Argento Soma

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: AΠHENTO ΣOMA

Japanese: アルジェントソーマ

Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 25

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Oct 6, 2000 to Mar 22, 2001

Premiered: Fall 2000

Broadcast: Fridays at 01:15 (JST)

Producers: None found, add some

Licensors: Bandai Entertainment, Sentai Filmworks

Studios: Sunrise

Source: Original

Genres: Action, Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi

Themes: Mecha, Military

Duration: 25 min. per ep.

Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Statistics

Score: 6.81¹ (scored by 7,404 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #5239²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #4186

Members: 28,027

Favorites: 84

Available At

Official Site

Resources

AniDB

ANN

Synopsis

In the year 2059, the earth has been plagued by aliens for several years. In an effort to learn more about these aliens, Dr. Noguchi and his assistants Maki Agata and Takuto Kaneshiro try to revive the professor's experiment, a large Bio-Mechanical alien named Frank. During this process the alien comes to 'life' and the lab is subsequently destroyed leaving Takuto the only survivor and the alien disappearing into the wilderness. While Frank roams the wilderness he meets Hattie, an emotionally distressed young girl whose parents are killed in the first 'close encounter' war. Oddly enough she is able to communicate with Frank and soon after they are taken into custody by a secret agency known only as 'Funeral'. Meanwhile, Takuto wakes up in a hospital bed with his life in shambles, and his face disfigured. Motivated by vengeance and heart break, Takuto accepts an offer from the mysterious 'Mr. X' and receives a new identity as a ranking Funeral officer named Ryu Soma.

(Source: ANN)

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Background

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Argento Soma
Side story:	Argento Soma: Hitori to Hitori

Takada, Yuji
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Kobayashi, Shinichirou

Producer

Katayama, Kazuyoshi

Director, Storyboard

Fujino, Sadayoshi

Sound Director

Kitahata, Tooru

Episode Director

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Opening Theme

1: "Silent Wind" by Eri Sugai (eps 1-24)

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Ending Theme

1: "Horizon" by Sphere (eps 1-24)

Reviews

Apr 4, 2023

DreamTraveller

Recommended

***Includes a few spoiler paragraphs that are marked***

What can I say, this was a curious experience. Despite having some obvious flaws, it still managed to be impressive by the end, making bold proclamations without shoving anything down your throat. It's an awkward dish made by someone you know and love, that nonetheless tasted home. It forced a smile on me, it made my eyes wet, while I was fully aware that what I was eating is going to fail on a competitive contest. Therefore, I could only grow to treat this anime with love, albeit a tough one. Which is rare, to be honest.

Thematically, this ...

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May 13, 2023

ChrisDC

Mixed Feelings

Argento Soma is a "diamond in the rough" with many flaws. Such has slow and tedious pacing, dated animation and an uninspired soundtrack, minus the series's introduction opening, credits and final song.

While the flaws can be overwhelming at times, they don't undo what is in store for you, and OH BOY, this anime has a lot of twists and realizations. This makes it worthwhile to watch and is suggested for individuals that prefer a more realistic approach to storytelling that doesn't rely too heavily on action or cliches to push forward character development at the cost of feeling dull at times. It's the type ... of anime you need to be patient for and not try to control. It will reveal itself to you slowly and peel back all the layers exposing Argento Soma for what it truly is; A story about flawed humans consumed by ideals of revenge, justice, survival and trauma/loss. Mystery, curiosity and philosophy are also part of this anime and become a lot more prominent towards the end of the series, passed episode 18, where the series quality improves considerably.

Speaking of the story, it's slow-paced and methodical. A heavy focus is on the main cast, who aren't cardboard copy-and-paste type cliche characters. A good example is the protagonist, who's a mixture of overly emotional and hyper-intelligent/philosophical being who yo-yos through phases of villainy, being heroic and troubleshooting problems, making him a contradicting character who's easy to both love and hate due to how unstable he is. Another example would be another main character the cast calls "Frank," who's an alien that no one understands and forces to fight for them against other aliens who all look the same; which may appear as boring or lazy to many, but there is a reason why they follow that format of appearance.

