When the fans of Digimon Adventure watched the return of the series eight years ago in the Tri movie series and later in Last Evolution Kizuna, they felt something not minor was largely missing: the members of the second generation of chosen children and protagonists of the second season of the series 02. Where were they? How could they be ignored just like that? Not only by the writers, but also by the 01 members themselves? If they had already been introduced, were part of the universe and had already achieved enough relevance after having enjoyed an entire series dedicated to them? Was the class
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of questions everyone was asking themselves. Having ignored them as if they had never existed or had never been important characters was never something well-received, and this regardless of how much each fan may have ever liked them. Even though the 02 children were never as popular as those of the original series came to be and always remained rather in their shadows, just for plot-decency reasons they still existed and deserved to be remembered and participate significantly in the return. The announcement and arrival of this film, “Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning”, was thus understood as a way to correct this mistake with a story this time around dedicated completely only to them and created excitement among fans since finally they were going to be able to see their beloved characters return rightfully so and have their moment to shine, even if that was for a limited time.
However, it didn’t turn out to be exactly what was expected. To have been promoted as a new story about the members of 02, this new installment is in reality essentially a story whose focus is a whole new character: the mysterious Lui and his complicated relationship with his special digimon Ukkomon. The cast of 02 here only acts as satellite characters orbiting around this newly introduced character and the conflict caused by his digimon, limiting their participation as mere witnesses and circumstantial assistants to the new event related to the Digitalworld. Beyond revealing “where are they now and what are they doing now in their young adult lives” at the beginning of the film, it doesn’t do much else with them that is both meaningful and interesting about them. They were the ones who happened to be there to help save the day and that’s all. Introducing new characters doesn’t need to be something wrong of course, but if doing so will be to the detriment of the characters that are actually the main ones making everything focus on the new and barely anything on the main from whom we expect to see more or if their introduction and their conflicts do not really have strong narrative ties to them that make their participation indispensable (this is: they and no other than they could have participated and allowed this new story), then we are certainly before a disappointment, especially considering that this was supposedly going to be an opportunity to develop a meaningful story about them after having been previously put aside. This becomes even more problematic when remembering that already in their own mother series Digimon Adventure 02 and its related movies that followed it not much meaningful was done with them with the exception of Ken. This was the chance to fill those development holes and treat the rest of the members with greater attention, something that unfortunately wasn’t achieved once again.
On the other hand, it’s not good news as well that this new addition to the Adventure universe introduces plot elements that necessarily enter in conflict with previously established elements. The new character Lui presents himself as yet another character claiming to be the first chosen child or the first human being with a digimon partner as if the contenders for that position weren’t already enough, whose extraordinarily powerful and mysterious digimon called Ukkomon with a wish-granting divine-like ability apparently is the real reason behind the existence of the digivices and the metaphysical relationships/connections between humans and digimons after having unintentionally misunderstood one of the wishes of his partner. Although this theory is initially presented as mere speculation on the part of Lui and that it is possible that nothing he claims is effective, the truth is that what happens towards the end of this short story seems to confirm it, which if understood as true necessarily and in an immensely unfortunate way would contradict or invalidate much, if not all, of the entire Adventure universe shown before and would come off as very disappointing because this seeks to make us digest the idea that all the story we knew until now was, in reality, the result of mere chance and not something with more meaning as we always believed and understood. Even in the best of the cases where we try to reconcile in a far-fetched way what is brought up here with all the previous knowledge, the truth at the end of the day is that this only contributes to unnecessarily convolute the universe and create unnecessary confusion. And even having ideas or story concepts previously introduced and left unfinished in the original series, such as the Black Sea and its nature for example, it seems even more absurd to have developed this instead of having used the opportunity to take up and explore what for a long time has been pending. They also didn’t even use this opportunity to introduce new digievolution levels for both Sylphimon and Shakkoumon, as is usual with each new installment.
It would appear that the movie is then useless and a waste of time, but, counterintuitively, it’s not the case either. Strictly from an internal perspective, things do not look as bad, and in fact it becomes something that ranges from acceptable to satisfying, working even much better than the standard “cash-grab” shounen typical movie. For one thing, regardless of whether or not he is the first chosen child as he claims to be, the truth is that Lui, his difficult past marked by child abuse, his complex relationship with Ukkomon and the consequences derived from it turn out to be quite interesting, and certainly much more than what previous new-character cases like the ones of Meiko or Menoa ever were. Thanks to a good characterization, presentation and a very human and surprisingly dark and disturbing execution even for the usual standards of the franchise, the movie makes him someone with whom we can connect and empathize, making him memorable. For another thing, that it hadn’t focused on them, doesn’t take away the fact that anyway it was more than a pleasure to see the 02 members on screen again interacting altogether this time as grown-ups. Led by the contagious and explosive personality of Daisuke that remains intact, the 02 team always stood out for how close to each other they were compared to the 01 one, and the movie knew very well how to reflect that through scenes, notable dialogues, inside jokes and references to the past which was quite wholesome to see. The animation is also stunning and likely one of the best the franchise has ever seen, the usage of the classic 02 themes like Target, Break Up! and Beat Hit! is exciting, the story flows very well considering the short runtime, and it is welcome that the conflict this time didn’t have as its basis a standard fight between good guys and bad guys but rather a complex situation to solve, which helped the attention to be put on the human aspects and the messages to communicate instead of the action sequences that here are rather few and short, just like it was in Last Evolution Kizuna before.
For all these factors, forgetting for a while where the expectations were placed and how detrimental it is for the continuity of the universe, the film still works quite well and is quite enjoyable. Unfortunately, as much as the aforementioned qualities are certainly appreciated, it’s clear we cannot just ignore and overlook the issues explained earlier, being them structural problems that weigh much more for reviewing purposes, so it is hard to give it a pass without qualms. To have been ignored so much in previous returns, that they have now missed the opportunity to offer the meaningful story about the main characters the fans were expecting and make up for snubbing them before can only be seen as a disappointment, especially if this movie was understood as their turn to shine. Having everything revolved around Lui, the 02 chosen children ended up virtually in the backseat of their own comeback movie, and this film ultimately ends up feeling more like a sort of mere consolation prize to them for not having actively participated in the previous returns, which doesn’t make them justice. This, in addition to how unfortunate it is that the movie messes around with the whole Adventure universe in such an unnecessary way with new information related to the origin of the relationships between humans and digimons that contradicts or invalidates the previous knowledge and that it is hard to try to make it compatible or make it fit with it without the use of mental gymnastics, giving the impression that those who wrote this seemed not to remember or not even ever having watched all of Adventure’s previous installments. Instead of being something like the Last Evolution Kizuna's equivalent to the 02 team, or perhaps having performed as a bridge that convincingly and consistently reconciled what was shown in that movie with the epilogue of the main series (which no one has said yet is no longer valid), the movie thought of itself as something that had to come to provide an answer to a question that never existed in the first place or something that sought to shock everyone with a twist that instead of providing sense only ended up confusing more rather than clarifying anything at all. It’s only natural to see that it’s hard to see this movie as something satisfying and recommendable taking all this context into account.
In the end, all in all, how much it may be will depend on how much weight each fan places on each side. It will depend on which factors are given the most importance by them, whether the external ones in terms of expectations or the internal ones in terms of functionality independent of them. If you belong to the type of fan who cares a lot for the story, the universe and its logic, it would be better to forget that this movie even exists. But if at this point all you are interested in is watching the 02 gang and their digimon partners back in action again and chill out for a while seeing them participate, interact with each other and save the day, you should give it a try, even more when remembering the humiliating treatment they received before. Personally, this was the attitude I watched it with and for the same reason I felt satisfied overall even though what it proposed didn’t convince me, but I can understand those who expected something more or better. Either way, the potential is still there, the possibilities of having a new (and I hope, really final) film that integrates and involves all of our chosen children in a meaningful story about them that also hopefully ties convincingly the story so far with 02’s epilogue clearing out all traces of confusion, are still there, and as long as they do, there is no reason to get pessimistic yet. 5.5/10
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Jan 29, 2024 Mixed Feelings
When the fans of Digimon Adventure watched the return of the series eight years ago in the Tri movie series and later in Last Evolution Kizuna, they felt something not minor was largely missing: the members of the second generation of chosen children and protagonists of the second season of the series 02. Where were they? How could they be ignored just like that? Not only by the writers, but also by the 01 members themselves? If they had already been introduced, were part of the universe and had already achieved enough relevance after having enjoyed an entire series dedicated to them? Was the class
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Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jul 31, 2023
Kanojo, Okarishimasu
(Anime)
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Recommended
Rent-a-Girlfriend is a controversial series that has earned a place as one of the worst popular anime series in recent years. Constantly trashed and treated almost as an offense to human dignity, it has become for a myriad of reasons and without much debate in one of the preferred titles for many when it comes to choosing something hot to easily hatewatch and thus be able to "prove their good taste” to the rest and fit. It is in this sense -so far- to the 2020s what titles like Elfen Lied and Sword Art Online were to the 2000s and 2010s respectively. However, I can’t
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disagree more with this general rejection it has been victim of since, quite the opposite, to my eyes this is one of the most outstanding and memorable modern proposals of recent years (and probably, even the last decade) and as such deserves much better treatment than the one it has received. Now that its third season has just premiered, I thought it would be a good idea to briefly explain why this is.
