Ranked #2102

RAY The Animation

I had put off viewing this anime for some time, from the description I thought it was a number of different short stories. The concept definitely got me after episode one.

Story:
To me, the story was unique. While I do agree that it did seem a bit episodic, those episodes were rather interesting. I get the feeling that there was quite a bit more that could have been done, and may have been done with the Manga, but it definately was a "page turner". The main plot had a fantastic number of twists and turns, for a ride that I would recommend.

Art/Sound: Nothing that really stands out. Perhaps its more in the realistic and dated drawing style, but not too old.

Character: There were a decent number of characters. The story didn't delve too much into the non primary characters. It felt like there was a prequel that explained all of the relationships in the past.

Enjoyment: The only way I can describe this is that it is a page turner. I think that great anime, are one that can make you want to keep on watching after the first episode. I enjoyed the medical mysteries; the little romance that they had, and the overall pace. read more

The recommendation to me of the first volume of Akihito Yoshitomi's manga Ray was my first encounter with this series. While implausible, It had a lot of interesting ideas going for it; I could see how it could be really quite amusing, original and exciting. However I never got round to getting any more of the manga, for one reason or the other, before the release of the anime version *, so it was on the strength of only the first volume's limited impressions I started the series.

OOPS.

I wanted to like it. Really I did. I thought maybe its first episode was trying to be flashy to hook people, I thought the second might be part of a slightly rocky start. But it was futile.

First of all, this is an absolutely classic example of how different media formats suit different kinds of story. From what I read, in monochrome print, the story can just about get away with Ray, her universe and the various extremely rare, difficult to treat ailments that she deals with; in motion, in colour, there's a world of difference. Presented as animation, these are some of the most preposterous ideas I have ever seen, and that the anime alters various storylines to make them even more preposterous does not help matters. This might be OK if this were full-on space opera style sci-fi, but the whole thing is grounded in what looks like the modern world, yet the things this series would have you believe are real maladies require truly heroic suspension of disbelief. Cancers that hide! Fungal spores that explode at a time calculable to the second! Posession by malicious shellfish! ESP diagnoses! Fungus filled with ant-like insects that...I could continue, but the point is, this is not E.R. - the Animation. This is "zOMG he has Ridiculous Disease!".

The series has an overarching plot, but adopts an on-off attitude to it that leaves much to be desired; mixes of malady-of-the-week episodes and plot episodes is not quite the format, but close. The point is, Ray is after this evil organ farming syndicate that more often than not ends up being the root of the week's strain of Ridiculous Disease (which for some reason is astonishing every time). The why of it all, however, remains painfully underdeveloped, and as the plot develops and "reasons" (read: poor excuses) for various things emerge, it becomes clearer and clearer that diseases are not the only ridiculous concepts we are supposed to simply take on face value; from a reasonably promising early premise the plot goes along increasingly wild tangents. The final denouement and resolution of the plotline in the last couple of episodes is far fetched even by the standards the series has already set. It is truly laugheable, the kind of plotline that resembles a children's make-believe game, full of "And then this happens! And then that happens! And, and then this!", a rush of overexcited, overblown, underdeveloped, ill-thought through ideas.

Characters, too, suffer from the incredible, mixed with the overly familiar. So far as design goes, all the female characters are crafted as extremely sexy pretty much all the time, including the egregious naked eyecatches, which may appeal to some but doesn't really fit the setting, in my opinion. Ray herself is hard enough to take, with her x-ray eyes and vaunted surgical ability coupled with apparent extreme youth and meaningless aloofness, and her pet medical technician Shinoyama is a familiar blend of unrequited lusts and preternatural skills. However the staff of the clinic where Ray works are the biggest problem. The nurses are all combinations of kung-fu masters and excuses for fanservice (occuring at the drop of a surgical cap) and for no evident reason the clinic director is a pirate, complete with peg leg and eyepatch. Villains are all absolute identikit concoctions of mystery, wealth and power, hidden lairs and irrational hatreds. As one might expect from something mixing tired formula with sensation in order to appear fresh, there is a half-baked, bloodless romantic subplot; it escalates appropriately in prominence as the thing gets sillier.

One area that it is reasonably hard to fault Ray on is its visuals. The art style, especially for the characters, is a very good approximation of the manga, sleek and high in contrast, similar to a comewhat updated, modernised Osamu Tezuka (his character Black Jack features a small recurring role) and animation quality is relatively good, although it does drop off somewhat towards the end of the series. Detail work such as cars and weapons are also a little shoddy.

Musically, the score is as overdone as the plotline, seeming to borrow from the likes of Bond films and the like; while this style can work in some situations, it fits epic secret agent action a little better than surgery, and comes across as intrusive and enormously irritating before long.

So, as you've gathered, I wasn't a massive fan. However, once I gave up trying to make excuses for it and try to rationalise it, I found that it periodically became somewhat amusing on a "so bad it's good" level. Watch it as a straight-faced parody of things that take themselves far, far too seriously, and it becomes reasonably funny - if you can ignore the fact that it's not intended like that at all - but I'd be far from honest if I said it was a series you can take remotely seriously, and as it plainly wants you to do so, I cannot call it anything other than a general failure as entertainment.



* Another tragedy of this whole business is that I bought another two volumes of manga in my excitement, and found them also becoming equally unsatisfactory and taking the story far from what it seemed to be and what I liked at the start. read more