Ranked #4590

Iron Man

Recreating popular fictional characters has always been tricky business, and I never envy those who are tasked with such a burden. On one hand, you have to try to stay true to the original character as much as possible as to not piss of the original fan base. On the other hand, you also want your character to have a fresh twist to attract new fans and not make your recreation seem generic and outdated.

Hollywood have gotten a pretty good handle at recreating popular superheros for the big screen. While 'The Incredible Hulk' and 'The Fantastic Four' were mediocre at best, others like 'Spiderman' (Not the 3rd one though) and 'Iron Man' became iconic depictions of our favorite superheros. Who could forget Tobey Maguire's act as an uncertain teenage Spiderman finding his feet in the world, the cockiness and humor of Downey Jr. as Iron Man or indeed the chilling but amazing penultimate performance of Heath Ledger as the Joker in 'The Dark Knight'.

The point I'm trying to make is that to depict or recreate a popular character, one must set a much higher standard for himself than when writing an original work, because it has to live up to the expectation and legacy of that which came before it. In this sense, the latest Iron Man 'anime' recreation, a collaboration between Marvel and Madhouse, is huge step backwards.

It is apparent about 10 minutes into the first episode that no one at Marvel actually told Madhouse to go read any comic books or see the Iron Man movies. I have to give praise for the animation for being fluid and mostly visually pleasing, but beyond that not much could be said. If I squinted my eyes a little, I could almost imagine that I was just re-watching scenes from Full Metal Panic. The animation offers little originality, and lacks the vibrance that a Marvel Superhero should have. Heroman had the right idea the superhero tone, so how come we took 3 steps backwards with this?

The action sequences themselves are well done, but at the same time feel much less fluid. There is a noticeable decrease in frame rate if you look closely, and the difference in detail of animation between the armor itself and the background can be off putting, as though in the middle of the anime someone put some poor CG into it.

Tony Stark's characterization comes across as shallow and one dimensional. Clearly Madhouse have done their research and know that Stark is supposed to be arrogant, confident and a womanizer, and it is seen that they try to get those points across. However the methods in which this is done is painfully forceful and unnatural. The line "try to be humble" followed by "I don't know what that means" certainly isn't going to win any awards. Stark’s seiyuu Fujiwara Keiji gives a less than memorable, almost boring initial performance. No where at any point did I get the impression that here was a multibillionaire engineer/scientist with a kickass suit that could f***ing fly.

The background music also seems schizophrenic. At times you've got the heavy guitars strumming along, reminiscent of the movie theme, and at other times you get out of place poppish techno playing along inappropriately.

I have to take a moment now to slap the writer of this story for being so stupid.
*Slap*
Honestly... Mechas? Did we really have to go there? I understand there must be a shortage of original ideas in Japan right now but COME ON, isn't there ANY other type of antagonist you know? This is the Marvel universe for goodness sake, what about the entire catalogue of arch-rivals that Iron-Man has? Or just make up something. Captain Biodegradable, the Evil X-ray Doctor, aliens from Pluto, ANYTHING will be less boring and outdated than Mechas.

And another thing. Why does this story have to be set in Japan? Conceited as it may sound, but anime really needs to get over itself on the whole self-esteem issue thing where it has to set ALL it's stories in it's home country. Iron Man doesn't belong in Japan, Sherlock Holmes doesn't belong in Hawaii, Polar Bears don't belong in the Sahara desert. Tony Stark is an American, please, please just leave him there. And I don't buy the whole "Japan's military won't exploit the Arc for weapons" thing. Why not go to New Zealand then? Or Greenland. Or the Moon. Or Belgium.

Or Canada.

Ultimately, the Iron Man anime will become exactly what is it titled. An anime. From a plot driven story to generic and forgettable characters, with possibly some good action sequences, this is probably exactly what you'd expect from an action/mecha. And I get that. Anime's main target audience is the Japanese community, so naturally, one has to cater for their wants first, and keep it as generic and old-school as possible. In that sense, Iron Man is actually pretty well put together, and is a good for what it's purpose is, to introduce Marvel characters to the japanese audience in a way they understand.

But is that really good enough? Is it wrong of me to expect much more from a Marvel/Madhouse collaboration? If we don't constantly push the boundaries of our work, we'll never evolve and create genre defining masterpieces. Was The Dark Knight just a generic movie about superheros? What about Watchmen? I love anime, but I won't in 10 years if I'm just watching the same things over and over again with different characters. Or rather, the same characters with different names.

If you're picking this up because it's an anime, then by all means, go ahead and check it out. But if you're not a 'japanese audience' and you're wanting to watch this because it has Iron Man in it, then let me be the first to say, drop it.
Now.
You don't have to be a comic fanboy to know that this is not Iron Man.
Not even close. read more

first, i want to make something clear- i dont like marvel's idea of converting all superheros into anime...yet they did it again and again...then again...in this excruciating long line of tradition we got IRON MAN anime...
its a mecha anime...its like putting naruto in underwear and making him a superhero! its pure blasphemy, if u ask me...
but since the title is "iron man", one has to check it out, right? so, thats what i did...

story: totally abysmal...why? its short, plain, simple and totally ridiculous...they even had to put fillers in a 12episodes series, yes! the story is that short!
the story is like this- tony went to japan to build a arc reactor as a step of achieving world peace, only to find out that not only everyone is trying to destroy it but dead people are coming back to life to kill him!! yes minna san! yinsen is not dead!
enough said! i dont want to spoil the little story the anime contains...though i dont understand the point of using and tragically ruining such an important character like this... they even went this far to make a standing story, but in the end the story turned out to be a complete disaster...

art: seeing tony in anime style is. . .how should i put it. . .creepy! not much to tell other than that really...there is one other thing though, the ironman armor (the suit) doesn't seem to take any damage!! i wonder what tony used instead of titanium this time.... ;p

sound: at least one good thing came out of this, the sound...the voice acting is very gripping, though drab in some places, lacking the right emotion...
but, the musics are mindblowing...they remixed the original sound tracks in different styles, which turned out to be great...

character: well, there is tony stark and there is yinsen (with a major behavioral change, i might add)..and then there is secret police as ironman's ally, and an organization (zodiac) as enemy...other characters are just a hindrance and plain annoying...
at one point, bam! and a living berthing human turns into a cyborg thingy...i dont understand how a organic material(human) turns into a machine just like that...then again, i always sucked at science and this thing is waaay over my head... (O_O)

was it any fun?: somewhat, yes! it came to me as a surprise also...the anime is full of action sequences and it comes with awesome battle musics...the anime is somewhat enjoyable as a mecha battle anime only...


u are finding all my blabbering and yammering totally annoying, right? by this time u are thinking "i m gonna kill this sorry chap for ruining 5 precious minutes of my life"...guys, i am sorry for this , i couldnt be more helpful...to be honest, i got mixed feelings while watching this...its bad that they turned ironman into a freakshow, at the same time it feels good to see my beloved superhero in a different style and in a anime...i love anime with all my heart and i also love DC and MARVEL superheroes...i have utmost respect for anime...
if u want my advice even after all this total nonsense, i'll say this- watch it at yor own risk and dont expect too much...as a matter of fact, dont expect anything, maybe then u'll be able to enjoy it...
but, u dont have to listen to me, u can go ahead and watch it... who knows, maybe you will end up loving it afterall... ;D read more