(Note: what I’m going to point out here refers mainly to the first season, which is in essence only the introduction plus some early development of the series and then should be judged as such and not as a finished work). To start, it must be remembered that this is at its core a romantic comedy, more generally a comedy and as such its fundamental mission is to make laugh or awaken feelings of joke within the viewer and provide it a fun experience, something in which the series succeeds in both a remarkable and original way. It takes and revolves around an absurd and unrealistic concept or idea such as “renting a girlfriend”, which may be an activity that actually exists in certain parts of the world but for the common people it is perceived as something simply silly, ridiculous and unthought-of, and is presented in the universe of this series as something real and normal, which is flashy enough to consist in a good hook and makes it worth having a look at. It works with it both smartly and carefully and plays with it dumbly to create unbelievable situations that are hardly seen in real life and bring on reactions of disbelief. However, the absurd and unreal is necessarily something distant, and the series would not work entirely well if it didn’t incorporate into the mix a more realistic component that provides the closeness or identification. This it expresses it through the protagonist, Kazuya Kinoshita, a “loser” college student with low self-esteem and a frustrated romantic life who resorts to renting a girlfriend out of despair after being dumped by his ex-girlfriend after just a month of relationship. It may be that one does not identify with him and his anxieties, but whether or not this is the case the truth is that the series does a very good job at putting us in his shoes, make us feel empathy for him and make us laugh both of him and with him with the series of misadventures and funny situations the series creates for these effects and that he suffers after deciding to present his rental girlfriend as a real girlfriend to his family and friends and refusing to tell the truth. The series works exceptionally well because it takes these two ends of the spectrum, where each is not enough by itself when it comes to delivering a highly effective comedy and combines them in a balanced way to build an exceptional, hilarious, memorable (and maybe even cute) story and experience to the audience as a joke or a game, that doesn’t take itself seriously and that makes us laugh at life and maybe why not, ourselves too. While the unrealistic component provides the interest, the appeal, the realist one provides the familiarization and emotional connection. For apparently yet another silly and light romantic comedy, the plot and its development are surprisingly outstanding. I won't go into specific details or examples to not spoil, but another of its strengths lies in that it knows how to identify very well and make the most of all the potential that its premise and chosen tone offer, in terms of all the possibilities that can take place, what can emerge and what can be done with it, through the introduction of new characters, unlikely, tense, uncomfortable or embarrassing situations and/or well-thought-out misunderstandings that are not only very funny but also complicate and make the whole mess in which the protagonist falls increasingly intriguing, making sure at the same time not to stray from its absurd and silly conceptual framework, thus remaining consistent with its own objectives and nature. Thanks to this, it keeps you constantly surprised and stunned from beginning to end of how far the muddle goes seeing how it evolves and becomes more complicated, how everything spirals out of control and how all the involved react in regards to it, and manages as well to keep you permanently hooked interested to know what will happen next and where the whole accumulated mess will end in a genuine way without any effort requirement, which is something that any series should always try to achieve. While admittedly it’s true that the series resorts to hardly believable conveniences, that most of these mentioned situations are somewhat forced and that the whole plot itself originates from a markedly forced event (the fact that Chizuru had decided to follow Kazuya to the hospital when she didn’t have any reason to do it and it is what sets the whole mess in motion), the fact that this is an absurd series allows all this to be easily acceptable without major problems (the case would be evidently different if it were something that targeted to something more serious, but it's not), and furthermore, sometimes it becomes something inevitably necessary to allow a comedy to develop its points and obtain the desired comic reaction from the audience, which is the idea and what the series intends to achieve. The protagonist certainly explains a large part of the antibodies that the series generates (if not, all of them). Hated for who he is and what he does, his attitudes, decisions and behaviors (in particular, for doing something as human as masturbating), many consider him to be one of the worst protagonists the media has ever seen, treating him as pathetic, insufferable, simp, perverted and cringey, among many other negative adjectives, and that because of him the entire series is unworthy of anyone's time, something that results curious to me because from this it is inferred that apparently in order to be a good series then the protagonist must be the closest to a perfect human being as possible, something that, by default, does not make it a very interesting protagonist to follow (and would also imply that any series about villains is immediately bad, which is obviously, nonsense). If the series turns out to be more appealing than several others in the genre, it is precisely because it has a protagonist indeed more interesting. He’s not the ideal man, Prince Charming, an alpha male no woman can resist, a womanizer, the popular athletic guy in college, an edgy guy shrouded in mystery who comes off as imposing or intimidating or someone who enjoys a lot of success in life in some area and is both attractive and admired because of that, but a very ordinary guy with quite normal attitudes for his age and social context, insecure of himself, immature, inexperienced, with inferiority complex and sentimentally failed, but all this not to a diametrically opposite degree either because at the same time he does not represent an extreme case of a “loser” and he is not a complete nobody either, which makes him a character far more human and relatable to the majority than virtually all the stereotypes mentioned above. On the other hand, as mentioned before, if the series works well (this is: to be funny) it’s also thanks to him. Together with his characterization that makes him a realistic character (and as such, provides empathy), his particular attitudes, comments, expressions and reactions to all the chaos that he experiences after deciding to rent a girlfriend explain immensely how funny the show is. Finally, some claim that he is a static character who does not show any progress or learn from his mistakes, which makes me wonder if they actually watched the series or not because that is just not the case. Towards the end of the season he becomes more aware of his mistakes, the events that he has lived through after deciding to rent a girlfriend make him reflect on the consequences of his decisions and with this he grows as an individual. Also, it's not like the series finds its ending in this season, so expecting realized characters this fast is both rushed and a mistake. And of course, the series wouldn't be called Rent-a-Girlfriend without the group of girls surrounding the protagonist. While not all of them may be equally important in terms of the impact they have on the story, each of the four sets apart from the other in terms of personalities and motivations, each of the four complicate the protagonist from a different and unique angle, each of the four has a very clear different and defined role to exploit or work with some aspect of it in a certain tone, and each of the four to a certain extent thus contributes in keeping the series versatile and appealing from various perspectives, they complement each other and enrich the story each in their own way. Most of them add to the unrealistic side of the series, in the sense that in real life none of them would place her eyes or be as nice or helpful to someone as Kazuya. (In relation to this, it is noteworthy to see how, for example, the artistic style of their designs is quite different from the masculine ones; while they all look like perfect beautiful dolls, the men have features that are more similar to those of real life). If there's anything wrong here, probably what I would have liked is that they could have been somewhat less supportive and made it harder for the protagonist to get away with his lies and save his ass all the time (especially Chizuru, where the plot demanded her to consent to everything that Kazuya asked or proposed to help him or rescue him from some trouble) since this was perhaps pushed beyond what was needed for the plot to work, but not to the point to make it unbearable either. Finally, I cannot not refer to the criticism that the series receives in relation to the moral issue of its premise. Many felt offended by it because of presenting the girlfriend-renting service as a normalization of an immoral or unacceptable business and it is wrong that it treats it so lightly only for the lowest class of entertainment purposes instead of addressing it more seriously through a socially critical approach, and some even go as far as accusing it of normalizing and/or promoting prostitution. The truth is, that all this ethical controversy is artificial, pointless and should not suppose any problem, due to the fact that whether renting a girlfriend (or boyfriend, whatever) and everything that the activity implies is something right or not, is something that necessarily depends on the viewer's own values and culture and has no bearing with the internal quality of the series; it is something external to it and then the moral angle is not a criteria to judge it. This becomes more evident when remembering that it is essentially a comedy and an absurd one; by not taking itself seriously, the ethical issue loses all relevance, and had it wanted to explore it, it naturally would not have chosen to be a comedy in the first place. Not to mention, that the series makes it quite clear that the rental service has its strict rules and limits and only consists of offering girls who will accompany their clients on a date in public spaces for a limited time, they will make them have a good time but without getting intimately involved with them and expressly prohibiting all kinds of sexual class interactions, so confusing it with prostitution is not only going too far but is also baseless. Overall, Rent-a-Girlfriend is an unfortunately underrated, unfairly criticized and misunderstood romantic comedy that has been victim of prejudice, wrong interpretation, insecurity and hate bandwagonism, factors that stop people from enjoying the series for what it is and make them criticize it for what it isn’t and never attempted to be. Regardless of its further development in next seasons, the first season in particular works very well as an introduction and early development by both hooking and keeping engaged the viewer with an original and interesting concept, fun and relatable characters, an addictive direction and in the end executing an exceptionally funny experience based on the absurd, and acknowledging that you enjoyed it will not make you a worse person, won’t make you look immature or pathetic neither some kind of second-class citizen. The season is not a finished work and as such can’t get a higher score, but within its own class and specific comedy objectives, it is highly effective and memorable, very recommendable and deserves a much better treatment than the one it has received. 7.5/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 25, 2021
Digimon Adventure:
(Anime)
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Not Recommended
“This is Taichi and Agumon’s last adventure” – Toei Animation, 2019.
