Ranked #440

Break Blade 2: Ketsubetsu no Michi

"It's just when I look at them, I can't help but go soft on them"

The first movie in the Broken Blade franchise was an interesting, albeit flawed start to this weird mixture of magic and mechs, its story was baggy, its characters were typical and the only things it really had going for it where its excellent art and great voice talent, so the question that was on my mind when I went into Broken Blade 2: Ketsubetsu no Michi is, does it get better?

First, let's get the bad stuff out of the way first. The story still doesn't explain anything about magic or why being this un-sorcerer is so important, granted you only get them like what once in a millennium? Oh great, big whoop, next your going to tell me that your going to start adding prophecies to the story and then its going to be a complete turn off. In fact, the whole magical element seems to be downplayed in Ketsubetsu no Michi considerably turning it into a more stereotypical mech which is a crying shame considering it was such an intriguing prospect.

So with that issue out of the way, let's get onto the good stuff. With the magic element now downplayed I was left wondering now what? Well for a start, the story is a considerable improvement over Kakusei no Toki, character development seems to be the call of the day here and it shows. Zess particularly is a more fleshed out character, and is the one character I can empathise the most with here, his reasoning for being so soft on the women in his squadron isn't a stupidly convoluted one, nor is it that simple and I won't spoil it for you here. Suffice to say, I was very satisfied by Zess here.

The pacing of the story seems to be going up as well, with a lot more emphasis here on Rygart going out to fight in his Golem, I mean sure this is a mech anime so giant robot fights are inevitable, but this is not just a case of "Good mech here, bad mech here now fight to the death" Rygart genuinely tries to avoid the conflict and not because he's a coward, again his reasoning makes sense and Rygart too is much more likeable here. His best scene being the tense showdown he has with Zess during the halfway point.

The first Broken Blade was definitely one that knew how to impress with its art and Production I.G pull through again for Ketsubetsu no Michi. The one glaring flaw in the first movie has been completely removed here, and with that you would think that Broken Blade 2 should be an absolute stunner...not quite. Its unfortunate but the great art here doesn't pack as much of an impact as Kakusei no Toki. Granted its still an absolutely great looking movie; but now that you get used to Broken Blade's art style completely that's all it is, there's no clever uses of CG here, it's just a great looking movie and while that is definitely not a bad thing, there has to be more to do than just making a movie look great.

The excellent voice talent from the first movie also makes a great return and Souichirou Hoshi and Hiroshi Kamiya impress yet again as Rygart and Zess. Although with the exception of Kenichi Ogata and Yuko Kaida, the rest of the supporting cast doesn't manage to impress as much as the leads which is a shame considering the talent on offer here but perhaps that's the point. If the main goal of Ketsubetsu no Michi is to develop the two leads then it does, and it does it well. At no point here does either Souichirou Hoshi's performance or Hiroshi Kamiya's feel forced or unrealistic, it all sounds natural which is how it should do.

Again the music in the films doesn't really impress, although the outstanding opening theme "Fate" by KOKIA is marvellous to listen too, really capturing the feel of the movies and impressively showcasing her talent. Granted it may not appeal to everyone, and it certainly won't be the one that most people sing along too, but its great nonetheless.

As you've probably figured out by this review, Ketsubetsu no Michi is all about character development here and there isn't really anything else about them to say. They are a definite improvement over the archetypes that were set up in the first movie which is great, you can definitely feel more for the two main leads more than anyone else and grounds them a lot more than they were in the first movie.

To sum it up then, Broken Blade 2 is a definite improvement over its predecessor, although its not quite there yet; there are still some problems that it needs to address and I'm still waiting on that magic explanation, issues aside its definitely finding a soft spot with me.

Roll on Broken Blade 3. read more

I'm sure that Break Blade will get better in the sequel OVAs, but the problem is, I can't get past this second one. The storyline is moving really slowly, and is littered with characters I couldn't care less about. The only somewhat satisfying moment so far has been when Lee killed herself.

I had my doubts from the moment I read the summary - I really hate stories where the main character stands out only because of his inability to do something that the general populace can. In Break Blade, the protagonist Rygart is unable to operate a type of magic that involves quartz (I don't really get it and it seems really lame, but so on). He got bullied in military school because of it boohoo, and somehow was able to become friends with the prince of the kingdom and the younger brother of the supreme commander in Athens just because of an awesome personality. I almost stopped watching at this point, but kept going.

They discover a type of mecha that doesn't activate for anyone with the ability to manipulate quartz magic. This was the only interesting part of the story for me - when Queen Forgettable wonders if this is because the mecha is designed to respond only to the descendants of their ancestors, and the people with magic are too different to be identified as a descendant.

Of course, Rygart gets in this. To give credit, I like how he doesn't enter Seed mode and become overpowered as soon as he gets in the cockpit. It takes him a while to learn the moves, and there are some interesting things like it can jump extremely high altitudes and accelerate rapidly.

But just when I thought there was so much promise, it all went downhill from there. The constant flashbacks to their academy days became dreary; all I got out of it was that Zess seemed to be nursing a man crush on Rygart and Queen Forgettable was just as forgettable back then too. Nice lingerie shot, but it was overtly obvious from the blatant ringless finger shots that she and her husband, King Black Guy, haven't been getting it on. My money is on her and Rygart getting together at the end. I don't care enough to keep watching however.

Moving on, the mecha fights were exceedingly irritating because everyone except people who've actually been named are (true, almost all battle anime are like this) pure fodder and can't seem to do anything except uselessly wave their weapon around a bit and then widen their eyes in terror at how much superior their enemies are.

But all this would be redeemable, if not for one thing. After 2 hours of idle chatter and moving around, Rygart finally sort of has the controls to his mecha down. He sort of starts to fight back against the bitch, but his battery (or whatever) runs out. Some other guy from the Queen comes to help him, and is about to shoot down the bitch - finally! - except Rygart stops him from shooting, spouting classic crap about how human life should be treasured and killing in wartime is never the right answer. Well, not quite that, but he might as well have been. And of course, the bitch gets her gun up and shoots the guy who helped him through the mecha. She's annoying, but at least she's got her priorities straight. Rygart goes very quiet and then goes back inside his mecha and throws his lance at her (there's nothing like hypocrisy to brighten up the mood!). It doesn't kill her (by this point I'm getting even more annoyed by how much screentime this bitch is getting) but she then finally shoots herself in the head.

The fact that that has been my favorite part of these first two OVAs so far speaks volumes.

I'm also sort of mad that the guy voicing Rygart is the same guy who voiced Kira Yamato. Why the hell is Rygart's voice so much more annoying?

To be fair, the artwork and the sound of Break Blade is FANTASTIC. Especially the OP for Break Blade is amazing, and I've already downloaded the mp3 for it illegally. But unfortunately, the story is so generic and lackluster that it feels wasted. I hope it gets better for the production crew's sake.

But I can't even finish the last 5 minutes of this OVA. I'm out, pce read more