Spriggan (ONA)

Netflix’s Spriggan was the anime that I was looking forward to the most this year, while also being a show that I had very low expectations for.

Story: 7/10 Good

Each episode is a self contained story that acts as a vignette to the protagonist's life. There is neither an origin story or a proper finale, but instead each episode is a different case that needs to be tackled. In fact, each episode ends by showing the last frame as a picture, which adds to the effect that each episode is just another chapter in Ominae Yu's Life. Generally speaking, each episode is pretty similar as well. ... Basically, there is an ancient relic that needs to be captured and only Yu can do it. There are additional supporting characters that do help him, but these characters are usually confined to the episode they appear in. Speaking of…

Character: 6/10 Fine

Simply put, each character fulfills their purpose, while also not having much of a backstory. They exist for the episode they exist in and don’t offer much else. Excluding the side characters at Yu’s school, the only other character that shows up for more than one episode is Yoshino, a young girl who is after the relics for their monetary value. Yu himself is also pretty enjoyable, and he’s the only one who really gets any character development.

Art and Sound: 6.5/10 Good Enough

What I liked most from Spriggan were the different locations. Each episode took place in their own contained setting that gave it a unique feel, my personal favorite being the bunker in episode 4. How the characters blended into the set is a different story. While most characters are in 2D, which is fine, people who are in armor get animated in 3D, which creates a really weird effect where 2D and 3D characters interact with each other and neither feels like they belong. After a while I got used to it, but your mileage may vary.

I don’t really have much to write about for the sound though, which is why I'm lumping it with the art. There aren’t any memorable OSTs and even though I’m writing this just after I finished it, I can’t even remember the OP or ED. At least the sound effects were handled well and never felt distracting.

Enjoyment: 7/10 Good

Personally, I liked Spriggan. It’s not trying to accomplish any grand overarching story, but instead having each episode be a self contained story. I think that each episode was handled well and there isn’t an episode that I can point to and say it’s the worst, though I do have a personal favorite episode.

Overall: 7/10 Good

Overall, I think that Spriggan is watchable, and if you're looking for something fun and bloody to watch that doesn’t need a lot of commitment than you should give it a try.

Spriggan is a modern adaptation of a late 80's Manga published by Shonen Sunday that had a late 90's movie that liberally adapted one of the story arcs. Despite only having 6 Episodes produced, there's a post credit scene at the End of Episode 6 that suggests more Episodes may be produced in the near future.

Story: Each episode is a standalone mission where protagonist Yu Ominae gets sent out to stop some over the top anime villain from trying get their hands on the Ancient Relic of the Episode. Yu usually has someone helping him out, such as a French Bishonen Werewolf or a Greedy ... Treasure Thief, but most of them only show up in only one episode so far save for the Thief girl Yoshino, who pops up in 3 and 6.

Characters: Yu is the only recurring character with any sort of characterization/development, most of his allies are only given one episode of screentime, but leaving you wanting to know them more than what we are given. Only a few other characters I can recall were Colonel MacDougal from Ep 2 for how entertainy he was, even if he wasn't as creepy as in the 90's film. And Lieutenant Colonel Maria Clemente in Ep 4 since she managed to have some form of a character arc in the only episode she appears in. Many of the supporting cast fail to leave some form of impression for me and a lot of viewers and I found that tsundere schoolgirl Hatsuho to be pretty obnoxious.

Animation: I was weirded out by it at 1st for being this hybrid 2D-3D mix, but the results turn out alright and the action scenes do get better later on.

Music: Lot of Techno music playing in the background during actions. And I did find myself jamming to the OP and ED themes done by Taisei Iwasaki.

Voice Acting: I have only seen the English Dub, but the VAs do a pretty competent job in their roles. Kyle McCarley as Yu in particular is a standout. Though it did had some repeat castings like Kaiji Tang voicing 3 different characters for example.