With that categorical catchphrase, Toei Animation lied to all of us Digimon Adventure fans two years ago. As a way to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the series that kicked off the franchise, it announced with great fanfare that it would be making one last movie -eventually called “Last Evolution Kizuna”- and that it would truly be the last adventure. The last one. This was it. No more. To say goodbye to the series and characters we’ve loved for more than two decades now. Despite the bitter taste in our mouths with the disappointing result ... of Tri, we were looking forward to it anyway. I, the same as many others, had a feeling that in this occasion Toei finally would get it right with an Adventure project ever since “Our War Game”. And so it was. It was a great farewell, wasn’t it? Except that, well…it never really was. In February 2020, the same month of Kizuna’s premiere, Toei announced that it would be soon releasing “Digimon Adventure:” (yes, being the “:” the only title-difference) a reboot of the initial series of the franchise that settled down to be the most iconic, financially successful and remembered of all. A new beginning, from scratch, that would this time take into account the technological and social changes (which include of course, the fact that unlike the 90s, when the idea didn’t even cross the minds of anyone, now kids own cellphones and that’s totally fine) of the last 20 years. Taichi and Agumon’s adventures were far from saying goodbye. Naturally, many of us were surprised and some felt betrayed: Kizuna wasn’t ever going to be really the last adventure. Or technically… it was… but in a deceptive way; it was going to be the last but only the last of the first run, so that this new one “didn't count”. But to us, lifelong fans, it very well did count. These are our characters and our creatures we’ve always loved. It wasn’t going to leave us indifferent. And as such, no matter what, we were going to be part of it anyway. Personally, being the original one of my all-time favorite anime series, just moving on and ignoring it was simply not an option. We were going to watch it anyway. Which leads us to the question: but can it be said that this was for us? To “milk on nostalgia” like many suggest? What exactly was Toei trying to do here, to achieve here? What was the intention? Who was it trying to appeal to? The historical fanbase, the current children generation to introduce the series to them in hopes of building up a new fanbase, or both? Well, after finishing the series now 1.5 years later, I can say with high degree of confidence that to us, the old fans, it definitely wasn’t. Or to be more precise…it couldn’t be. Because it’s impossible to believe something like that. Digimon Adventure (2020) (from now on: 2020), is so deeply inferior to its 1999 counterpart both in quality and emotional resonance that there is just no way. Despite the presence of numerous narrative similarities, references and tributes it pays to its inspiring series (even some shots were pretty much identical to the ones seen in the original and some similar events took place in exactly the same episode number) that any Adventure fan would identify immediately, it’s quite hard to think that they did this with us in mind with the intention to easily cash-in nostalgia-based bucks (I find it funny to still see people around believing this). Because no way, this reboot -that dares to bear the same name of the series we love-, wasn’t the Digimon Adventure we always knew and wasn’t ever even close to it. Basically, it has or shows little to nothing of the strengths that made the original great and catapulted it to be regarded as one of the best anime series for kids that could furthermore be also enjoyed by the more grown-ups (in fact, it’s among the few anime series I can think of that can be enjoyed by pretty much all ages: from a 5-year-old toddler to a 95-year-old elder), if not the best. With the exception of animation quality and action sequences (because credit due where credit is due: this time the budget was much higher and you could notice it, with consistent great visual quality and with the digimon battles being far more dynamic, kinetic and exciting than those of 1999, consisting in much more than just one-hit and that’s all, and I’d even dare to say it’s the best looking Toei Animation modern work, so nothing to complain about here), absolutely everything else was shockingly worse, for a lack of a better expression. But how worse exactly? What exactly happened here? To sum it up, the entire heart and soul of the original series are just gone now, leaving us only with an empty, lifeless body. While on surface it was about a group of kids and their creatures defeating evil guys with standard world-domination goals (for the most part though), at its core in reality was a story about them growing up, learning and becoming better people in the way in order to succeed with the task entrusted to them. It emphasized in relationships, bonding, life lessons, and the idea of overcoming impossible odds thanks to values and personal growth. It gave us and made us want to follow in their journey a large set of eight highly charismatic, immature kids as main characters (16 (!) if counting their pet-partners) all with distinctive personalities, backstories and interesting struggles and/or weaknesses they had to overcome, interacting with each other and receiving each a fair share of attention at some point, and all this channeled through a generally well-thought, ever-engaging narrative that knew how to build lots of well-earned powerful, unforgettable moments and was shrouded in a particular charm thanks to a careful artistic and musical direction, which in the end provided a very rewarding experience and turned it into a solid kids’ series that could also be enjoyed by adults and be appreciated forever. 2020, has nothing of that. Our beloved characters went from these flawed kids that felt real and relatable with whom we could become fond of and be interested in their journey, to these lifeless, robotic superheroes who for worse saw themselves as the superheroes of the show with the duty to save the world always making sure to show their badassery fearlessly riding on top of their creatures while they were in fighting-mode and performed risky attacks even if that implied exposing themselves to unnecessary physical danger, and in the worst way possible. On this occasion, they don’t have flaws, they are perfect, very cool, they don’t suffer, they don’t have motivations, insecurities or anxieties and you can barely feel a soul inside them. They don’t live through a maturing or learning process where they have to learn how to get along and strengthen bonds. They don’t even at least feel surprised or confused to know about the existence of another world. This time they don’t miss home, don’t feel fear, they never argue, they don’t have internal conflicts to solve and they almost never commit mistakes to take lessons from. There’s barely anything of real interest humanly speaking going on for them. 1999 had normal, ordinary kids made of flesh and bones who behaved and spoke according to their age. 2020 has soulless, indestructible superheroes apparently made of iron, because now they can even be thrown to the ground at full speed from the skies, be crashed against giant logs at high speed, be engulfed in flames, even receive impacts of hyperbeams or other extreme situations, and survive like nothing. They just didn’t feel like real kids, and as a result it was impossible for us to connect with them and be interested in them, make us feel part of the group and making us care for anything they did or had to do or happened to them and feel empathy towards them at all. Thanks to this the series suffers from a chronic emotional weight deficiency which is shocking to notice for anyone who has seen the original and that wonderful ability it had of enabling us to project our inner kid souls into them, making us feel like kids again (one of the main adult appeals of the original) is gone now. Whatever great moments it tried to pull off were ineffective. And while this may not be a problem for a current kid, this evidently makes it significantly less valuable from the perspective of the now historical adult fan. So no, it couldn’t be for us. Because the cast we love wasn’t here, only their soulless bodies and in different clothes. While all main characters are an inferior version of their 1999 counterparts, in relation to character-wise mistakes, there are two of them that deserve a special mention for being the definite worst particular offenders. The first one is the absolutely obscene share of attention the main of the eight kids received from the writers. One thing we all loved from the original was how, despite acknowledging that the natural-born leader and the natural-born rival would need a bit more screentime due to their more relevant positions in the group and narrative, it still always made sure to give the rest a fair share of spotlight, participation and credit. They also mattered. This helped providing a sense of variety. On multiple occasions it even let another kid different than the main one finish an important enemy. But 2020 also forgot that. The attention gap is disproportionate. Here Taichi does everything important. Here he gets all the final glory. He gets a second mega before any of the rest even gets his first, in an episode where it looked like another character would get it. He gets to do the final hit even when it looked like the story was pushing for another powerful digimon of another kid to get the honor. He is the star of the opening and he’s always the eyecatch. And they didn’t even bother to hide it, through shamelessly contrived events to separate him from the rest and make sure they won’t interfere in his demonstration of badassery with his partner digimon. Even though I like the character, this just was excessive and unfair. The situation became increasingly worse to even reaching the point in the last part where he literally teleported through the Digitalworld to guarantee his presence in every single episode; even in those where he didn’t have absolutely anything to do there, he always managed to magically pop up. “Oh, I was just passing by and thought it was a good idea to be here right where you got to be too, what a coincidence!”. Yeah right. It essentially became trolling. There was even an episode with hundreds of Taichi’s clones! The second one was the Koushirou/Izzy case, turned this time into the god of information. Look, it’s one thing to be the smart, genius kid of the group, but another completely different one to be an almost omniscient god. He always knew and discovered everything immediately and effortlessly, had access to classified information a kid his age should never have, hacked international systems and organizations, controlled ships from his laptop, came up with solutions adults with way more experience than him for some reason couldn’t come up with before, and nothing was ever an obstacle to him. Even Yamato once asked “how he knew all that?” with Taichi literally answering “because he’s so cool and knows everything”. Yes, in the original he was also the boy genius, he also had his laptop and he also eventually knew what was going on, however there it was more grounded, not only because he was an actual character that felt real, but also because you could see he obtained information through actual time and effort, with more naturalism. Here instead, he was more like a robotic know-it-all problem-solver with this constant “oh yeah since I’m the smartest one here I’ll give you all the info you need immediately because I’m here to do that” attitude. Heck, even that solve-everything robot from the movie Interstellar had more soul than him. It was sad to see how the writers overexploited his skills and made him go from a character to a hyper-convenient tool. The digimon partners didn’t save themselves from the character-reduction either. They went from creatures who had a voice to creatures who are just there to battle whenever they were required at zero cost. They always evolve whenever they want or need or have to, never get tired and never go back to their in-training forms. This time they barely had any role or significance for the children’s growth and barely had anything of interest regarding relation-development, natural bonding or conflicts with their kid partners as it happened in 1999. You could almost listen to them internally screaming: “please, don’t treat us just like weapons!”, since they at least retained their personalities for the most part. In relation to them, the nice key concept of evolving-thanks-to-evolving (tying the creature’s power to growth as individuals of the kids) is also gone now. The digimon achieves the next stage quite cheaply, not triggered by an important event or spiritual evolution of the kid or a highly special occurrence, but instead out of random uninteresting, irrelevant circumstances which were not even framed within the true plot or character-story or just because they eventually had to appear with little to no proper buildup, so the heart and main idea of the series are lost. This was especially disappointing to see in the mega digievolutions since for them, being the final evolutionary stage, it should have been better; it’s supposed to be due to something more compelling and special, lacking the desired emotional impact and ending up being just dull show-ups. It should be noted that there are moments when it tries or remembers having to do that, but it arrives late (not even the crests were introduced when they should and didn’t play major roles here) and they don’t work because they feel highly forced and can’t feel earned or inspiring enough if the kid himself doesn’t feel relatable to begin with. Moving to speak about narrative elements, it doesn’t do any better. The original may have had some issues you could criticize it