Witch Hunter Robin

Witch Hunter Robin is one of those animes that, while I see many of its faults, I can't help but enjoy it. The plot and character development are interesting and draw you in, allowing you to overcome the somewhat less enticing art/ animation style.

The anime is somewhat of a noir/ supernatural, though it is definitely more toned down than others. I'd say, for me, this is a very much character-driven story. Robin, the main character, is an interesting lead shrouded in mystery. She is not the typical weak main character, but she has plenty of room for growth. The side characters are interesting ... though some could have definitely been more developed! In general, the characters remain mysterious and yet likeable enough to build the story.

The art style and animation are not the best but they get the job done, and the character design for each of the characters is unique and adds to the story. While the animation is a bit dated, it does not distract from the story at hand.

Overall, if you enjoy supernatural action, badass female leads and some mystery, check out Witch Hunter Robin!

witches in 2000s

Sometimes it's nice to watch a show I don't have to fix too much on it has that slowed him like I don't have to watch it like. Focus I can take my Focus somewhere else and then I can't go back when it is interesting.

And it almost has a police procedure vibe in the beginning, so it's very predictable which gives it a nice you know I can just look at it when I want in the first 10 episode but then stuff happens and then it's like oh now I have you know to look at the scream and it ... is interesting even if I don't care too much about the characters. They are good enough and I would be sad if they were gone but they feel like they are Surfer they do that job. They're not the deepest.

I also like the witches they feel more like psychics when it comes to their ability, but it is very nice to see them fight and use them sadly. It doesn't go too much in creativity so the fight gets release repetitive after Wild but it is relaxing to watch.

But I do not want to be a jackass, so I really like the music. It has some nice atmosphere to it and I enjoyed early 2000 computer paint to colorize the character so now everything is a bit gray. It has a vibe all to it its own.

And the show is willing to just go through dialogue with out too many hands up. It's like oh you didn't Focus on a conversation. plot is not going to go up again. It doesn't hold your hand, it is kind of nice.

And when the plot gets growing halfway through you do care you do care even if you're happy mostly on in the background. You just like oh, I can't beat about it now and it actually interesting what they do with the plot and the plot twist so I would recommend this show if you want a slow burn kind of show.

Let me preface my review with this- Witch Hunter Robin, on paper, should be a home run for my personal tastes. It's an atmospheric Adult Swim anime from 2004 with supernatural elements and Gothic design influences. That sounds like it was made for me. However, despite this, it still falls flat as a clumsy, ugly, and even downright boring slog that barely kept my attention. Beginning with the story, like much of the anime, it has a very strong conceptual base that is theoretically engaging with a ton of staying power. With an international witch hunting organization, and people randomly bestowed genetically inherited magic powers ... called witches causing havoc across the world, it makes for a setting that is compelling and rich with potential lore and interesting conflicts, even drawing in the real-life Ogham script of ancient Ireland. However, instead, we get a show that spends half its runtime on lengthy, pensive silences, and the other half on drawn out office scenes, populated by exhausting exposition. This all results in a story that languishes as an underdeveloped, underexplored mess, all moving at a truly geriatric pace. It must be reiterated that the pacing is some of the worst I've ever seen, in anime or otherwise. It is tortuously slow, blasting past a 'realistic' sense of time, instead lapsing into something more akin to a stilted cutscene from a PS1 game. It even gets less interesting as it goes on, switching from these mysteries surrounding different types of witches with different powers and their various crimes, to a melodramatic conspiracy plot that culminates in a confusing and anticlimactic final episode. It throws in hints at an interesting wider lore, but none of it is ever explored in any real depth, abandoned instead for a half-baked contrivance that is the second half of Witch Hunter Robin. However, the story, for all its sins, isn't the worst part of the anime. That ignoble dishonor goes to the art, which is the pinnacle of this anime's wasted potential. Once again, conceptually, it seems unique and interesting, with an art design and visual identity that sets it apart from other anime of the time and exudes an atmospheric, mysterious feel. It also brings in real-life elements, like certain cave paintings in the credits sequence, namely a notable example from Trois-Frères cave in France, famously called "The Sorcerer". However, it abandons its potential and decides to go all-in on some truly awful CG. I'm not just talking about a casual use here either, like an elevator or a car. I'm talking nearly all of the background art and many of the foreground objects looking like they came straight out of a cheap Chinese knockoff of Half Life 1. They are primitive, ugly, and artificial, serving as a constant and unceasing distraction from a show that otherwise would have looked pretty good. Considering the caliber of the stuff coming out at the time, this anime really has no excuse to be so much worse, and then to use it so liberally. Considering its admittedly interesting art direction, this really is a shame, and results in an end product that is genuinely hard to look at a lot of the time. The sound is probably the strongest aspect of this anime, though that's really only for a lack of anything else. This is due to the soundtrack, which really captures the mysterious, witchy atmosphere they're going for, and pairs it nicely with a mid-2000s techno vibe that adds to the suspense and general cool factor. I watched the dub, as that's how it aired on Adult Swim in 2004, and the dub's voice cast is also chock full of legends, like Steven Blum, Michael McConnohie, Crispin Freeman, Wendee Lee, and Johnny Yong Bosch. However, despite this essentially all-star voice cast, the dub is still pretty subpar. Outside of Steven Blum and Michael McConnohie, whose respective performances are the best in the show by far, the voice work overall sounds stiff and artificial, replete with awkward pauses and dry, contrived line delivery that would sound more at home presenting an after school special about the dangers of speeding. Once again, this demonstrates Witch Hunter Robin's repeating pattern of totally wasting its potential. As for the characters, there's not really much to say. They fulfill their roles in the story while not standing out or breaking the mold in any notable way. Of them, Dr. Kurosawa and Father Juliano are my favorites. Both of them are supporting characters that only really appear very briefly, but they're the best written among them and demonstrate the best voice work in the show, respectively delivering compelling performances, though this reflects poorly on the main cast. Overall, Witch Hunter Robin is a tragic display of wasted potential. It could have been great if it made just a couple of strategic adjustments- pick up the pace a bit, lay off the CG, put more effort into the voice work, etc. Instead, we got this. In the end, it might be a passingly fun watch for one or two of the earlier episodes in isolation, but as it stands it doesn't work as a whole anime. It is entirely too long, too slow, and too boring to be something really worth watching, let alone finishing. What a waste.