows down and put the gold left over into 26 episodes. Speaking of Code Geass, that series is literally just Scryed after Goro Taniguchi got paid tons of money to add Clamp art, school crap, robots and double the series length for no reason.

The pacing's good. The first half of the series has Kazuma coming to a classic shounen showdown with some of the wildest and most awesome/gimmicky/hateable enemies I've ever seen. In the background of all this, the plot develops as the big bad city and its police force comes into greater conflict with the slum people. Of course this all involves dudes with weird superpowers fighting too.

Later on in the show, after Kazuma breaks the universe in half with a flick of his wrist, the series jumps into overdrive and all sorts of awesome shit happens. Scryed shows that it can juggle multiple subplots at once with equal weight(something Code Geass wishes it could do btw), which does nothing but add to how awesome the last batch of eps are. The final episode of Scryed should be duly noted as the best final episode of anything ever. Not even exaggerating here.

Characters? Awesome. Many people confuse Kazuma with a cliche shounen hero, when in fact he's everything a good shounen hero has never been. Does he fight for his friends? Nah. Does he fight to become a great figure? No way. Does he fight just because he likes fighting? Well, yeah. Obv. But the key difference is that Kazuma does not give a DAMN. Do you have hostages and are threatening Kazuma? He'll just knock you the hell out with no regards for anyone else. He's impulsive, selfish, destructive, reckless, totally narrow-minded, PROUD and all the other things heroes are too balless or moral to be. These factors play heavily into his character development, as he becomes gradually more mentally unstable and self-destructive.

Then there's Ryuho. He's the polar opposite of Kazuma in every conceivable way in terms of personality, appearance, powers, back story, etc. Such is the point. He's almost as major as Kazuma, though I don't feel like typing a lot about him. Just note that he "HATES EVERYTHING EVIL!"

There's also Straight Cougar as Crispin Freeman. Or perhaps it's the other way around. Hard to tell. Anyway he's the best character in the show besides Kazuma and a fan favorite. The whole premise of his person is to live fast and be awesome. He's actually stronger than both the main characters, but he doesn't even care enough to show it. That's how slick this guy is.

Others include:
Kanami: Loli Narrator
Kimishima: Kazuma's best bro, third best character right here
Scheris: Boobs(in the manga) with Kari's voice from Digimon
Mimori: The cancer of the series, we don't talk about her
Jigmar: Mullet-clad commander of HOLY. sounds like Jelly Jiggler
Tachibana: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSs_T23qqW4#t=02m00s
Biff: HAMMMMMMMERRRRR
Urizane: Has mighty watermelon powers
Emergy: This guy actually summons a damn Gundam to fight Kazuma
A humpback whale: The main enemy of the series
Kyoji Mujo: The most wonderfully slick and antagonistic villain ever. He's actually just a gay elf but whatever.

Other Stuff: Hm... Music. Yes. As with like every Taniguchi show, this series has a plethora of dramatic Mexican trumpets, acoustic guitars, male choruses, etc which liven up action scenes, make dramatic scenes wonderfully Tele-Novela-esque in their cheesiness, etc. A+ OST.

Now let's shut up for a sec to talk about voices. You don't watch Scryed subbed. Let me repeat:

###You DO NOT watch Scryed subbed.###

Not only does every sub group for this series suck horrendously in ways you can't begin to grasp(I hope you're reading this, incompetent "FIST OF MY EGO!" translators), but the original voices produce a very different series. A boring, desolate series only fools dare to tread where a really aggressive constipated boy does shoddy combat with some losers. A stark contrast to Dub Scryed(the correct title for the series) which follows the antiheroic exploits of a proud man with a prouder fist asserting himself upon dastardly cheesy wrongdoers who are running all up in his house. The scriptwriting in the dub is Pulitzer worthy, as shown by that youtube link above and these gems:

"If it exists, I'll find it! Even if it doesn't!"

"Kazuma~! How are you going to get out of this PINCH?"
"You should know the answer... with my fist!!"

Oh yeah, there's art and animation too. Portions of the first few episodes of the series look very 90's, but as the series goes on it gets better and better. They actually spent a good portion of the budget on just the final episode, which is considerably smoother than previous ones and even features fully new transformation sequences and no stock footage at all. Not that there's much of that in the series in the first place.

SUMMARY: It's the son of G Gundam and First of the North star and the father of Needless and Gurren Lagann. Dub only, sub sucks. This is the only shounen fightan' anime you'll ever want or need to watch.