for, but in general it had a well-thought or structured storyline, with every episode being relevant and contributing for plot progression, with moments correctly timed, without ever losing focus (and I need to be emphatic on this) and virtually zero uninteresting, skippable-like moments in a 54 episodes run, never letting you go. Little of this can be said about 2020. Badly structured with wrongly, awkwardly timed events, with parts that should have come beforehand coming afterward and vice-versa, episodes that would have worked better as introductory coming during the end, others that would have worked better in the end coming in the beginning or in the middle (like Millenniummon: which should have been the last enemy given the size and scale of the conflict, with even god-digimons appearing to participate in a Magnus, heavenly-like fight, something more appropriate and effective for endings), with endgame stages even in the first episodes (it was nice if they wanted to pay homage to Our War Game, but that was not the moment). Many light, silly episodes in both the second and third arcs when they can only work and should only be placed at the beginning to establish characters, provide background and so on. There is a noticeable lack of true tension for several episodes even when there’s a risky threat just around the corner. In the second, instead of being worried by the imminent resurrection of a legendary monster, they have time for irrelevant, random trivialities like rescuing enslaved digimon in a theme park, episodes about digimons angry because couldn’t eat french fries, water disputes among digimon we can’t care less for and even time to relax playing soccer like nothing, and for about 10 episodes in a row it forgets to actually move the plot wasting time with useless content that altogether never amounted to anything of true value for the viewer. In the third, they say they are going on a mission to investigate the mystery of the crests, yet barely end up doing things that have to do with that or that could give them clues. Instead, we have random adventuring episodes where Joe helps digimons recovering their onsen, Hikari protecting digieggs, Mimi training in a digimon school or Yamato helping random digimon villagers with a ghost samurai, and all this in the final stretch when the great calamity great, even worse than Millenniummon, would be soon happening and shit was supposed to be real. No tension, no thrill, no drama, no fun. Most of these types of episodes were entirely worthless with our kids dealing with disconnected situations that contributed nothing of real value in terms of plot progression, character growth or bringing in a new digievolution, serving little to no purpose and leaving no impact on future events. Must be said that yes, the original did have light moments and our kids did occasionally deviate from the mission and took some time to rest (like when they went to eat burgers after coming back to the real world), however, this was minimal, always right-timed and never came at the expense of plot-progression, because these moments where framed within it and always brought in something of value, so they worked and provided tonal variety. Must be also mentioned that eventually (but lamely) it does attempt to develop a character (somehow), however, it didn’t matter much because similarly, that development wasn’t framed within a plot, limiting its potential. The original, to the contrary, cleverly made sure that the development always came hand-in-hand with progression, tying character with plot almost perfectly. Here, however, it’s like an attempt of one or the other. It comes as separated (if any development happens first of course). The idea is to bring it naturally while the story is also moving, however here it came during episodes with situations that had no relation to the stake of the arc. Another type of narrative sin was this absurd series of cyber world threats we could never care for because everything felt like a total joke with all of them coming right after the previous one, with no real sense of weight and which also felt like only secondary job assigned to Koushiro while Taichi and Yamato dealt with all the important stuff, in an attempt to create drama and tension which completely failed. That the missiles, the ships, the satellites, the NASA, whatever. Finally, the execution wasn’t as engaging; you won’t see this time the sense of mystery and feeling lost in another strange world of the Devimon arc, the sense of thrill of the Myotismon arc or the sense of drama and darkness of the Dark Masters arc of the original series, which largely helped to explain its entertainment value. So, as it should be clear by now, all this leads us to the inevitable conclusion that this reboot was definitely not intended for us (because it’s impossible to believe they could have wanted to give us such an inferior show), but in reality for a younger new audience; the current generation of new children, in hopes to capture their fresh interest and devotion, which makes things tricky when it comes to the general judgment of this series since, despite being a shameful near-worthless work for the historical fan, this automatically means in reality it should be judged according to how well it could have satisfied these desired new ones. And while -evidently- I don’t have kid-eyes anymore to know this exactly, reasonably my own experience as a kid watching the original series would serve as a fair approximation. Given that, I would say the series, even with all its notorious issues already explained, could admittedly have passed as fine entertainment for kids who mainly just wanted to see the cool creatures in action and know what their following new cool evolutions, designs and special attacks were going to be (who do we want to fool here), if not because i) the narrative is a mess and ii) the show also fails to properly build hype for said new evolutions. The first point was already described before. While kids may not pay much attention or care too much about the characters and their struggles, they can still notice or perceive some questionable plot developments or structures coming off as odd or get the feeling some things are not right. As for the second point, what I mean is that it fails to give value to evolutions, in terms of buildup and payoff; to make them memorable, you must first create the expectation and then after enough time has passed, deliver them in the right time. The original made sure to follow this by creating the expectations for them and once they arrived, use them for the right amount of time before the following did. However, in 2020 the ultimates just arrive too early in the story to be able to even create the hype (in the 10s, as opposed to the 20s-30s of original), one right after the other, under-using the adult forms, rendering them as only means or obstacles that the story should have to get rid of quickly and leaving little room for ultimate form-expectation. This also makes their appearances not living up to the potential emotional impact they could have enjoyed thanks to having made us wait for them for a significant amount of time. And while they did wait enough before introducing the mega forms (at least, for everyone who wasn’t Agumon), unfortunately, the way they did it wasn’t great or special anymore. They were just given too easily. They didn’t come due to situations of high emotional catharsis, high expectation or that were even at least framed into the plot, or thanks to special/unique occurrences (to not say “miracle”) that give more meaning and weight, but instead due to completely random, trivial circumstances we could never really care for, sadly devaluing their “final, special and rare stage” status. I appreciate they have decided this time to include the mega forms for everyone (though I argue the original still worked well without doing this), since that feels fairer to the rest of the cast, but now that you do, at least do it well, which unfortunately wasn’t the case. It almost felt like they brought them up just because “we have to” not caring too much (if any) about the “why”, the “when” and the “how” of their introductions. Given this, I have to even doubt it could have been an actually satisfying and effective experience to the real intended new audience. I doubt I could have been as intrigued with all these cool creatures and their hype-digievolutions watching this reboot as a kid as much as I did back then in 2000 when I was watching the original series. All in all, I think at this point it’s needless to say that, being the original series one of my all-time favorites, I’m more than just disappointed with the sole existence of this modern reboot. I won’t lie by claiming I wasn’t initially interested and enthusiastic about it, because as a fan of the original that couldn’t be the case, however, with a final outcome as poor as this one, in the end you cannot help but end up questioning what was even the point. The Toei team clearly wanted to reach the current kids' generation and introduce them to the Adventure universe, but what comes as incomprehensible is how could it be possible that they had come up with something so noticeably inferior when they already counted with a great original work serving as a basis or benchmark. Given its reboot nature, the bare minimum here was taking the original series and crafting a new work on par or at least close to its quality, and even taking advantage of the opportunity to improve on past flaws (because as much as we love the original series, it’s not like it was exactly free of them and for everything there is always room for improvement), but what happened here was the complete opposite; instead of improving or at least keeping the same quality levels, they only worsened them. Did they even notice what they were doing? Were they even truly caring? In the end, if they were going to deliver something this inferior, it would have been better doing so with other characters and another universe, so that the Adventure name and brand didn’t bear the reputational costs. The truth is, personally I don’t really care much about 2020 since the vastly superior original 1999 series will always be there, but what does bother me is that it’s a shame to realize how your beloved title, characters and creatures were used and humiliated in something so lame with none of the charm and strengths that characterized the original series and allowed it to earn its position as one of the best kids’ TV anime ever. And no, as a reboot, nobody expected an exact 1:1 copy of the first series, but what 2020 did was just unacceptable. Like everything else in life, doing things for the second time and doing them so significantly worse even when in the first time you already succeeded and you had all the tools in your hands (and even more than the first time) to succeed again, should never be accepted, because that can only happen when you deliberately reduce the efforts. 2020 is quite possibly the worst Digimon entry of the franchise and, as it isn’t already long enough, is yet another addition to the list of Toei Animation’s classics revival failures of the past decade. It only served to deteriorate the value of the Adventure name and didn’t work for any type of audience; for the old, historical fans that could have felt an interest in checking out a new version of the show, it pretty much felt like a bad joke, especially right after having experimented an already great conclusion to it with “Last Evolution Kizuna”, and for the new generations of kids this series was intended for, I can’t help but feel sorry for them for having been born in times where current Digimon producers thought they didn’t deserve better and had to grow up watching both uninspired and messy kids-oriented productions like this one. Even with all their huge flaws, at least the previous Adventure installments like 02 and Tri had a soul. 2020, didn’t even have one. 02 and Tri may have failed, but at least they tried. 2020 not only failed, it didn’t even try! And even though I’ve always insisted that you cannot treat and judge a kids-oriented series in the exact same way and with the exact same bars you would do it with a more teen and/or adult-oriented/designed one, and that it pains me having to give a low score to a class of series which on essence just want to bring entertainment (and hopefully, values) to the youngest of all audiences (since it is pretty much the equivalent of grabbing an innocent child who misbehaved and slamming him against the wall), the heart and care put into this series were so unbelievably low that this time I cannot give much of that benefit. Digimon Adventure (2020) is such a terrible involution (no pun intended) of the classic series whose name, success and legacy it miserably tried to capitalize on, that unfortunately, it leaves me with no other option. 3/10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Jun 28, 2020
Yuu☆Yuu☆Hakusho
(Anime)
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Mixed Feelings
Yu Yu Hakusho, Yoshihiro Togashi’s debut work, is generally accepted to be one of the best and greatest titles of the fighting shounen genre. Being action/adventure and the 90s my favorite type of anime and anime decade overall, respectively, this should have been a personal cakewalk. However, after finishing the series some time ago, this is unfortunately a consensus and sentiment I cannot share. In my previous review of Hunter x Hunter (2011), Mr. Togashi’s other big work, I argued that it was not really a fully well-functioning one, but where nevertheless I could understand the reasons of its praise. With Yu Yu Hakusho, however,
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I’m afraid I cannot give much of that benefit, since this time I do have a hard time trying to understand why would anyone think this is a satisfying fighting shounen at all, much less why would anyone that has seen a lot of them, place it among the top ones.
