Soukyuu no Fafner: Dead Aggressor

The beginning of Fafner was quite confusing as it went straight to the action. Going straight into the action is often never a good idea since it’ll leave the viewers confused. Now if this were only the first episode and the second episode takes place a few months earlier then it would work. Gungrave, Berserk, and the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya used this technique. Haruhi used it quite effectively as it made more viewers come back for the 2nd episode to figure out what was going on. I guess my biggest problem is the fact that the action was relentless ... for around 9 episodes and they tried to create drama in that time frame. This is simply not possible with out proper character development/knowing the characters. For example, a certain character dies and they make it quite a big event and extremely dramatic. However, this character was only a step above some random faceless character. If this series were 50 episodes then I can under stand the pacing but it was only 25 episodes. It’s as if the creators realized that Fafner wasn’t popular enough to make into 50 episodes and cut their losses.

Around half way through the series, Fafner starts to slow down. Here things got better as there was proper character building and story progression. Now when drama hits it can actually affect the viewer. Sadly this happened way too late in a 25 episode series as there was quite a bit of potential in the Fafner universe. Thankfully, Fafner does save itself by creating a satisfying conclusion, albeit a bit rushed. I also felt that Fafner could have improved its ending by providing some kind of epilogue.

Music was one of Fafner’s better qualities, especially the OP/ED. Also, the character designs were the same as Gundam SEED so it quite hard not to make comparisons. However, in terms of animation quality Fafner compares quite favorably. So while the beginning went straight to the action and was a bit confusing it was nevertheless pretty. If you’re a mecha fan then its almost worth watching just for the action scenes. As far as I recall Fafner doesn’t use repeated animation sequences, one of my pet peeves.

Fafner is a fairly entertaining mecha anime, especially for mecha fans. It features good animation and very good music. However, Fafner didn’t provide anything exceptional and doesn’t rise above the pack of mecha anime. In addition, it was severally hurt by inappropriate pacing for a 25 episode series. It is quite sad to see so much wasted potential. Finally a proper epilogue would have greatly benefited the series.

A good story played out by unconvincing characters.

I have been hearing this title for quite some time now and expected something decent at the very least. I had almost dropped it after 9 episodes due to execution and characters but I found myself thinking about the plot after a while and came back to it.

The show greets you with a great song by angela, and ever since Stellvia of the Universe I have been a fan of angela and the singer's voice. The opening sequence is one of highlights of this series.

However, the first 10 episodes is very difficult to get through. Instead of throwing ... some action at me to get me hooked and then slow down to explain things, it just kept at it. When it did slow down, it was only to point out things that were very hard to accept. Let me state a few questions that I could not find answer to:
* Why does the commander of the whole base goes out to pilot a fighter jet as any other grunt and gets killed right away?
* Why bother with having (not one but two) shields when they are hardly able to stop the enemy for whole 2 seconds?
* Why is the first pilot so good?
* Why is everyone around so influenced/infatuated by him?
* How did they manage to remain hidden for so long and then suddenly all hell breaks loose?
* How come you have guns that Fafners handle that are able to hurt the enemy but you have no stationary, more powerful versions of these?
* Why does the enemy wipe automatic defence systems right away but does not attack Fafners in the same way?

I also could not get over how the writers of the show had a MESSAGE to convey and how characters did everything to validate it. It was not people's natural behaviour that pushed the story forward here, it was the MESSAGE. There were many instances where someone acted like a completely different person because that suited the story. There were many cases of sudden, unexplainable change in behaviour that, again, were there only to point the viewer at a particular idea. I felt I was watching characters being jerked sideways by invisible strings to make them behave as it was required of them.

This series also miserably fails at creating drama in first 10 episodes. Attempts to force me to see something as very sad were so blatantly obvious that I could not help but reject them. Sometimes less is more.


Warning: mild spoilers starting here.

The case of commander dying so quickly (and then we get obligatory “grieving by a loved one” scene) is repeated on much grander scale very soon. Second pilot is designated, enemy attack follows and the she self-destructs to take out the threat. The problem is: she was hardly given any screen time for me to get to know, care about her and understand her motivation. All we know as she decides on a flight to her death is that she was a gentle girl of very weak health, as if the show is telling me: “look, a frail girl is flying to her death! This is sad! Cry!). And I thought pulling FMA or Steins;Gate on cute characters was obvious (who watched – knows).


Another gripe I have is with the way it portrays the "evil" characters. They are introduced in much the same way as the Big Bad Wolf from Red Riding Hood: rotten to the core and ugly to boot. A pair, foster parents, badmouths their adopted son pretty much from the get go. You have to be pretty screwed to do that to someone you've seen growing and whom you cared for for about 16 years of your life, and it's not just one parent, it's both of them! It's even more difficult to swallow since their son seems to have grown up all-right. And when we see how bad are they? It turns out they are spies and it gives even more ground to expel them from the island. Talk about fortuitous development.



The good:
* Story
* Premise
* Music
* Animation
* Second half

The bad:
* Execution
* Characters
* Weak start

After reading a few reviews I thought "heck people seem to like this and it has a sequel running, could be interesting right?". Well right of the bat in the first episode I had a more or less "wtf" moment and it wasn't a good one. We go from cliche school setting to super powerful next to impossible to kill boss fight in a instance. Oh in classic mecha style all defenses are useless and we have a professional scrub force that gets instawhiped, like why even bother. Out goes our hero, badabing badaboom boss fight is over.

The good stuff about the show ... is sound and art, sound in particular is great.

The bad stuff: well the story is non-existent the first six episodes, characters are just background material as we don't get to know a thing about them. While it wasn't a Suzaku Kururugi (code geass, I was baffled that he didn't die like 500 times in that shows first ten episodes) for me but the "main" duo are presented so badly and story forced into stupidity that I just lost interest. A cake covered in poop is still a poop cake no matter how nice the filling is and this show something like that.

That turned into a ramble.

In short: great music, colourful and for the most part good art, really badly presented story, character presentation is borderline criminally bad and finally lots and lots and lots of stupid cliches.

If you are looking for action fiesta there are better options and if you are looking for a good story there are better options too. Your mileage may vary but to me its a no go.