Story

The Lost Ground was created 22 years ago in the Kanazawa Prefecture when an unexplained geological / metaphysical phenomenon occurred which caused the ground to rise up into peaks accompanied by the release of a lot of energy. There were 2 effects of this. Firstly the Lost Ground split off from the Mainland. Secondly about 1% of the inhabitants of the Lost Ground gained special abilities to manipulate matter in various ways, they are called Alter Capabilists, with accompanying "Alter" abilities. If an Alter Capabilist's ability manifests in the form of a separate entity that separate entity is called an "Alter".

Politics makes this anime very ... interesting. There is the Mainland who treats the Lost Grounds as a sort of beggar nation. The city part of the Lost Ground has trade concessions and AID from the Mainland, and is separated from the rest of the Lost Ground by a high wall. Those outside "The Wall" are called Natives, and alter users there are Native Alters.

In order to combat the Lost Ground Native Alters, Lost Ground Admin sets up an institution called HOLD and a special division within that called HOLY which is basically Native Alters who have come to the Admin side in order to suppress other Native Alters from the other side of the wall. It's sort of like using mutants to fight other mutants. Also note that even within the Admin section of Lost Grounds, Alters are NOT accepted as equal citizens, but they are tolerated if they are members of HOLY.

What a WONDERFUL premise. Special people with powers. Politics. Socio-economic ramifications where the rich live in the city and the rest eke out a beggarly but INDEPENDENT existence outside the wall. Organized government vs. anarchy. Dictatorship vs. Freedom. By the time it hit episode 10, I was thinking "this is GREAT".

If all these wonderful possibilities had been taken to their conclusion I would have given story a 10, but it goes only part of the way there. I will say that the very last FRAME of the series brought the plot from a 8 to a solid 9. You'll understand when you see it.

Character

The main protagonist is Kazuma, the stereotypical rebel bad boy with a heart of gold. His alter is the ability to "harden" his right arm with metallic alloy which gives him the ability to smash through anything. At the beginning of the series he is a native alter living with his sweetheart, Kanami, who has masses of long red hair while keeping his identity as an alter "mercenary for hire" secret.

Before long he encounters Ryuhou, rich spoiled scion of an important industrial conglomerate who has emotional baggage from watching his mother die to a mysterous alter capabilist when he was a child. He is the co-protagonist and is the strong, silent, lawful type. He is the most gifted member of HOLY and is charged with suppressing Native Alters, because as everyone quickly figures out, only alters can fight other alters, normal humans don't stand a chance. Ryohou is ridiculously good looking. In typical aloof hero fashion, he is oblivious to the TWO girls who are in love with him.

Kazuma and Ryuhou start out as enemies but they don't stay that way as things progress. It all happens very naturally too. Sometimes I was not happy with the "one dimensional" nature of Kazuma as the competitive, I want to be the best/winner guy. It's too Dragonball Z. Ryuhou matured as the series progressed but even then there are some manly man man things that manly men can't change.

The cast of supporting characters is very well fleshed out, every single one of them. Straight Cougar is the comic relief but he has a "deep" side and ended up being my favorite characters. Shiree had the most amazing alter. The mainland princess is idealistic and unrealistic. Melon man has his own principles and the rest of the smaller guys you either liked or hated but they weren't easily forgotten. All in all the characters were very well done except for Kazuma's character development which could have been done better.

Art/Animation

By 2008 standards, this is fairly dated with TONS of frame reuse. Like every episode there's frame reuse. However to give credit to the artists the transformation scenes are very well drawn with excellent artistic licence, flow, color and creativity. You don't get bored of seeing the "alters" of various people. If not for this I would have rated Art a lot lower.

Sound

The first strains of the opening sounds reminded me of Ricky Martin's "She Bangs"!! Serious!!! The alter sound effects were well done and voice acting was good. Not much else to say, nothing else jumped out at me as horrible or wonderful enough to give this more than a 7 rating.

Enjoyment

I didn't expect to enjoy this series as much as I did. Some parts of it were very predictable, characters fit into anime stereotypes but still with all the variety and interaction and plot driven devices this ended up being a very enjoyable watch. There's lots of fighting, cool alters, philosophical parts, drama, angst, love, what's not to like? Slightly better Art, a little more character development with Kazuma and pushing some other plot points to their conclusion would have made this a 10.

s-CRY-ed is one of my personal favorite animes. The wide set of characters is amazing, and the interaction between them is even better. In some way, all of them are connected through one another.