In Conclusion, the show is most likely worth watching for the action scenes, science technobabble, and might have a favorite voice actor involved. But the series really needs to evolve past it's episodic nature if it can be able to stand out more than what we are given. Especially since I want a Project ARMS remake to be greenlighted since the manga creator also worked on that.

There have been a few modern adaptations of old manga that were successful even in our modern era like Dororo, Ping Pong and Parasyte. Following this trend, Netflix made Spriggan (though they did Devilman Crybaby too) that was animated by 'David Production' (studio behind JoJos & Fire Force) and after that teaser and trailer I was quite hyped (like many) to see this action-packed old-civilization story but it had... a lot of problems.
This anime is pretty much the same as a certain full CGI Anime that aired last year; "Night Head 2041" which is also a spin-off for the manga "Night Head". They both are ... pretty terrible in many ways with only one selling point. For Night Head 2041, it's the Backgrounds and for Spriggan, its the decent fights (Yes. Not even good, just decent). Though one main difference is that Spriggan is an episodic story while Night Head had an overarching plot (a terrible one).

Each episode of Spriggan is different and follows "Yuu Ominae", a Spriggan equipped with "Armored Muscle Suit", a high-tech body armor/enhancer working under a organization called ARCAM, whose aim is to find out all the old civilization technology before baddies use it for...you know, world destruction/domination.
One of the main problems with Spriggan is that, it's old school in a very terrible way. Badass 16-year old protagonist with a lot of plot armor (no Pun intended)? Check.
A high-level secret society com organization plot? Check.
Bland villains with non-existent/stupid motives? Check.
Characters with very less relevance? Check.
Unsurprising/straight-up stupid reveals? Check.
Maybe Netflix believed in the "Old is Gold" motto a bit too much, because this Anime is pretty terrible. I'm not saying all these "modern adaptations of old manga" are terrible.
Crybaby, even though I don't like it that much is actually one of the most successful Anime on Netflix; Dororo which is like 50 year old still has some of the most emotional & dark moments; Parasyte falls into the same category and you should know about Ping Pong's legendary status even if you haven't watched it, then why is that Spriggan failed while others succeeded? Because Spriggan is;
1. Outdated: With HS romcoms, isekais and hyped battle shounens taking the spotlight, stories like Spriggan lost their charm. Many are willing to watch trashy power fantasies, self-insertable isekais, high-school romcoms or the next hyped battle shounens than treasure-hunt stories which became very outdated. (Cries in Golden Kauny)
2. Horrible story/characters: I haven't read the manga but I'm definitely not willing to read it because this show is that terrible, like just watch episode 1 and see how the 'reveal' works. I can't say how bad it is without using words like bad/terrible/horrible like a 20 times (though I probably did). Not to mention the story is actually incomplete, we still don't know what those red eyes the MC have or his 'dark' past, but I don't even care at this point. The scale is ridiculously huge too; one episode sets in America, the next in Germany, India, Russia and we aren't even talking about the amount of historical/religious references it makes. If it was atleast a bit well-written or atleast had decent characters, it actually would've been an decent ride. But it couldn't. It gets so bad that I couldn't even enjoy the fights anymore.
(Review for this Anime ends here. Skip to the last part for conclusion. But if you wanna see me talk about "old manga with new adaptations" I like...)

Some Anime like I mentioned above were able to entertain modern viewers despite the source material being old because they were pretty relevant. Crybaby took a storm on the community with those rap songs, uncensored angsty gore/nudity and that soundtrack, all of these elements made it look like a true modern anime and not just as "adaptation of an old manga". But the main thing that made them good is because they also had a solid story or good writing. Even though the gore put off in Crybaby, some of the drama in it is pretty amazing and it's ending actually made me like it when I initially hated it. Dororo & Parasyte, even though they took somewhat of a boring route they're still compelling shows due to either their plot or characters (they also had good soundtracks).

Spriggan is a terrible anime that had no reason to get a modern adaptation. If it wasn't for that decent CGI fights (& above average CGI) I probably wouldn't even watch this.
Have your friends by your side and make jokes when anything stupid; you might enjoy this more that way.