Lastly, to end this brief review, Argento Soma is nothing like Neon Genesis Evangelion; it only appears so from a superficial standpoint, as there are aliens and secret organizations with symbolic names such as Morgue and Funeral. However, the similarities end here; it has more in common with "The Iron Giant" and "Interstellar" than anything seen in Evangelion. Even the story plots and motivations are entirely different in both series. Evangelion focuses on the internal conflicts of many characters, employing many of Arthur Schopenhauer's, Sigmund Freud's and Carl Jung's theories. In contrast, Argento Soma is concerned with external conflicts which cause internal tensions, with a nod to Carl Jung's theory regarding the Anima and Animus and the concept of consciousness.

I give it a 7.5 out of 10 and suggest it to patient viewers interested in psychology and philosophy, as those will be the most fascinating aspects of the story. On the other hand, if you're looking for action or watching something for the thrill of it, then Argento Soma won't be a fun experience.

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Aug 29, 2017

UnfortunateEvent

Not Recommended

First of all, DO NOT start watching because you liked the promo photo. The protagonist in the anime has very little to do with this intriguing and mysterious guy. He is, in fact, a whiny child with no goals and no basic thinking abilities. Someone ready to panic for no reason whatsoever to the point of being ridiculous.

Honestly, I am not sure what was worse in this anime - the Swiss-cheese-like plotholes or the mostly-abysmal characters, who acted with no reasoning, so let's say both.

I am still struggling to understand what this was all about - was it love or was it aliens? ... Anyway, it was ALL very bad.

The screenplay is terrible. I have watched the anime on double speed and still had some moments, which dragged on endlessly, needlessly.

The story began with a walk through the lives of two (supposedly) genius students and quickly turned into a sci-fi mess with "superbeing" elements. One of the students was fascinated with the other. We, of course, were in the dark why, while the other student was very attached to her professor. We, of course, were once again not informed or shown what made him so great.

Later on, we met a little girl and her grandpa, then moved in with a super-squad fighting the super-bad aliens. Suddenly, our protagonist appeared with a new name and a brand new background, and guess what - we had no idea how this happened and what part of the new story was reliable (if any).

In episode 20, few somewhat new heroes appeared and the story finally began to make sense. Why, oh why they had not chosen a different protagonist or at least given us some background on the key characters? This would have helped save this mess or at least would have added something to grab on to.

The final battle was also a useless effort, as none of the characters ever grew on me, so I could not care less what was happening to them.

The end was disgustingly stupid and came out-of-nowhere. No background, no reason for any of the events shown or the relationships demonstrated.

The final nail in the coffin was the "soma" itself. One would think a word, so pretentiously used in the anime title and as a very prominent alias would mean a lot, wouldn’t it? No. I would not disclose any details, but this “subject” was shortly mentioned as something VERY important at the beginning of the series only to reappear shortly in a newspaper article and never to be mentioned again. Ever. Did the anime creators forget about it?

The storyline was a mishmash of many different stories, which collided at some point and got badly mutilated in the process, leaving us with nothing to see and no one to care about.

Admittedly, the opening and ending were beautiful.

Still, avoid this anime at all costs. It is poorly made, boring and lasts far too long.

TL; DR: Do not watch this, it is not worth it. Characters are weak and uninteresting or totally undeveloped. The storytelling is sloppy and full of plotholes. People calling this anime a "hidden gem" are either devoted hipsters or actually meant "jam".

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Poll: Argento Soma Episode 24 Discussion Stark700 - Dec 17, 2013	7 replies	by FireRifle64 »» Feb 23, 6:26 AM
Poll: Argento Soma Episode 19 Discussion Stark700 - Dec 16, 2013	8 replies	by FireRifle64 »» Feb 21, 8:21 PM
Poll: Argento Soma Episode 11 Discussion Stark700 - Dec 16, 2013	3 replies	by FireRifle64 »» Feb 19, 7:17 AM
Poll: Argento Soma Episode 2 Discussion Stark700 - Dec 13, 2013	9 replies	by FireRifle64 »» Feb 9, 7:45 PM
Poll: Argento Soma Episode 25 Discussion DarthDaimyo - Mar 5, 2010	22 replies	by Archean-Return »» Jul 12, 2023 9:16 PM

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Background

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