The story in a nutshell is set a few years after "The Great Uprising" and this in return sets up the character plots. Alters vs. HOLY. Alters are people who gained certain abilities from the incident a few years back, and they live outside the inner city just trying to survive, but HOLY wishes to either eliminate them all, or bring them to their side.

This show is very enjoyable. A lot of ... choice words thrown out here and there, nothing anyone hasn't heard before. If your a fan of DBZ, you'll most likely enjoy this one too. The story is great, the Animation is fantastic with awesome sound to go with it. As I said, the characters make the show even better, and it's just all around enjoyable.

Emotion also runs high in this one. A lot of anger from Kazuma, Scheris and Mimori make love a real issue for Ryuhou, and Ryuhou is just one of those lost boys trying to figure out what's really going on in the world and what really happened in his past. Kanami makes this story enjoyable too. And those are just a few of the most important characters. Cougar is a pretty funny guy too ;] The two main guys are Kazuma and Ryuhou, which in every other episode they're pretty much punching each other's faces into the ground, or arguing about something or other.

Overall, s-CRY-ed is one anime your not going to want to miss out on. The art is beautiful, the plot gets thicker and thicker as you get into further episodes, and you really have to pay attention in the beginning to understand everything to the fullest. This one isn't an anime you have to read the manga for either, so there's a plus. The manga goes into more details about the story, but oh well.

s-CRY-ed gets a 10/10 overall from me. Make sure to watch it sometime.

You ready boys and girls? You ready for men's talk? Sit the fuck down and strap the fuck up. You have just been diagnosed with fucking HIV. You wanna know why? Because this show just had sex with you.

S-CRY-ED takes place on giant island, called The Lost Ground. Suddenly, the place just ... rose out of nowhere 22 years ago. People with special abilities are born sometimes called Alters. Most of the Lost ground is barren wasteland, With one exceptional city on it. We have 2 groups now. The city fuckers, and the natives surviving outside. In the city, a group exists called HOLD, within HOLD their is a group called HOLY. HOLY is made up of Altars organized to control other Altars outside the city, Native Altars. This story has such weak premises and devices, stuff we have all seen before. But the way it works with these is so astounding, its something i have never seen before.

Here is were we get to the center of this cream puff of fucking manliness. Wait, eww that sounded gay. Sorry, that aside we have one tough mother fucker named Kazuma. No last name, he doesn't need one. He lives with a 8 year old girl named Kaname who wants him to be a slave on a farm all the time. Kazuma say's he will do anything for money, so him and his buddy, Kimishima, take on jobs using Kazuma's Altar power. He turns his fucking arm into... A tougher arm and uses things on his back to propel forward using attacks like SHOCKING FIRST BULLET!

Anywho, tough guy Ryuhou is the second main character and he's working for HOLY. CAN YOU SAY JUSTICE?!?!?! Yeah hes the typical no evil good boy and all self righteous like Seto Kiba or maybe you could compare him to Suzaka from Code Geass. His altar is summoning his little doll to fight for him. Him and Kazuma, are EPIC rivals from beginning to end. At first hating each other guts in the first arc, to then teaming up in the second, but still wanting to kick each others ass, but with a respect. Personally, I like Ryuhou alot in the second half, just still not ass much as Kazuma.

Arts all like 2004-2006 what do you expect? I don't care that much so i just gave it a 9.

Sound is solid. Opening Reckless fire is sweet as hell and so is the ending. But one thing here. DUBBED fucking understand me subbed lovers? NO. YOU WATCH DUBBED. No exception.

We have a bunch of characters. From the ones in holy to the ones outside it. Development is really awesome but it kind of only comes after the second arc. My personal favorites is Straight Cougar, i guess he was like a mentor to Kazuma, and he uses the moves Kazuma does in the 1st stage of his altar. His motto is go through it fast so you have more time for the next thing. His altar is speedy mc speedy fuck awesome. I like most of the characters from watermelon man, to the "Humpback whale"(Nyron) to Scheris who is Ryuhou's fanbase. One character i can NOT STAND is Mimori. Worst character ever. Give me a second to rant. She fucking love's Ryuhou, because she met him ONCE as a kid and has never seen him since and just follows him like fuck. Get a life. I hate this bitch. Whines and complains too. Perhaps she can cook? NO, probably not.