Sure, admittedly, it features some aspects that differentiate it from many of the other most popular ones and it is easy to see why it gained such a solid reputation; it has no boring, irrelevant fillers that may break the immersion, it concluded before the power creep could get out of control, it was not milked and stretched beyond acceptable levels, it never abandoned in the way any member of its main cast leaving him behind or sending him to the background (with one exception), it relatively developed and gave all of them a fair share of spotlight, plenty of fights involved some kind of strategy and there were no endless transformations over transformations. However, from my perspective, there is little to gain from all these pros if when looked from the heights, they are not part of something truly appealing and engaging in the first place. The way I see it, for a long-running, continuous action/adventure shounen to be worth the try, the following conditions must be met: i) have a large set of fun, lovable/likeable characters you genuinely want to join in their journey, ii) build a sense of adventure or world-growth (regardless if there’s an initial goal or not) iii) build a sense of scale with epic, larger-than-life, emotion-stimulating battles/conflicts and also hopefully, iv) feature an interesting universe/lore/concepts you would like to learn more about, v) have interesting, memorable and/or quirky villains and vi) all of this enhanced with an amazing, fascinating OST that sticks in your mind. Yu Yu Hakusho, frankly, has been the only one out of all the ones I’ve watched (that was not particularly terrible) where I could not see any of these requirements fully met (with the exception of one main villain), so all of its virtues mentioned before that explain the praise it receives, unfortunately do not end up being very useful in the end. Let’s start with the first -and most important- one: the cast. Normally, I don’t like using “boring” in reviews because of the inherent highly subjective nature of the word, but in this occasion I’m afraid I have no option left, because the cast of YYH is -in all honesty- precisely that: a boring cast. Now, of course this is a subjective matter, and certainly characters should be judged according to how well-written, developed, unique and consistent they may be, but I swear I can’t help but believing that when it comes to long shounen series, character “likeability” is a very important trait to see in them as well, because after all (and let’s not fool ourselves here), deep character exploration is not exactly the first thing you have in mind when starting a long-running action/adventure show. These series tend to not offer very complex narratives rich in themes that can vastly make up for a lack of personal attachment to characters, so it becomes of utmost importance to feature a quirky, relatable set of characters one would literally like to befriend or “hang out” with or alternatively are “cool to look at”, in which case, even if the story is awful and conflicts are lackluster, you can at least say you had fun watching themselves and their interactions (like for example, is the case with Fairy Tail). If you don’t find them entertaining from some angle, then it certainly becomes harder to care for the entire show as a consequence, and I feel this was the case with YYH. I give it that Yusuke offered some novelty at the time and wasn’t entirely good-hearted and heroic, I give it that he matured throughout in the way (and was better written than Goku and even Gon, the closest comparisons), but his attitude of not taking things very seriously to me just never worked and never seemed very natural (felt too much like someone playing the cool superhero role); Kuwabara was mostly an annoying, tiring goofball used for the comical relief but I never found myself laughing with anything he did or said; and Kurama and Hiei were just excessively calm and “turned-off” dudes who barely ever changed or raised their voices and almost went unnoticed, lacking in energy to make them appealing as well. It also may sound shallow, but it didn’t help that the first two had terrible senses of fashion, and Hiei was the only one of the four you could say “looked cool”. The supporting cast didn’t fare much better (Botan in particular has got to be one of the most boring female companions ever, and Genkai barely ever changed her mean facial expressions), and also the character chemistry among the four main members felt poor; they always felt like two separate sides (Yusuke and Kuwabara in one, Kurama and Hiei in the other) who always saw each other like they were only colleagues instead of an integrated group of friends trusting each other. Yusuke and Hiei had an interesting rivalry thanks to contrasting personalities, but it was barely developed and felt wasted because the series opted to make as the #2 Kuwabara instead of the more silent, mysterious partner. Also they may have had interesting backgrounds, but the show didn’t do anything meaningful with them but until the final stretch after more than 90 episodes in (and in a rushed way), so there was also no way to engage much with them from this perspective since the start, offering little character-hook. To get attached to the cast of YYH, was truly a challenge. Even if the show failed to give a fun, interesting cast to get attached to, of course there it is the story and its progression to make up for that. Getting into it becomes more complicated though, but not impossible. But this is not the case with YYH either; its second major failure is that, overall, for a long, continuous 100+ episodes series, it doesn’t feel like a grand, uniform adventure with some notion of story or world-growth in time (whether if it’s headed towards somewhere or not), as one would expect for a series of this class. If you are signing up for a show that will demand that much time, well it better does something not only to get you engaged from the start, but also to make you feel towards the end that you were part of something big. The idea is precisely to use that huge amount of episodes to build something that feels that way, to make the audience feel in its mind that its watching-experience is “growing” or acquiring momentum with them. But I could never see any of this in YYH. When finishing it, you realize that its story was nothing more than a collection of missions with little relation to each other that altogether piled up to nothing big or well-defined in particular. The broken “come and go” nature of them killed the chances to cultivate in time a sense of a long journey where every stage was building upon the previous ones, making hard for the story to feel grand in the end. The three main arcs (considering the first one as an introduction or prologue to the second), felt just too disjointed from each other and didn’t work together to provide a sense of a clear, single and unified story growing in time, with events of previous ones having to do, leading in an organic way and/or impacting events of the following ones. So in this sense, these unrelated quests didn’t structurally feel any different from let’s say, the trivial missions of the Naruto fillers. Yes, the plot structure of YYH is closer in nature to the Naruto fillers than the Naruto canon, because it shows no big journey, no story-growth and no links or major overlapping among its individual arcs which together do not create the desired momentum; the story was always like “something happened, we have to go there, we solve the situation, we go back home, next one” with no apparent connection. And this is evidently, quite problematic for a non-episodic 100+ action/adventure series, because you cannot feel the big adventure, it severely hinders the viewer’s immersion and it makes it hard to think of it as something worth investing so much time in story-wise. Not only the cast of YYH is difficult to engage with; its main story is not that far behind. Speaking about the arcs more on their own, putting aside the big-picture perspective, the first one is just okay/fine as with a bunch of minor missions here and there, serves to introduce the spiritual world, the main cast of four members, the supporting members like Botan, Genkai and Koenma, and to set the stage for the first major conflict of the show, the Dark Tournament, considered by most of the fanbase as the highlight of the series. However, to be regarded as the “main attraction” of the show, one would expect something truly exciting and memorable, but it was far from any of that. The DT is nothing more than a pretty straightforward tournament arc not only without major novelty or creativity to make things interesting, not only lasting way longer than what it should have, but more importantly, without any real notion of tension and thrill. The first thing to notice is that, as opposed to classical tournament arcs in other fighting shounens, this one here is not just casual fun for the characters. By being a major conflict (that it is not expected to be interrupted by the end), where the intention is to make things more compelling, this is dead serious stuff for them. Here there are real life/death type of stakes. Here it does matter who wins in the end. And this, immediately, kills a substantial part of the fun and suspense, because you already know from the start that Team Yusuke has to -and is going to- reach the end and win. Any other outcome would not make sense. So you have to question, what is the point at all of a tournament with intermediate matches, when you already know what the final result will be in advance? Sure, in other fighting shounens with a tournament arc or segment, it’s also reasonable to expect the main hero (or main team) to reach the final match, however, given that nothing really terrible would happen if he doesn’t win, NOT really to actually win. And this immediately makes things more interesting to see, since the range of possibilities is expanded and there’s more of an unpredictability component, something that unfortunately, cannot be said about the DT. And sure too, in any other classical good vs. evil type of major conflict that is not a light-fun, friendly tournament, no other outcome besides our heroes winning (for the most part) is expected. However, here is where the second shortcoming of the arc lies: since in these types of serious conflicts the result is predictable, the obvious solution to add suspense is to make the whole process to that result the interesting thing to see, more than the result itself, but unfortunately this is not something that can be said about the DT arc either. The first reason to this is precisely, the election of a tournament as the means through which the conflict would unfold; instead of having multiple possibilities of through where and how it could go, there is really one and only one here: in the exactly same location, keep winning all the intermediate fights one by one until there’s no more. The road to the end here is also entirely known in advance; it’s an extremely restricted, rigid way. As a consequence, the unpredictability component of the process here is quite low as well. The second reason, deriving from the first one, is that each part of the process (in this case, the intermediate fights) lacks the ability to significantly impact future stages somehow; plenty of them had no justification to exist beyond just extending the length of the tournament (and thus delaying the final match), because they didn’t have the ability to create major changes in circumstances or because they just didn’t feel indispensable. And the third reason is simply that the show just fails to make them interesting and fun to see, because few of them offered a sense of novelty, few of them felt different from the rest, and none of them at least featured an opponent in whom the audience had already developed a prior interest, had already been caring for and/or felt as someone relevant in the show’s world that was more than just a random fighter nobody would care for ever again once he was defeated (besides Toguro). This is, in the end, most of them felt entirely meaningless: you could have simply skipped most of them and nothing of much importance neither interest would have been lost. The process of the arc was just a “next, next, next” sequence of uninteresting, monotonous matches where most of them weren’t truly offering anything new, distinctive or crucial to warrant their inclusion besides changing the name, design and move of each opponent for whom the show never even provided strong reasons to make the audience care for in the first place. So, considering all this, you cannot help but questioning: what was really the point of having so many of them? When the only thing they achieved was having an endless, tiring parade of forgettable enemies adding nothing relevant outside delaying the obvious final Yusuke vs Toguro match? On top of all this, and speaking about Toguro, the final (and not less important) reason why the DT fails to be a genuinely enjoyable ride has to do with the characters themselves and their motivations. The DT is in reality a story that has to do more with unfinished ideological clashes between Toguro and Genkai, supporting members, instead of a story involving major interests from the part of the main cast that here is acting just like the puppets or tools of their game, which makes, reasonably, all of their fights and struggles way less interesting to see. In addition to the skippable nature mentioned earlier, why should then the audience care much about all these fights, when they do not matter or mean much for our main cast? When they were not even there because they wanted, but because, they were forced to? When there are no major opposing interests between the parts on the table? Moreover, it doesn’t help that the whole “aging and becoming weak and ugly is bad” motivation of Toguro felt somewhat…lame, to say the least, and that all of this is revealed just too late in the arc when most of the tournament had already taken place, so for around 75% of it, the show provided few reasons to the audience to care about him and his goals. He had been shown for far too long only as the mysterious final boss staring the development of the game hidden in the heights, watching and waiting for his time to enter the stage. And you just cannot create an interesting main villain of an arc like this. You cannot expect your audience to really care about him like this. Alongside the other reasons mentioned before, all these factors combined killed virtually all the suspense and thrill the arc could have had, turning it into a highly disappointing arc with actual tension nowhere to be found. In the next arc, Chapter Black, where Team Yusuke has to stop a conflicted former spirit detective from opening a hole to the spiritual world and causing human genocide, things get notoriously better, and is the arc that should be considered the real highlight of the series. In fact, as it will be explained later, it’s the only one of the bunch that can be considered worth watching. In this opportunity -and as opposed to the previous one- the progression of the conflict doesn’t feel as rigid and monotonous, with much more unpredictability in how events would unfold and in how Team Yusuke would solve the threat, with most of the intermediate enemies having actual reasons to be there, and with Sensui, the main antagonist, being a much more interesting and complex villain than Toguro, thanks to a much richer backstory and motivations which are known from early on and are not only revealed in a last-minute exposition episode that tries to add more meaning to the conflict that was about to or had recently concluded. However, while well-written enough and suspenseful on its own for the most part, it didn’t come without some drawbacks. Once again, in the end it felt like yet another mission unrelated to any anxiety/concern of the main cast, with no opposing interests to be found and an antagonist having no real business with them as well. The main cast only fights here to stop a threat because it’s asked to, not because it’s something they want to or need to do to accomplish whatever goals they may have. So they go there, they help, mission solved, and back to normal. There’s no real connection to any personal motivation they may have had and was more a story about the antagonist in turn that once defeated would not matter in the story anymore. Sensui’s multiple personalities disorder twist felt unnecessary and just a mere decoration, and Yusuke’s revelation of his true nature had zero, but absolutely zero foreshadowing and felt nothing more than a last-minute easy excuse to give him a power-boost to defeat him. At least in DBZ you could see Vegeta talking about the existence of the legendary super saiyan, at least you knew from the very start that Goku was not exactly a normal human being, and there was an impactful event triggering the power-up, so his transformation into super saiyan felt earned, unlike Yusuke’s one that well, simply popped-up. And lastly, we have the Three Kings arc, which is, oddly enough, both the most interesting and the worst one at the same time. After 95 episodes of missions here, missions there that had nothing to do with our main cast, this was finally the time to do something more meaningful with them, with a plot related to their own concerns and not one where they were just being tools of someone else’s story; this was finally the one that was going to be about them, exploring and dealing with their own pasts, ancestries and struggles. Here we had three kingdoms fighting for the control of the demon world, each one recruiting fighters for an upcoming big war, where it even looked like Yusuke would have to fight his own mates, so there were more reasons to be genuinely invested. But what do we get instead? Well, instead of finding out who the winner was going to be as a result of an epic, large-scale bloody conflict, the author decides he does not care anymore and everything will be easily solved with yet another superfluous tournament where the belligerent parties would willingly accept the result with no complaints like if everything had always been just a child’s play, not only betraying expectations by putting the brakes on the build-up and reducing all the drama to a quick game, not only wasting most of the potential of something grand and tough, but also, not even making it entertaining to watch by rushing its own development in a ridiculous, almost insulting way with a mere 5-6 episodes count. The last match, the crucial and obviously most important one to witness, was for no reason other than “we do not care anymore, so let’s end this quick and then let’s get outta here, bye” cut and then the audience gets to know who the winner was because it was told (!), not even shown, in the most anticlimactic way possible. So, in the end, we had 95 episodes dealing with the not-so-important parts and then when it was the time to deal with the actual most important part, we get only 17 and the one that was about to be the most heavyweight conflict of the show, is dumbed down to a rigid, rushed tournament and then goodbye. And from any perspective you look at it, this just doesn’t feel right. This is not the smartest of the ways to structure your entire plot. If you are going to spend 95 episodes with stuff not-so-related to the main cast, at least in the end give us an arc that doesn’t feel like homework done as quick as possible because we don’t have much time left until the due date, but not even this was the case here. The Three Kings arc had the potential to be the best and should have been the most memorable and given the most focus, but unfortunately all these poor story-telling decisions rendered it not only as the most disappointing of all; in the end, they also rendered the whole series as an overall unsatisfying one. Moving to the remaining aspects, even if your characters and narrative don’t turn out to be very appealing, there are still there the other elements that can make up for them and act as saving graces, but they are also deficient. First, not even the fights themselves were very exciting to see for the most part and most of them were lacking in true tension, build-up and intensity like they’re expected to be (watching two dudes beating the shit out of each other is not really something entertaining to watch without these execution-elements in the mix). Once again, I know this is a highly subjective matter, and I have to admit it’s hard for me to describe what exactly constitutes an exciting fight, but in general terms, to be effective/entertaining they have to be framed in a context where you can sense the difficulty and the challenge it will be for the hero, where you can sense how hard of a task it’s going to be for him to overcome and all the pain and suffering he will have to go through, and hopefully with some sort of emotional background or weight to root for him and boost the immersion. They have to be properly built and imbued with either dramatism or thrill to work for the audience, but in YYH I just didn’t feel much of all this; most of the time I felt like they were just like…playing a light game, with little seriousness to be found, even in the most serious moments. Second, another important element in a fighting shounen refers to the world it takes place in and its lore, themes and concepts, but here it’s quite limited; the spiritual and demon worlds are barely explored, and we don’t even have a creative, complex power system to at least be able to cling some interest onto. Finally, the OST, which can be used as a measure of last resort, was also quite dull and forgettable. Normally, after listening to the music of a fighting shounen series, I always go to YouTube to listen to it once again and recreate the emotion. YYH has been so far, the only case where I never felt like doing this. I can literally recall only one track in my mind, and this is only because it kept playing in almost every single damn episode (and a sad one, by the way). So, considering all this, I have to say I really don’t get it. I swear I have an incredibly hard time trying to understand how can a long-running fighting shounen with all these poor characteristics be held by many as one of the best when it doesn’t fulfill any of the most important aspects a series of its class is supposed to do like I’ve explained in detail. As I said in the beginning, I recognize all its differentiating factors, but in my opinion none of them is truly essential to make a series of this class a satisfying one; they are of course welcome, to improve the experience, but are not really among the crucial ones to make it at least fine and worth the try. So difficult to engage with and derive genuine entertainment from, the show is lacking from so many relevant fronts and leaves so much to be desired that I just fail to see why anyone would prefer it over most of the others, especially Dragon Ball and even Hunter x Hunter by some of Yoshihiro Togashi fans, its closer “brothers”, when it doesn’t have the charm, scale and adventurous nature of the former, neither the complexity, thematic exploration and creativity of the latter. I would say the third arc is interesting enough in itself to avoid having to consider this series as a failure of action/adventure shounen entertainment, but recommending the entire series only because of it would not make much sense when it would be like saying that it is worth to cross a huge desert that leads to nowhere just because there's an oasis in the middle. Yu Yu Hakusho may not be a terrible shounen series and there are others that are much worse than it, but in my opinion, it also is nowhere near the top-tier like most shounen anime fans claim. Nothing will ever take away its classic shounen anime category, of course, but despite that, I also can’t see it as part of the recommendable fighting shounen series beyond cultural purposes, because at least from where I’m standing, there’s little to gain from trying it, it doesn’t leave much long-lasting impact in the viewer and it’s just passable entertainment at best. 5/10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Dec 19, 2019
Digimon Adventure 02
(Anime)
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Mixed Feelings
Probably no other title better represents the common belief “sequels are never as good as the originals” in anime more than Digimon Adventure 02: with respect to the first one, the second installment of the Digimon series is unfortunately a steep decline. Suffering from one of the worst reputations in the franchise, it is infamous for removing many of the elements that made its predecessor a hit, for having an erratic second half as a result of creative differences in the writing team, for ruining one of the fan-favorite ships, for ruining the appeal and respect of one of the fan-favorite digimons, and for a
...
questionable epilogue that left many fans with a bad taste in their mouths. Being the original series one of my all time favorite shows, this one is naturally among one of my personal biggest disappointments, although this only became this way after rewatching it as an adult (right after finishing rewatching the first one), since, for better or worse, I remember very well I actually had a very good time watching this continuation as a kid. I remember very well how I glued myself to my old CRT TV screen every day after school when it was about to start and how I begged my parents to buy me the expensive action figures, which in the end, is a fact I like since it acts as a proof that enjoying as a grown-up an anime first watched as a child is not only due to nostalgia, like it is commonly argued these days.
Being it a direct sequel, it comes as inevitable to compare it to its predecessor. One of the main reasons that made Digimon Adventure an stand-out when it comes to children’s anime was that it chose to put the focus in the characters, their exploration and relationships instead of the cool action sequences and the light humor like it is the case in most kids’ anime or kids’ TV programming in general. All of this is just thrown away in 02 with the new gang of digi-destined kids. First, it already comes as strange the fact that there “has to” be a new generation of chosen children, leaving the old ones sidelined for supporting roles and automatically making them “not really that special” anymore, devaluing their status, though it comes as understandable when remembering that their arcs had already been closed in the original and creating them new issues to deal with just because a new series had to be produced could have felt somewhat exhausting and/or repetitive. But what is not understandable, is that, if the idea of a new generation was to keep things fresh -and with the exception of only one- the newly introduced kids had not received the same treatment as the original cast did when it comes to making them fleshed-out, fully-realized characters, lacking motives, backstories and/or personal struggles or fears to overcome, thus turning them into uninteresting characters from a substantial point of view. For kids this may not be a problem, but for adults the story is quite different. They do not face tests, they do not undergo any growing-up/learning process like the first generation did (what had been the true heart of the first series); they’re just there to accomplish their mission of defeating the bad guys. It doesn’t help the fact that two of them, Yolei/Miyako (an inferior version of Izzy/Koushiro) and Cody/Iori (an inferior version of T.K.), are simply too boringly designed with not a single trait/quirk that could have made them at least likeable characters to follow in the journey, and what could have at least made up for their lack of depth, like it was actually the case with Davis/Daisuke (the new generation leader and Taichi’s kouhai), whose adorably explosive, brash and happy-go-lucky personality made of him at least an entertaining character to watch. Even the experienced members of the group, T.K. and Hikari, don’t play major substantial roles besides supporting the new members in the digimon battles, which was especially unfortunate for Hikari considering she had been the least-developed member of the first generation due to her late entrance in the group and the one that had the largest potential. This state unfortunately is also extended to the new digimon-partners. One of the other hits of the first one was that in relation to the creatures of the show, the writers treated them more than just the accompanying, obedient pets used as the battle weapons and cared to give them more meaningful roles. And again, except for only one (Wormmon), this is also a merit thrown away in 02. While in the first one the digimon-partners had a relevant voice, morally supported their respective kid-partners in their growing-up/maturing processes and even had to learn how to get along with each other, understand each other and build a good, constructive relationship in order to accomplish their missions, this time the new team of creatures of the new generation well, are precisely just that: the accompanying, obedient pets used as the battle weapons; there is literally nothing else to say about them. Design-wise, they also do not fare much better. Unlike the original cast of creatures, they virtually lack any sort of distinctive, interesting personalities, and/or strengths, weaknesses and anxieties, which ultimately turned them into dull, unmemorable creatures the audience was unable to ever care for and/or feel anything for. Lastly, and more importantly, it was a shame to see how the whole purpose of the original series was forgotten too: to make their digimon-partners evolve and become powerful enough to defeat the enemies in turn, the kids had to first learn a lesson and work upon their personal virtues represented by their crests; digi-evolving didn’t come at no cost, it had to be earned. 