s.CRY.ed

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.

✪ 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.

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.