Anyway s-CRY-ed is underrated and freaking Incredible. I believe it to be a 10, and it deserves to be in my favorites. Here a gave it a 9, just because i don't want to look like as a review, i overlooked its problems because i didn't. As a master procrastinator i believe to save the worst for last. ALOT of characters have some build up but NO follow and through and at one point become completely useless. Tachibana or Jigmar for example. Also it is incredible cheesy, which i love, but something like that is a required taste. I love this show. Do you? Find out, because this is something that you don' want to miss.

The show itself is pretty average. Most of the characters are pretty much unimportant. The art and animation is pretty weak. The music was subpar. But overall I enjoyed the show alot. It made me excited to watch each episode and expect the next one to be more better. It pretty much delivered on that end because of one lone reason. The main character Kazuma. He is pretty much an anti-hero mold that doesn't take any bullshit. He is very decisive and does not get caught up in the small things. Basically he does not have any of the annoying characterics other popular shonen characters ... would have.

Honestly I wanted to give this show a 10, because I thought it was purely awesome with its fight scenes. Even if it was extremely cheesy with the characters finishing each other's line and all that other bread that comes with it. The two characters of Kazuma Straight Cougar pretty much make this show completely watchable even though Straight Cougar is not a lead. I did not think the story sucked since the story kept moving episode to episode but it failed to capture me in its setting. And Ryuhou is.. averagely cool in his own way even if he is the other main lead.

The premise of Scryed seemed reminiscent to X-Men, certain people had special powers which led to discrimination from the general public. There's a team of them working to iron out the differences, while others resort to violence. I found the series to be pretty enjoyable despite it's simple plot and progression, although I started to become disenchanted toward the end. Most, if not all of the fights were up-front with little thinking or strategy, and after seeing them play out the same way over and over it became boring. I didn't really care for the way the ending was handled either, but I won't describe ... it to avoid spoilers. Overall a decent sci-fi action anime, but you could do better imho.

s-CRY-ed is an action series that follows the development of two young boys that have polar opposite world views. Both of them go through a character journey, losing things that are important to them and transforming both physically and mentally. Of course, there is a cast of regulars that appear and are interesting in their own right.

An early theme as the backdrop between Kazuma and Ryuho’s battles is Order versus Chaos. While it doesn’t stay the focus forever, it’s interesting to see how these viewpoints impact both the two main characters and the world around them, as well as the people that they meet. In ... the end, either they change someone’s view or at least take them out of commission.

Not every episode lands or is very important.. there are a few episodes that for half the runtime serve as more than recaps than actual story progression. But you can bet, however, that the next episode will pick up the slack the last one left. There are a few characters that I feel didn’t get the resolution they really needed, however.

Even where s-CRY-ed stumbles, there are still positive spots. The animation and sound are top-notch, and the fights between alter users are always entertaining at the least. The alter powers can range from gigantic guns to something like turning whatever you want into water.

In conclusion, s-CRY-ed is a good to show to watch if you want a consistently entertaining action show with a bit of self-reflection and solid character development. Just because it’s old doesn’t mean it isn’t gold.

S-cry-ed is a decent anime. I say decent because there were a lot of things the author could have done better. It was too short, something more could have been done with the characters. The plot was also a little stiff but it wasn't bad.

Enough about the negatives. This series is action packed, if your a fan of DBZ, Yu Yu Hakusho, or One Piece you will be engrossed in this series after about 5 minutes.

The Main character Kazuma is a bad ass, it is hard not to like him, this is one of the reasons I stuck with this ... series. The fights are intense and entertaining.

The series is good and I recommend watching it, but it could have been great,which upsets me.

Despite being a nine out of ten I have to say I HAD A BLAST WITH THIS ANIME SERIES DESPITE IT'S HEAVY FLAWS! The story had some issues it takes place in a isolated island where people with special powers called alters reside and as a result an organization called holy are sent there from the main land to make sure the alters are under their control. The main characters are Kazuma (most awesome main character in the 2000's) and Ryuho (the Seto Kaiba/Ky Kiste of anime) well developed during the course of the series. From Fierce enemies to respectable allies. the other characters arent ... remarkable but do their parts decently but Kanmie (sorry for the misspelling) does here job well without being so annoying (man directors and mangaka please take notes if you want to do a shohen series.). The visuals are a huge blow for the enjoyment but not so much due to the story and action scenes. Also it's the gundam seeds character designer best work he was involve in. The ost however is a another huge blow/factor for this series besides the opening theme and ending are the best songs in the whole ost/soundtrack. Besides the flaws Scryed has to be in my top ten anime of all time due to the characters and the simple plot concept as well as the enjoyment level.