02 throws away that valuable spiritual connection between the digimon and the kid where the powering-up of the former was tied/conditioned to the character growth/psychological evolution of the latter, by making the digimons instead digi-evolve either just because an object allowed it (armor evolution) or because the kids decided it was time to do so (DNA/jogress evolution), making clear that the focus this time shifted from character development and teaching life lessons, to the action sequences and selling more toys. There’s even a submarine-shaped main digimon, literally! One of the aspects where this sequel did improve upon the first one, was the characterization given to the enemies. However, this improvement was unfortunately spoiled and could not live up to its full potential thanks to a general lack of narrative focus and creative differences that will be explained later. In the first series, all the villains were digimons and most of them weren’t characterized beyond the basic evil guys who seeked world domination (I say most because there were two better elaborated). Now, things got more interesting since, despite the still-presence of some cartoonish villains (Arukenimon and Mummymon), there are three main ones that do get more meaningful backgrounds and motivations and do provide more meat and maturity to the show (making up for the lack of character exploration of the children), with two of them in this occasion human beings (no enemy in the first one is a more sensitive, morally complex human being): Ken Ichijouji (the “Digimon emperor”, and later sixth member of the new digi-destined generation) and Yukio Oikawa. The former, an insecure, lone-wolf boy with a tragic past who uses the digitalworld as a form of escapism and personal fulfillment by enslaving and hurting the digimons (and who later must redeem himself for all the pain he caused and learn how to fit with and trust the rest of the team); the latter, a misunderstood old man with an unsatisfied childhood dream, and the third one, BlackWargreymon, an artificially created digimon with the capacity of thinking and having feelings that develops an existential crisis and wanders through the digitalworld looking for answers. Unfortunately, none of the arcs of these villains is executed in a satisfying manner neither are they convincingly tied together. As interesting as Ken’s backstory is, the show fails to capitalize on it by making his merciless actions result of only being infected by an evil spore and not because of genuine “inner demons”, and never “truly” mean when we learn that he had always thought that the digimons were not real in the first place. The show also never really knew what to do with BlackWargreymon and his existential crisis, eventually became a hurdle to the writers, and in the end, they simply decided to get rid of him with a disrespectful “goodbye” type of resolution. Finally, the value of Oikawa’s story was sharply lessened after being pushed into the background with the introduction of the far less interesting last enemy towards the end, completely ruining his “now this is really the main one” condition. Despite most of them being more basic and cartoonish, at least all the villains of the first series were executed effectively with no unsatisfactory conclusions. Which brings us finally to the core failure of the series: the fact that its storyline is simply a straight, big fat mess. 02 suffered heavily from creative differences, studio meddling, poor planning and a general lack of agreement in what story to develop. After the first arc (the digimon emperor arc), which had already been way longer than it needed accounting for 45% of the whole show (an excessive amount when remembering it was only an introductory arc to present the new chosen children, their new digimon-partners and the new digi-evolutions), the story never really picked a clear direction, never found a clear north, never knew where it wanted to get from the start, meandering from plot point to plot ploint without ever properly delving deeper into any of them in particular. It starts developing -or announces the intention to develop- many plot threads at once, each fighting for the show’s attention with none of them really “winning”, without concluding any of them well with a good pay-off, solving in a quick and questionable way some (Destiny Stones and Daemon) or even simply dismissing others without explanation (the Dark Ocean and Dragomon), which ended up being unexplored, worthless elements. In order to give a minimal sense of coherence, the writers tried to tie everything together conveniently resorting to making most of the introduced villains simply being used or manipulated by the following one, from Ken Ichijouji to Yukio Oikawa, but it wasn’t an useful tactic since the damage to the watching experience had already been done and the mess had already exceeded its no-return point. There was never a sense of a tight structure, it seemed like the plot was being written by two (or three) different writing teams who never knew what the others were writing, and as a result no plot thread was well-developed neither concluded, the chances of taking advantage of the potential of every of the (well-characterized) introduced enemies were missed as mentioned before, and obviously, this also resulted in the audience losing its interest in the way since it was never clearly told what or where to put its attention to. In addition to the narrative department, it doesn’t help that, unlike the first series where not a single episode was irrelevant or was not contributing to the story progression, 02 does include a lot of fillers during the first arc that do not add anything relevant and are completely skippable, so we have an overly long first half where not much was going on and a second one where too much was going on but didn’t last accordingly long enough. As if all this wasn’t already enough, 02 features other bothering and/or disappointing story elements that do not help its cause: • Armor-digievolution: if the reason the first generation could not fight against the digimon emperor was because the control spires inhibited the normal digi-evolution, what exactly prevented them of using the digi-eggs and armor-digievolve then? Nothing. They didn’t do it just because the writers/producers wanted (or needed) to introduce a new generation and give them the whole spotlight. • New digivices (D3): the new generation has new digivices that are the ones that allow their digimons to armor-digievolve, while the first generation doesn’t. Again, why couldn’t they just give the first generation those new devices instead of selecting a new gang for that matter? And where did they even come from? Who or what crafted them this time? • Crest-inheritance and characteristic colors: the first generation had 8 members while the new one 5 (later 6), with 2 of them repeating their roles (T.K. and Hikari). The new generation had to inherit the virtues of the first one, but since T.K. and Hikari already had their own (hope and light), this meant that 3 members were each going to receive 2 of them, so we have 3 members with 2 and 2 members with 1, which made no mathematical sense. Why then couldn’t they bring in 3 other members? And why couldn’t T.K. keep his own characteristic yellow color? Because Iori/Cody was going to be now the new yellow child? But why would Cody be the yellow child if he inherited the crests of knowledge and reliability, being none of them the yellow ones?! • Digitalworld anyone? It was baffling to notice how the rest of the humanity, being now fully aware of the existence of the digitalworld, was always behaving quite normally, as if they had never ever seen anything particularly odd. Why wouldn’t they want to know more about it? How could it be that it was not even a topic of daily conversation? They all saw the digitalworld, a whole new dimension, in the end of the first series, and now they were acting like nothing happened! • Digital Park: the D3s allowed the kids to now easily come and go from the digitalworld at their own will, whenever they want. This automatically meant both that the tasks in the digitalworld the new kids had to deal with were not going to be as tough and arduous as the ones of the first gang were (who never had the possibility to return home to comfortably rest in their beds by the end of the day), lessening the stakes, and that the digitalworld was no longer a difficult, far place to reach and walk in, lessening its value. They even go there to have picnic days! • Chosen children worldwide: for what? So now it turns out that our special group of 8 children of the first series wasn’t really that special, since there were other chosen children in other parts of the world. Seriously, why? It only served to ruin the privileged status of the first gang and the whole concept of being a “chosen children”, which was supposed to mean something truly special. • And last, but not least, some blatant plot-holes and inconsistencies here and there regarding the crests and the roles of the first generation, but there’s no need to go in full detail with them. There’s also not much point to talk in detail about art, animation and music as their quality is about on-par with the original. Character designs, backgrounds and color-palette follow the same style, though part of the surrealist sense of the backgrounds is lost now. There’s not much difference in terms of animation quality (budget is still limited), it reuses a lot of the great tracks composed before but doesn’t forget to add new ones as well, and while the opening “Target” and the new digi-evolution sequences themes “Break Up!” (armor-evolution) and “Beat Hit” (DNA/jogress evolution) are legitimately awesome and blood-pumping, they aren’t as memorable and iconic as “Butter-Fly” and “Braveheart” respectively were. All in all, it’s hard to see the second installment of the Digimon series as a competent and worthy one, to the point of even thinking that it probably would have been better no sequel at all. The show is just pure wasted potential from any angle you can look it from. It never knew how to capitalize on all the plot-threads it introduced (Ken Ichijouji, Dark Ocean, Dragomon, BlackWargreymon, Destiny Stones, Sacred Beasts, Daemon and Yukio Oikawa); its convoluted nature after the digimon emperor arc led to some of these ideas to be developed and concluded in disappointing and/or questionable ways and others to be simply abandoned, failing to engage the viewer with a thrilling, well-constructed narrative unlike the first series. There are also too much story-elements that don’t make sense or are too convenient, starting with the fact that nothing stopped the original team to use armor or jogress digievolution, so a new team was not really needed in the first place. It’s also hard to understand how, if the main reason that made the first series stand out as a kids-oriented series was the focus put into the characters, their development and life-lessons, with the inclusion of dark themes adjusted to children’s sight, this had been removed now with this new team being totally underwritten and far less interesting and endearing than the first one, who were now only there to defeat the villains without going through a personal growth and learning journey themselves. As a result, 02 failed to be a rewarding, entertaining experience, which wasn’t able to replicate the same captivating sense of adventure, mystery and wonder the original enjoyed and to provide well-earned, memorable moments like the original did. It’s pretty telling of the bad execution of the new stories when the most enjoyable moments actually came from the cute “slice-of-lifey” parts of the original gang which was now playing supporting roles! If they were not going to have the intention of doing something more substantial with the new protagonists and their new digimons, in that case it would have been much better not to introduce them at all. The show could have been better off by just keeping the first cast and only introducing Ken as the 9th child. By also developing more Hikari, who didn’t have much participation in the first one due to her late entrance, with a story related to learn how to become independent of his overprotective brother and her tendency to be swallowed by darkness, and even T.K., who despite not being a crybaby anymore, was still affected by the divorce of his parents and feared being abandoned. By delving deeper into Ken’s redemption process and his childhood trauma after realizing all the pain he had caused to the digimons. By also never introducing BlackWargreymon with whom they never knew what to do in the end, and making Daemon the final villain instead of the boring one finally shown. By never introducing the international chosen children, who never contributed with anything significant besides devaluing the special-status of the main characters. And finally it also would have been definitely a much better (and natural) idea to make the main plot revolve around the global reaction of the rest of the world to the newly discovered digitalworld, exploring more about it, its nature and the roles of the chosen children, with a more coherent, gripping storyline, instead of focusing it in the personal goals of a particular human being. Being the first Digimon series one of my all-time favorite shows, it’s pretty evident how much of a disappointment rewatching its sequel was, to the point that, despite liking some aspects of it (like the explosive, fun personality of Davis/Daisuke, the new generation leader and watching how the first one is now living their early teen years), I prefer pretending that it never really existed. In addition to all its structural narrative issues and others, Digimon Adventure 02 looks more like a show designed to promote and sell merchandise with action-packed sequences instead of bringing to the screen a well-built, meaningful storyline. While this works for kids, with all certainty it won’t be the case for adults who want to see more than that. Nevertheless, it is precisely for this reason that despite being quite a flawed sequel, there’s no need to be too harsh with it either. After all, it’s still decent, or perhaps more than decent entertainment for kids (the demo it was always targeted to) who are mainly going to pay attention to the creatures, their designs, evolutions and battles, like I myself did when I was a kid. I would not have liked it back then if this weren’t the case. Strictly speaking, from an adult-perspective, 02 is deserving of a 4/10, but considering that for its target audience it’s more like a 6/10 or even 7/10, I’ll be giving it an extra point. However, if you happen to be over the age of 12 or at most 13, just watch the original Digimon Adventure and watch this one only out of curiosity, or alternatively just skip it entirely and move to the third entry of the franchise, Digimon Tamers, the first one to take place in a different universe with a different set of characters, and to many Digimon fans, the best entry of the whole franchise from a critical standpoint. 5/10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Aug 1, 2019
Digimon Adventure
(Anime)
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Recommended
It’s August 1st, 1999!
