Ginga Densetsu Weed

Edit: After I re-watched this series, I have decided to re-review Ginga Densetsu Weed. I realize that I wasn't in the best of moods while writing my previous entry and now I'll write this review with a more... Level head.

Ginga Densetsu Weed is the sequel to Ginga Nagareboshi Gin. Both share a few of the same characters and the like. Ginga Densetsu Weed, however, is much newer (having been made in 2005 while Ginga Nagreboshi Gin being made in 1986). However, being relatively new does not automatically make it great, but GDW might be worth looking into since there is an extreme lack in dog ... anime out there (that aren't cute anyway).

Yes, Ginga Densetsu Weed has comedy scenes, but this is no Massugu ni Ikou (A rather overly-cute dog anime). GDW is an action anime, with cannibal dogs, assassinations, and even Ninja dogs. Humans play almost no role in the anime.

The main character is Weed, an Akita / Kishu mixed dog that is the son of Gin (the main character in Ginga Nagareboshi Gin) and Sakura. Weed has an extreme sense of justice and is also a good fighter despite being less than a year old. He is perhaps the most annoying main character you'll ever find.

The voice acting was good to an extent. But voice actors were changed and some character even shared the same voice so it was clear that Studio DEEN wasn't trying very hard.

Probably the lowest point of Ginga Densetsu Weed is the animation quality. Studio DEEN had on and off days with this. For instance, the last episode had great animation, but there were scenes in other parts of the series that makes eyes bleed. Sometimes the animators would animate every limb separately to make a nice flowing animation; other times the most animation in a scene was moving the character designs up and down. Studio DEEN should learn proper canine anatomy before making an anime that involves dogs as main characters.
The background scenery was pretty though.

And speaking of character designs, Studio DEEN made some weird changes. They changed Gin's eye color from brown to blue (probably to match Weed) and made both Gin and Weed a pretty good shade of blue; almost to the point of being unnatural. Ben's collar seems to have changed color and other little tidbits are there.

The anime and manga differences are to be expected. The manga (running 50+ volumes currently) is longer and therefore is definitely different from the anime. The anime, being a measly 26 episodes, ends with only two arcs completed [Kaibutsu and Fight for Gajou arcs]. Some characters were never introduced in the anime and other times some scenes were changed from their original format.

The anime ending was also completely different.

Maybe the GDW anime is trying to be more positive than its manga counterpart. Considering that Gajou blows up, Sniper tries to get revenge on Gin, George is there, etc, etc, happened in the manga and not in the anime... Studio DEEN is still being hypocritical about characters and sub-plots by killing off some characters when they didn't die in the manga and adding characters that weren't even in the original story.

The Ginga Densetsu Weed anime overall was a let down.

This version just can't live up to the manga: It doesn't follow the original storyline at all, characters are left out that are vital to the story, Weed is whiner than usual, everyone was made into hypnotized robots in the anime and mutually accepted Weed as leader, they made the old dogs weak to make the younger dogs look cooler, and there are so many plot holes it's not even funny.


Ginga Densetsu Weed anime in a nutshell:

~ Pros:
+ OP and EN themes songs are great
+ Can be enjoyable to watch at some points

~ Cons:
- Inconstant animation
- Change from old voice actors/lazy hiring
- Too short compared to the manga
- Weed
- PLOTHOLES

End Note: Many people, despite there being obvious flaws in the anime, still enjoy watching this series (I admit that I did during my first run-through since I read the manga afterwords) so you really shouldn't skip out on GDW. It's just that... The manga's better. And Studio DEEN sucks at drawing dogs.

The series was good, no doubt and it does make a fair watch for all those watchers who are into animal-related anime series. The plot is a strong one, owing to the sequence followed in the manga; unlike the anime version where focus has been laid on only a part of the actual story.

The series carries a number of criticisms, a few of which are:
- The characters from the prequel have been showed to have deteriorated a lot.
- The present characters aren't of that strong framework.
- The reason why Hougen waged the war against the Ohu still remains unclear.
- The emergence ... of Genba is abrupt and absurd.
- The leader, Gin - who defeated a BEAR gets beaten down by a BUNCH OF DOGS, miserably.
- The death of Hogen has been shown in the anime while in the manga, Hogen is shot by a police officer.
- The anime features Jerome's death but in the manga Jerome has been shown to have been captured by Victor, which makes the plot a bit controversial.
- The behaviour of Ben, who was Gin's mentor in the prequel deteriorates down to that of a stupid fellow which gives him more of a clown-like appearance.
- Ben and Cross' other pups haven't been given any feature or a background story.
- The death of Chuutora hasn't been given any importance although he played a significant role in the prequel.
- The series consists of a lot of unnecessary dialogues.

and many more.

In short, the series couldn't live up to its reputation in terms of enjoyment and plot compared to it's prequel.

Moreover, the entire plot of the manga hasn't been pictured which makes it an incomplete series in a way.

Ginga Densetsu Weed starts off strong with action-heavy animation sequences that rival modern shounens, however it seems like the whole budget was spent at the very beggining and the very end of the series, with how the rest of the show goes. Forget about consistency, you will never truly know how big those dogs are and if they actually can howl or if they just scream like men.

The author really wanted to stuff this series with something deeper, but he had no clue how to actually make it make sense. We keep getting all these crumbs about the relationship between humans and dogs, but at ... the end of the day, nothing comes out of it. The only thing that the dogs get out of this story is the idea of forgiving the other dogs, not humans. And that would be alright, if not for the fact that humans are kept being brought up to the equasion.

The main character, Weed, is very badly written. He is extremly hypocritical with how he handles fights with other dogs, to the point where he seems to be excusing parental abuse. In Kyoushiro's introduction, the show wants you to hate on him, while he is the most logical out of the whole situation. Making Weed so young doesn't actually work here the way it did in Gin's situation. Gin was trained. His strenght was understandable. Weed being powerful and wise makes zero fucking sense. He should have been at least 2 yo. Give him some nice backstory, don't kill his mom in the first ep, fucking, incorporate the whole human subplot nonsense, whatever.

The show is structered so bizarrely. For the most part you're expecting Kaibutsu to be the main villain, all the while he is very much not.

Perhaps one of my biggest grievances is how we get to see characters from Silver Fang come back, but their personalities are so warped, they're barely themselves. The biggest offender being Smith, who lost all of this whimsy in order to become a wise mentor figure. Like. Why?

What did I like about the show? Jerome. Almost exclusively Jerome. He had a nicely developed, sad backstory, he had good character development and he was just fun to watch. The rest it was mostly such bullshit, I don't know how to even explain it fully. Of course I liked some other characters, hell, I was so happy when I got to see Akame again! And I actually don't hate Weed, he was pretty alright, even if his writing was wonky. It just feels like the author was writing the story on his knee during his daily commutes. And I am aware that the anime diverges from the manga quite a bit, but from what I've heard, it does not necessarily make the manga better.