This anime is criminally OVERrated...

Aesthetically it's a good looking anime with great music. Conceptually the themes are interesting on their own-but fall flat.

While watching, I found myself asking "why?" many times; mostly due to the lack of explanations or reasons presented in the show itself.

This anime is way too long, yet ironically 26 episodes isn't enough to present an idea, build on it, and flesh out a relatively small cast of characters.

Interesting ideas and problems that characters face are forgotten by the next episode, and characters that do absolutely nothing to progress the story somehow get boat loads of screen time.

There is no tension ... in the show at all. The special abilities that characters posses are not explained at all and the "Alter ability" generally has no rules or limits. Characters use and gain special powers and abilities out of nowhere just because something has to progress the story. This became more noticeable during the mid-end portion of the show.

The anime also suffers from not having a main antagonist. The show realizes this pretty deep in and tries to bumrush you with cannon-fodder villains to close it out.

If you want to watch a simple anime with constant fighting then try s.CRY.ed, but in the end that's all it is.

Story: The story is mostly amazing, but it is also character-centric to a high degree. The reason I say "mostly" amazing is because of its male characters having tons of powerful scenes, but the non-amazing parts of the story are terrible as they deal with the female characters. This anime comes off as very sexist. None of the girls really pose a good fight to anyone and they are all put into serving roles 95% of the time while having minimal personality. I mostly remember them moaning, crying or calling out the male character names. They are basically objects and servants or non-existent. It never ... makes sense to have physically weak female characters in a world where super powers exist and while there are many, MANY shows that have managed to do it anyway. Even so, S-cry-ed is a tough act to follow when it comes to hatred of women. The female characters mostly do healing or nothing, even if they can fight. They are mostly defined by patience or faith, despite having abilities which should allow them to be more meaningful to the fate of anything.

Art: The art designs in this show are really good, in my opinion. Kazuma has a legendary character design, but other characters in the series have equally great designs. The fight scenes just look incredible most of the time.

Sound: Very solid. I like the ending theme more than the opening, but the soundtrack in the show itself really works, if I recall correctly.

Character: Like I said, female characters are terrible. Kazuma is a great character with deep manliness whereas his "sidekick" (I want to call her that) is boring and usually so one-dimensional that she can be characterized by calling out "Kasu-kun". She shows glimpses of a great character, but was never pushed far enough to make her seem like anything but a child archetype. Mimori is a character who seems like she could mean something, but is downright empty. Scheris' "Eternal Devote" is a phrase that has remained in my memory forever. I wish she was a good character, but she is also mostly empty and fails at everything despite being the most involved female character. None of Kazuma's real opponents are female.

Enjoyment: My enjoyment was low. Although the show was great, it was hard for me to really feel involved with it because the female characters were the ones I was invested in, but they never went anywhere meaningful for me.

Overall: 6 Fair. The show is really great if you are capable of ignoring its flaws. If I could, I would easily give it a score from 8-10.

First Thing I should touch on is Scryed is alot better than people give it credit for but that's just my opinion so on to the review.

The series starts off strong with the introduction of the character Kazuma who is a native Alter in what is now the lost ground which was caused by an event called "The Great Uprising". In the lost ground there are "Native Alters" and Alters of Holy" which is a government organization tasked with keeping the peace in the lost ground so that native alters do not effect the humans that live on the main land.
The story of Scryed is ... simple but interesting at the same time the only thing I have an issue with is the charcters. Almost all the characters expect for Kazuma, Ryuhou, and Kanami get any push time. All around though it is a very enjoyable series.
I recommended it to anybody who Likes, Zetman, Bleach, Trigun, Outlaw Star, or DBZ

This show is awesome and remains one of my favorite of all time. I can't believe it isn't rated higher on this site. It's fast paced and full of action. There are plenty of amusing scenes, heart wrenching moments and everything else you could want in a show.

