Akai Kiba: Blue Sonnet

Utterly average and despite all the gory violence and action, boring.

PLOT: Well to be honest I wasn’t really expecting much from this series when I read the synopsis, so I was actually surprised that I quickly became interested in the two main characters Lan and Sonnet – they are both quite well developed despite this only having 5 episodes (well despite this being called ‘Blue Sonnet’ Lan is the true main character). However the plot is a terrible mishmash of scenes and suffers from completely random plot progression. It's like watching a load of disjointed scenes stuck together – there is no real flow ... to the story. I suppose this is what happens when you attempt to condense 17 volumes of manga into 5 OVAs!

As such all the characters apart from Lan and Sonnet are terribly shallow, there’s no clear motivation for the villains and no real closure on anything at the end. The random romance thread that was kind of rammed into the last 15mins of the last episode was felt out of place too. And then there’s the sheer amount of gratuitous and gory violence on display (although if I’m honest those where the bits I enjoyed most). I couldn’t really see what point there was to the long action scenes other than to show off how powerful the 2 girls were. All in all I just got the impression what stuff was happening way too fast with little to no explanation for anything – a bit of back story and an epilogue would have been nice! But what really surprised me is that Blue Sonnet is based on a shoujo manga published in Hana to Yume! This is definitely not your typical shoujo – there’s no fluffy romance, bubbles or flowers, its actually quite dark, gritty and violent with very few light moments.

ANIMATION: Ah the animation has not dated well – extremely 90s, but not of a high quality. Backgrounds lack detail (the scene in the tanker really highlights this) and the character animation is extremely blocky, although I did quite like the character designs themselves. The action scenes were fun to watch though – seeing someone get their head kicked off or cut to ribbons never gets old! Absolutely no shortage of blood and guts in this OVA, it seems like the animators just had a touch too much fun creating a heap of different ways to kill people off!

MUSIC & VOICE ACTING: I didn’t like the music – the OP & ED don’t appeal to me and the BGM was occasionally too overblown and grandiose. Voice acting was pretty good though.

All in all Blue Sonnet was a bit of a mess – I can see that the would have been potential in the characters but its buried under poor writing, messy storytelling and bad editing and as such this series remains distinctly average.

Low-budget, boring, and very campy. There are a couple action scenes that would make for a cool looking trailer but, sadly, that's the only thing of value here. The seriousness of the show is undercut by the ridiculous plot and characters. The villain looks straight out of a comedy show and is completely unbelievable. The low-budget and lack of facial animations made all the characters feel lifeless. The show seems to transition between light teen drama and boring action drama which makes the whole thing feel predictable. If they had made this an actual rated R type of show then maybe it could have worked, ... but this is one is way too watered down.

“Blue Sonnet” is yet another case of an OVA trying to cram too much story into a short runtime. The scenes feel disjointed, the backstories messy, the plot devices hackneyed, and the characters unsympathetic.

The 5-episode series based on the manga of the same name centers on Lan, an average high school girl who has psychic capabilities that start becoming dramatically stronger after a certain “incident” occurs for the first time (let’s just say blood is a major motif in this show). A shady organization called Talos aims to create a “scientific utopia” using cybernetically-enhanced psychic soldiers, and their ultimate weapon is a young woman named ... Sonnet. She has a backstory that’s shown in a series of images in the opening, but what is actually going on in those scenes is never addressed in the anime. Sonnet has been assigned a mission to go to Japan and monitor Lan. After “testing” (read: nearly killing) Lan with her telekinetic powers, She and Dr. Merikus, the resident mad scientist, try to capture and use Lan for Talos’ nefarious and twisted purposes. However, she is aided by her younger brother, her guardian, a guy who they keep calling “Bird” who is actually another cyborg, but apparently not psychic, as well as a telepathic woman.

This OVA is rife with seemingly pointless scenes of graphic violence and sexually explicit or fanservice-like content that does not contribute to the plot. There are also some unintentionally ridiculous scenes — for instance, there’s a scene where one cyborg basically attaches jumper cables to herself to charge another cyborg, like they’re cars, and she’s topless while doing so. As for the plot itself, the writing is inconsistent, the dialogue is redundant, and the characters repeatedly make mindbogglingly dumb decisions. It has an inconclusive ending.

Also, I should note that are a number of sexist remarks in this show, which is unusual for a Shojo title, and serves to make the series feel even more outdated than it looks.

The central cast of characters don’t get much development, but enough to give them a defining trait or two. Secondary characters get little to no development. There’s a scene near the end where one of the main characters is remembering all of her friends, and I don’t even know who two of the five or six people she mentions are!

The technical aspects range from bland to subpar. The animation is not good — it’s somewhat static, like when cars are moving, etc. The character designs are average, but Lan and Sonnet look interesting. The voice acting is not particularly good, and neither is the dialogue. The opening theme is a heavy metal song, and it doesn't really fit the tone of the series. The ending theme is a rock ballad that also doesn't fit. The background music is okay, but feels a bit overpowering and takes over the scenes it’s used in at times.

For those who are photosensitive, be aware that there are a fair amount of scenes with flashing lights in this series, so you may want to exercise caution if you watch.

Overall, “Akai Kiba: Blue Sonnet” is too rushed and jumbled to enjoy, and it is full of issues on all levels. I would not recommend this OVA.