GetBackers

Story: Very good backstory for the starting and it expands even more as you watch. There is a fair amount of filler in the anime but all enjoyable. However the main story is one of the best I have ever seen. The only thing is it stops halfway through the story. The anime ends while the manga which it is baised off goes on further. At the end you are thinking \"Well I will just whatch the next episode\" then you realise \"WHAT I WATCHED IT ALL@!?!?! BUT IT WAS JUST GETTING GOOD!\" That is why I gave it a 8. I would have given it a 10 if it didnt end like that.

Animation: Pretty good, it is getting to be a older animation so you will see its age but that shouldn\'t matter.

Sound: pretty good nothing special.

Character: Great characters they have great story\'s to them and they follow there personality\'s to. Very funny to at times.

Enjoyment: I loved this series but it ended so quickly :(

Overall: Very good series, if you like action and humor and a good story check it out.

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If you've seen a couple different Shounen, Action, Anime then this one does very little to offer anything exciting and original, except some really lame fighting methods (Lady Poison).

Getbackers is a typical shounen anime about two guys who are said to be able to get anything back, which has been taken. What helps them are their interesting special abilities Amano Ginji with the power to generate electricity and Midou Ban with a 200Kg hand grip and also possessing the evil eye.

The show pretty much starts of like a typical anime, by introducing the main characters and giving them an opportunity to wow the viewers with some action. Getbackers is able to capture anyone's attention but as the show goes on, this cheesy anime can easily become tiresome to watch. The fights don't help it at all, with the same fighting methods repeated over and over, without any variety, to the point when even the action sequences get boring. In between all the action are numerous comedy moments, to lighten the mood however this is poorly executed and doesn't add much to the show. Also another issue is the characters and apart from the two main characters (Ginji and Midou) the rest are poorly developed and it doesn't help that the have some pretty lame personalities and special abilities/traits. Another annoyance is when the enemies become allies and the allies become enemies so easily that it just makes it all seem pointless.

There's also the animation that can be described in one word "mediocre". It's obvious that very little effort was put into animating this show, as not even the fights seem fluid and all the chibi didn't help the comedy. Another thing that can put anyone of from watching this show is the horrendous opening and ending theme music, but at least the exciting music during the action can make up for it.

Overall this is a pretty decent anime for the simple-minded anime fan but a somewhat intelligent anime fan would be able to see Getbackers for its many faults. It does manage to incorporate all the standard shounen elements but without adding anything original to make it stand out from the rest. Even though this anime is aimed at teenagers it seems more like a kid's show, with moderate violence, no blood and sharp objects replaced by bright shining lights. So if you're over 12 years old then I don't recommend this.

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49 episodes are already too much for me. When I watch an anime that long, chances are I’ll get bored while watching it. This was the case for GetBackers.

While it is an interesting plot, I tend to become distracted when I watch it. Maybe the plot was too shonen for a girl like me who would usually prefer girly anime, but then again the fight scenes were a bit exciting. Truth be told, I enjoyed the fillers more, because they always had me laughing. Other than that, some of the arcs were too long, specially the IL arc. 15 episodes are just too much, and at that point watching the anime felt like a chore. I was so happy when I finally finished that arc because the filler episode after the arc was one of the funniest episodes.

It’s another anime with a huge cast of characters, and most of them I like. I think the character I hate the most would be Himiko. She’s a very irritating girl who acts as if she’s good at her job, but she’s not that great. Plus using perfumes as weapons? What a lame power. Kazuki is OK, but he’s a trap. It really surprised me when I found out he was a guy. Maybe he’s gay – 2 guys are fighting over him and I don’t care if boys from their family wear girly kimonos when they haven’t reached their age of maturity yet. It’s just an excuse to justify his cross dressing.

My favorite character is actually Natsumi. I like that filler episode about her when she dressed up as Ban and Ginji. Speaking of Ban and Ginji, I like both of them too. Ginji is just so adorable when he goes into chibi mode, and Ban is one cool guy, even if he’s a bit mean and distant sometimes. Akabane is pretty cool too – even if he is a bit blood thirsty and sick minded.

The animation and art is reminiscent of early 2000s anime. While it is ahead of anime that was from way back then, it still needed work. It tends to be inconsistent sometimes. You could tell if the designs would waver because they were really notable differences – it’s as if the characters have been deformed. Usually, this would occur in filler episodes, and even more so during the second half. I’m a bit disappointed, because if they wanted to make this anime a hit, everything should be almost perfect. The colors tend to clash sometimes too – greens and purples don’t really go well together.

And what about the voice acting? It was actually pretty good. I’m quite surprised that Ginji’s seiyu was actually Shotaro Morikubo, who was also Musica’s (From Rave Master) voice actor. They were two different characters with two different personalities that it’s hard for me to picture one guy who worked with both of them. I guess that’s really impressive. Plus, Ban Midou’s seiyu (Nobutoshi Canna) was also the seiyu for another character I hold dear to my heart, and that is Tasuki from Fushigi Yuugi. Even without that, I still think the dub was quite impressive.

I like the wide variety of music. Every opening and ending theme was different and I liked every single track. It was all contemporary and modern. There was pop, to hip hop, to j-rock. Everything really went well with the series’ feel. I think that’s because the music direction was made by a very capable person. That person would be Taku Iwasaki, whose works are actually quite familiar to me. He also worked on GONZO’s Black Cat, Rumbling Hearts and Yakitate!! Japan, series with equally good music.

Because of boy-boy love premises, I was almost convinced that I was watching shojo. Clearly, Kazuki and Juubei’s relationship are yaoi fan girl bait. Plus the guys are all very good looking, which convinced me even more. I guess that’s one thing I get out of watching the series.

And what’s with the clothes? I noticed a lot of the characters wore clothes that won’t fit them. Hevn would always wear tops that are too small for her, and the guys wore tight pants. Poor Kazuki; His shirts are always so oversized that they would fall to his shoulders.

Even if there was a bevy of good looking guys in this anime, the eye candy wasn’t enough to make me disregard the story. I’m not saying the story was bad, like I said before, the plot was interesting. There were just errors during the execution. It could have been better.

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This is not an anime which has aged well. Back in the day when I first watched it sometime around early 2007, I would have ranked this close to a 9.

When I first watched it, the characters had some really mysterious powers and I loved the fight scenes. The music was awesome and fit the mood really well. I saw the Animax dub version and the voices were really well done.

The problem is, if you watch the series now, the animation is spotty. The fight scenes mostly consist of static scenes with little in terms of animation. The characters go into chibi form way too often and the transition from a serious scene to a funny one is sometimes jarring. I personally am not a fan of the japanese dub. Those wierd characters I gushed about in the first para? Well better anime have come out since then.

The music still holds strong and so does the humour. The saving grace is the story. The problem is, we have a crap ton of fillers between the actual main story missions. We have about 5 main story missions and rest are all filler. Some of the filler episodes are really funny and hit the spot, but most are misses.

And here is the worst part. The story is incomplete. The last arc ends on a cliffhanger and sadly we are never going to see this.

I think a mark of a good anime is to stand the test of time. Get backers was a fine anime back in the day. Its dismal by todays standards. The music is still good. The story while good, has been done better in GITS or Serial Experiments Lain. I give it a 7/10 with 2 whole points for nostalgia. The real score is closer to a 5/10.

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