1. Story - For those Anime purists out there who can't just kick back and enjoy the show without a strong sub plot, the political and socioeconomic undertones in Scryed should be enough to keep you interested. A fight over a large area of land between the mainland, the wealthy citizens living on one side of the wall ... and the poor people who are doing everything they can to survive on the other side of the wall. The governments bid to harness the power of "Alter" by tracking down and experimenting on alter users. And in the middle of it all, the native alter Kasuma, determined to fight them at every turn.

2. Art - Not the best artwork. There was a lack of definition in the faces for me, but it honestly didn't bother me at all.

3. Characters - I felt most of the characters to be quite genuine (with the exception of the comic relief guys like Cougar) Cherise in particular and her unrequited love was very human.

4. Overall - Watched this series several times and love it every time I do. So do yourself a favor and give it a go.

A perennially underrated gem, S-Cry-Ed will forever have life as a case study of what the late 90's/early 2000's vibe was like. Despite being marketed as a classically cheesy, over-the-top MANLY action series, this show not only succeeds on that front, but does so while including surprisingly nuanced characterization, brisk pacing, and a few daring creative choices that probably went on to inspire other series in big ways.

The setting is twenty or so years after the apocalypse, where a cataclysmic event breaks off a piece of Japan, the newly formed island becoming known as the "Lost Ground". The island becomes a lawless slum in ... the style of something like the Satelite from Yugioh 5D's or District 12 from The Hunger Games, both of which came after this by the way. Meanwhile, the mainland lives in prosperity with futuristic tech aplenty, the special forces unit HOLY on a mission to subjugate the lost ground and assimilate the people there into their society. Furthermore, the cataclysm triggered superpower mutations in a select percentage of the population known as "Alter" powers. This part sounds derivative, but in fact these Alter powers are uniquely and creative in implementation and execution. Rather than using generic elemental powers or ki blasts, the Alter powers include stuff like rewriting reality into a screenplay of the user's own creation (which can be broken by someone of sufficient will), throwing giant watermelons at the enemy, or being able to turn regular cars into hot pink turbo chargers. Sadly, the fights are not overly complex in terms of choreography, but the ideas are certainly memorable.

Fundamentally, the story is about the rivalry between the two main characters, Kazuma and Ryuho, as well as the stories of the people close to them. Interestingly, the conflict between the two is not precisely good vs evil as much as it lawful vs chaotic. Kazuma is the protagonist and undeniably heroic, but he can also be quite dickish at times and is overly impetuous, unfocused, and downright dumb at times. I wouldn't have it any other way - he is an enjoyable character and feels human. Likewise, Ryuho is quite dickish at times but is not ever really that evil. Even at his worst he never goes outside the bounds of his duty as a member of HOLY, and is often honorable, principled, and noble. The audience dislikes him because he opposes Kazuma, but I always liked both of them. Also notable is that Kazuma and Ryuho never succeed at winning the other over to their belief system, but learn to respect each other anyways, which is something I found refreshing.

Although Kazuma and Ryuho are fairly nuanced, most of the other side characters are fairly one-note in comparison. The most memorable by far is memelord Straight Cougar, with Crispin Freeman hamming it up (of course you are watching this dubbed). Otherwise, I liked Scheris and Kimishima. Mimori was pretty brutal at times, cannot lie.

The story goes to some surprisingly odd and weird places at times, but keeps a very fast pace and tells a complete story in 26 episodes. Unfortunately, the series was never too popular outside of a cult following in the west, but that's not so bad because the story actually has a beginning, middle, and end. Unthinkable these days. Two things to note - Kazuma's shell bullet is very similar to Issei Hyoudou's Sacred Gear from dxd, and the ending of this series echoes the ending of Naruto eerily. You can bet that many high-profile mangaka have S-Cry-Ed on the radar. They know a good story when they see one.

The animation was done by studio Sunrise, who also did Infinite Ryvius and Gundam Seed. Personally I am not a huge fan of their style but outside of my aesthetic preference I thought they did well on the production side of things. There are not that many re-used frames which is notable for a show centered around fighting. I would have personally loved to see how the show would have looked with Studio Gallop at the helm, but that's just me.

Overall, this series is a breath of fresh air in many ways and is one of my favorites. I heartily endorse it as one of those "chill summer weeknight" kinda shows.

Many things in life have made me stand up and cheer. A goal in overtime, my daughter learning to crawl, an amazing encore at an Alkaline Trio concert. Now, after watching s-CRY-ed, I have a new reason to cheer.

