Ultraviolet: Code 044

The story starts as pretty dynamic, but as the plot evolves, the dynamicity decreases rapidly. On the contrary, there is lot of self-reflection of the characters. At the end, the dynamicity returns but story isn't going to grandiose ending, as expected, and the final battle just "foams up".

The "Ultraviolet: Code 044" series is great anime piece - Art and sound are just great as well as characters. Unbalanced story is big minus, though.

Osamu Dezaki is one of my absolute favourite directos. Responsible for the adaptations of Riyoko Ikeda manga Rose of Versaille and Oniisama e, as well as Aim for the Ace, which heavily influenced Hideaki Anno. And of course, Dezaki directed the adaptation of Ashita no Joe. Oniisama e, Rose of Versaille, and Joe, are all in my top 10, so basically, he's a big fuckin' deal, and I'm a huge fan. He started by working as an animator on the first Astro Boy TV show, and died in 2011. One of the last series he directed was Ultraviolet: Code 044 (2008), a 12 episode TV ... anime based upon the American science-fiction film Ultraviolet (2006). There is a lot of discourse regarding movie adaptations of anime, but here we have an example of the reverse happening: an american movie being adaptapted into a TV anime.

The show itself is action packed, although, sadly, it does pale in comparison to all of Dezaki's other work in terms of not only the action, but most notably in overall quality. It feels like a sci-fi action show, and not that much more. The weapons are fairly cool, I suppose, but I would be hard pressed to outright reccomend this show to anyone who isn't already completely head over heels for everything as Dezaki (a category of people I happen to be included in). Shoehorned in are also a fair amount of mildly interesting sci-fi concepts, and, what I will admit, are some fairly nice looking character designs. I did find the plot difficult to engage with too, I never really felt that it grabbed me in any sort of way. But what I was able to appreciate were the action scenes. Dezaki is known to not use a lot of fast or flashy animation, instead relying on techinques such as split screen and the triple take in order to sell the impact of a hit. He did it wonderfully in Joe, and while Ultraviolet doesn't have anywhere near the same amount of stellar character writing to back it up as Joe did, it does still have the action on point.

All in all, I must say that I felt a little dissapointed. As previously mentioned, I love Dezaki's body of work, but not every shot fired can be a hit, there are bound to be misses, and this just happened to be one of them. Instead of watching this as your entry point for one of anime's alltime greatest directors, watch literally anything else he's worked on. Ashita no Joe, Aim for the Ace, Rose of Versaille, Oniisama e, Space Cobra, Genji Monogatari Sennenki, point is, the guy has a made a ton of wonderful series: this just happens to not be one of them.

I think this show had a good amount of potential for being good. Unfortunately, having one of the worst animation I have seen makes me have to reconsider this notion.

Ultraviolet: Code 044's story is actually a lot better than many other sci-fi shows out there. It features a high tech society, and they only introduce the amount of details that are necessary for the show to go on. Whether it be weapons, scientific development, or cloning, these concepts are introduced and not delved too deeply since they're not the focus of the show. It's a sci-fi show, but it's mainly focused on 044's development rather ... than any sort of worldbuilding. It's clear and to the point, and since the goal of the story is not to highlight "dystopian society," but rather the tragic tale of a single clone girl, it works. Sure, if you look deeply into the story, you can definitely pinpoint random plot holes. Why can't scientists develop antibiotics for the phage virus when they're so technically advanced? For a society that can create space cities, they sure as hell don't look any different than modern society today. Sure, these are problems with the worldbuilding, but since the story isn't focusing in on that, it's a lot more easier to take it with a grain of salt. There's no confusing concepts that boggle your mind. No stupid sci-fi gimmicks that characters use for no apparent reason like in other shows like this, which I appreciate a lot.
Like I said before, the story is mainly about the tale of our main character, agent 044. It's simple, but it's done well and effectively. You get to peek into her psyche, and see what's she thinking when she does actions. She's a clone that has no feelings or human rights, but as you will know later on, she's a bit more than just that. The way agent 044 is portrayed is honestly very well done, so I can applaud to that. Of course, along the way, you get to see her engage in action sequences all the time, whether it be part of her job, or doing it for her own sake.
Overall, it's a simple story, but a well executed one. If only the combat animation and choreography were just as good. Unfortunately, the budget for this animation was bare bones. I mean, words cannot describe how horrible the fight scenes are. Repeated animations are used over and over again. When you see her jump or do a punch, it's either going to be a still frame with some pauses, or they're going to repeat that punch animation in rapid succession in order to save time and money. Backgrounds when she's doing any sort of fighting will be pure white to save on background design. When she does any sort of maneuvers on a person, it'll probably be a close up on her fist, or on the opponents face so that there doesn't need to be any animation on the person actually getting hit. Either that, or you just see an animation of her punching or hitting someone and then the screen turns black and you see the aftermath of the person getting hit. Again, all of these techniques are just to add as little "fighting" in the numerous fight scenes she's in. There's not a single satisfying fight, and if I'm being honest, comedy slapstick shows do a better job of representing fight scenes than Ultraviolet: Code 044. Other than that, you got just in general, still frames for seconds on end, dimly lit backgrounds so that all you see is black to save on background design, reused backgrounds, and overly bright backgrounds so half the screen is white. Or, backgrounds are just a blur so they don't need to make it either. Scenes with exposition and dialogue drag out in order to keep a still frame.
Overall, I like the premise, and I really like the character development and design of Agent 044. However, when fight scenes are terrible quality and they're 50% or more of the entire show, then yes, I can't really consider it a good show.