The intro credits blast a mixture between a Mexican mariarchi band and jazzy rock number. You find yourself head bobbing while being caught up in character profiles and fight scenes. You're hooked before the first word is ever spoken. And then the series begins.

Right off the bat, you are introduced to our main lead character, Kazuma. He's not your typical hero. ... This guy is a fighter, not a lover. He doesn't care about anyone. He doesn't care about anything. Hell, he doesn't even care about himself. He just lives for the next chance to knock someone out. Does that sound like the greatest lead character ever?? Trick question. If you answered no, you're an idiot. Kazuma makes this series a spectacular journey.

Sure there is a plot involved. Two opposing factions battle for what they believe in to be right. Is either one right or wrong. NO!!! But who are you going to be pulling for. The bad ass kid from the wrong side of the tracks (Kazuma), or the spoiled rich kid who's perminantly "on the rag" (Ryuho).

It's the characters that truely make this a series worth not only watching, but owning as well. And I am not just referring to our protaginist. Sure he's cool, but the supporting cast is just as awesome. Each one has a "power" not seen in other "power" shows. You know the "powers" I'm talking about. Invisible, strong, mind control, speed, transformation etc. Boring and overused. These kids have unique physical attributes that make them stand out from the others. One can control a situation by writing it into a play. One summons a 20 foot pistol. One turns everything into water. Different and one of a kind powers. Another bonus.

The art style is your typical 90's art...AWESOME!!! Simple character designs and spectacular backdrops leave the eye wanting for nothing. The color schemes chosen for outfits and uniforms not only fit each character, but bring the character to life. They gives each one purpose and matches their personality perfectly.

As for the animation, another genius work of art. This show is plastered with some of the coolest and most addictive fights in anime history. You get to see how all your favorite characters stack up against our main dueling dude and watch them get pulvoristed. I don't mean to spoil anything, but he never losses.

All this being said, the show is not perfect. The plot is a little weak, some of the characters look and feel a little generic and one diminsional, and they could have finished the series (I strongly repeat COULD have) on a better note by ending the series an episode early. But these are very minor flaws.

All in all, if you love watching a good fight and love pulling for the underdog, this series is for you.

✪ Genre: action, drama, proxy battles, sci-fi (human enhancement, human experimentation, cloning), shounen, superpower with elements of romance (love polygon, unrequited love) and parallel world


✔Positive Aspects✔

◧ Gorgeous soundtrack: it was comprised of a variety of different songs, spanning quite distinct, non-overlapping genres (saxophone/trumpet based smooth 'jazz', uplifting Japanese-pop, nuevo flamenco, new age, and others).

◧ Wonderful animation work: this series was more on the 'cartoonish' side (not on the level of Devilman, though) but with pretty saturated and adequately vibrant colors - I loved the fact that the characters themselves and their Alters were 'popping out' against the landscapes and the man-made structures.

◧ Concept-wise: an interesting ... take on the good ol' notion of a natural or man-made phenomenon bringing out mutations in people who are located within a specific geographical region that resulted in them obtaining all kinds of superpowers.


✘Negative Aspects✘

◧ Character development: although it was not bad per se, it made the gigantic mistake of not delineating gradually the protagonists' and antagonists' motivations, intentions, beliefs, and thought processes, but instead, it opted for randomly dropping this kind of information when the circumstances of the narrative demanded it.

◧ Action scenes: generally, they were wonderfully shot, but completely lacked any intrigue. As far as shounen anime series go, it's not that I don't expect a certain type and amount of cliches, but I expect them to be built up steadily and solidly. The overwhelming majority of battles felt choreographically impoverished. Also, I am the kind of person that genuinely loves frequent battles, even to an excess, but they do have to serve a purpose. Many of the series' battles felt completely meaningless.

◧ Gore elements: again, I don't expect massive amounts of blood loss and/or ruptured intestines from a shounen anime, but based on the unmistakenly destructive battles that tended to occur, I think that, one would reasonably expect something more than paper cuts and shaving nicks.

◧ Plot: instead of focusing on a central antagonist, which is to be expected of a 26 episodes series, it spent the 1st half of its airtime on an antagonist that ended up being a de facto ally, while the 2nd half on the actual antagonist, with which the protagonists mostly engaged via proxy (a single person), before concluding with a 3' air battle. Also, the series concluded before adequately tackling with its most narratively significant theme, the existence of a parallel world.


Overall: A technically solid work that did not take its non-technical aspects as seriously.