On this day exactly 20 years ago, these were the words spoken by an 11-year-old boy after discovering at his home in Odaiba during his summer vacation that...well, I don’t want to spoil anyone here. It’s been exactly 2 full decades since that odd snowy summer day when 7 children were sucked by a giant wave into an unknown world where they would meet some small, strange talking creatures that claimed had been waiting for them for a long time and would live together the most important journey of their lives, kicking off the story of the 1st series of a franchise ... that, despite never reaching the levels of popularity of its most direct “rival” (that only happens to be the most successful media franchise of all time), still managed to become one of the most iconic and most remembered ones for the people living their childhoods throughout the 90s and early 00s. (Seriously, when does time fly this much? And just how old one can get?). As such, it is a very special day for both its legacy and its loyal fans around the globe, so what a better date to make a commemorative review of it than this one? (Note: keep in mind that this will be a review of the original Japanese version, since the English dub made by Saban Entertainment edited so much the script, removed all the so-called “controversial” content to make it fully kid-friendly for the American families and avoid the risk of the networks getting sued, introduced a plethora of terrible, bad attempts of humor even in some of the most serious and dramatic moments, and composed a new OST with some incredibly unfitting, misplaced tracks, that in my opinion –and one that I know many others share too- totally killed the spirit of the original show). Making a review for Digimon Adventure comes as no easy task, especially to me. The reason is that there are two forces here that are not exactly perfectly aligned: heart and mind. On one hand, this is one of my absolute favorite anime shows of all time. Yes, this kid-oriented series whose title ends with the “mon” suffix about some children and their powerful, cool-looking pet-partners and with some commercial purposes behind, is among the most beautiful, immensely enjoyable and, for reasons the limitations of human language will never allow me to describe, deeply resonating ones I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing, and I’m not ashamed at all and I see no reason why I should be, as opposed to what some might think for someone who’s weeell past his innocent childhood years. (However, this wasn’t always the case, but that’ll be a story for another day). On the other one, despite this strong emotional connection, I can still recognize that it doesn’t precisely come without flaws, which may –admittedly- be a turn-off for the more critical audiences, so I can’t speak about it like it was the “best thing ever” either, like I would want to. In light of this break up, and following the “if you genuinely liked it, it’s because it must have done something right according to you” principle, the best approach I can resort to to compose this review, is simply by explaining which were the reasons why this worked and meant so much to me -which will also correspond to all the strengths I perceive the show has- and also by mentioning the aspects where I think it came as weak and where it could have been certainly better. Nevertheless, I think it’s of utmost importance that we should not forget what the big picture here is, which is that, at the end of the day, we are dealing with a kids-oriented show, a fact that, as I will explain later, vastly helps to reconcile these two forces and to be able to recognize that, despite its flaws, Digimon Adventure not only is one of the best shows of its class, but also a great anime show in general, if watched from the right perspective. The “digi-destined” The story of the first installment of the Digimon franchise follows a rather standard good vs evil premise. It’s an isekai show (before the times when every isekai was about a self-insert becoming overpowered and getting a harem in a medieval-like world) about these 7 kids of different ages who are transported against their will into another world called the “Digitalworld” (because they are the “chosen children” or “digidestined”), where they would get partnered with some creatures that call themselves “digimons” and would, along them, be given the responsibility of defeating the forces of evil that seek to dominate both that strange world and the real one, one after another. However, there is more to a series than a simple premise that one can dig under its surface. This is because, contrary to the majority of the shows targeted to this demo that choose to focus on a safe way (though effective and not inherently wrong) only in the cool action sequences and the light humor with little to no character exploration, Digimon Adventure chose to go one step further of this comfort-zone and dared to actually make something more substantial with its cast. In reality, everything in Adventure is its cast. This is not only about a mission of defeating bad guys. This is also and –primarily- about a journey of a group of children maturing and growing up, who will have to learn a lot of things in the way in order to accomplish it, which is the real heart of the series. The task to defeat evil guys here only acts as the stage or means for this bigger purpose. The world could have been any. The villains could have been any and nothing would have changed, because nothing of this was ever the real focus. Throughout 54 episodes, we follow a group of 7 (later 8) children of a wide variety of personalities who will have to overcome their own weaknesses, anxieties or “inner demons”, and learn to solve their differences and conflicts in order to meet that task that was entrusted to them. And here lies the main strength and appeal of the show that explains why this can be enjoyable by adults as well, despite being a kid-oriented work. Digimon Adventure is essentially an “action/drama show made for kids”. While watching how the creatures evolve into cooler, bigger and more powerful ones to fight the enemies in turn is certainly fun and amazing to witness for the little ones (and the older ones too!), it’s also, and mainly, about watching how the kid-partners evolve in the way. The kids here are not static, one-dimensional characters that never show a sign of realism or development. The people they were in the beginning are not the same they are towards the end, which is not an outcome commonly found in most action/adventure shows of this class. The involuntary mission of having to save the world assigned to them, the multiple tough situations this entails that they have to go through which also represent the tests they have to deal with, and even the psychological manipulation some of the villains in the way use upon them to take advantage of their insecurities and to corrupt them, force them to grow up, make complicated decisions, deal with their issues, learn many life-lessons, learn from their mistakes, support each other and to accept both themselves and the rest. And this immediately makes them way more interesting and richer protagonists than standard kids’ shows ones, who usually aren’t treated beyond devices to move a plot forward or the cool, infallible heroes saving the day or winning battles of any kind. Sure, the main cast may be based on classic stereotypes, some of them borrowed from the shounen demo (the determined, impulsive but well-intentioned natural-born leader who inspires the rest and thinks knows everything; the cool, socially unskilled lone-wolf rival always causing unnecessary troubles; the tomboy girl with mother-daughter and self-acceptance issues; the spoiled, whiny and bratty one who thinks the world is all rose-colored and refuses to deal with the cruelties of life; the genius, curious boy playing as the brain of the team, with his head constantly inside a computer in order to escape from his harsh reality; the voice-of-reason one with a strong notion of responsibility and personal achievement; the crybaby, but cheerful kid who must learn to become independent and fend for himself, and the selfless, seemingly perfect little sister), but these only serve as the starting points for further character exploration, and they never comfortably stay in them, but rather grow upon them while they battle the evil forces of the Digitalworld alongside their digimon-partners. The other success here related to the development and handling of the cast (that could have gone really, really wrong), and a detail I really like is that Digimon Adventure recognizes and uses to great advantage the potential and the wide appeal its large, diverse and hugely charismatic cast offers (including the creatures); it pulls the maximum out of it. In any circumstance where a group of people is forced to interact with each other to solve problems, some of its members will be more visible or more vocal, some will contribute more, others less, and leaderships and rivalries will naturally emerge. These roles fall in Tai and Yamato/Matt, respectively, the central characters of the show. However, aware of these natural facts, the show still cares to and manages to not let they concentrate all the attention and screentime or get all the credits, but to instead eventually giving everyone their fair share of spotlight, while at the same time acknowledging that those central characters will understandably require some more given their more relevant status inside the group. Despite the distribution of attention not being perfectly even, everyone always matter here and significantly contribute somehow, no one is ever left behind or put aside, no one ever feels just part of the decoration or fodder, and this is something not many series with a large main cast can say (not even DBZ, my favorite show of all time!). Thanks to this, it successfully makes the viewer care for all of them and grow fond with them at every moment leveraging its appeal, since it takes the adequate time to showcase them all, especially during the well-balanced introductory Devimon arc. Moreover, it creatively does so from multiple approaches; individually, collectively or in pairs, which leads to another of its strong points in relation to its large, varied cast: taking advantage of the many combination-possibilities it allowed by mixing the group. Throughout the journey, we see sometimes how the group is split for a while and/or how the members are gathered only in pairs, which gives an opportunity to explore each member more individually or to show how they would work or play together and how their distinctive personalities would clash in combinations or interactions that would not take place in normal contexts where the group is completely reunited, both strengthening all their bonds and, ultimately, making everything for the viewer way more fun to see. Not only does Digimon Adventure shine in character development; it also does in character dynamics. The “digi-evolution” To defeat the increasingly powerful digimon villains, the kids’ digimon-partners must go through a process known as “digi-evolution”, where they jump to a higher evolutionary level and become different, more powerful creatures able to contend with said villains. In other words: powering-up. The good news here is that these power-ups are not achieved just because and are actually, technically linked to the whole idea of the show: camaraderie, character development, and learning. The digimon needs his kid-partner to evolve, it won’t be able to do so if he doesn’t overcome his personal fears, doesn’t learn a lesson or doesn’t demonstrate/work upon the virtue their crests represent (courage, friendship, love, wisdom, sincerity, reliability, hope and light), because, in this universe, the digimon and the kid share a metaphysical, spiritual bond, so the ability to digi-evolve is conditioned to the kid’s inner growth as individuals, which acts as the catalyst of the process. To some, this may sound cheap, because they are essentially emotion/virtue-based power-ups, not training/experience-based ones, like they happen to be in Pokemon for example, and it’s an understandable feeling. However, in particular for this series, this is not really an issue, at all. Because first, it’s a kids show, who are not going to think too much what they see or ask for rationality everywhere, and second (and more importantly) because it was a concept reasonably tied to the whole point of it and the good, educational messages it wanted to convey, for any audience, but obviously, especially for the little ones. The physical evolution the digimon goes through comes as a reflection of the psychological evolution of the kid. Evolving, becoming stronger, and being able to achieve triumphs, is not possible if you do not grow up as a person, which comes as something beautiful and inspiring to see. In addition, it’s also something that brings more substantial meaning to the fights and power-ups, which is always something welcome, no matter the way. Digimon Adventure was all about values, and the digi-evolution phenomenon was just one of the means to communicate them to its target audience (besides obviously, looking cool!). The digimon But enough about immature children, development and values, this show is called Digimon! So let’s say something about these creatures the show is named after, which, despite not being as relevant as their kid-partners, were still another aspect the show handled well, and that, in my opinion, have more advantages than those of its rival “mon” series. First, because unlike them, they can (all) speak human language, which immediately makes them more appealing, since they can interact with the kids and express themselves better. But, more importantly, because here, while not getting the development focus the kids received (save for one: Tailmon/Gatomon), this didn’t mean they were going to comfortably be put aside and be treated just like the accompanying, obedient pets of the children who were going to be used as the battle weapons in sports competitions and nothing else. No, here the writers respected them as characters and cared to give them a more meaningful participation; while not as relevant in the story as their human partners, they are still treated as significant members inside the group and play a key role in the process of growth and learning of our protagonists (from whom they learned a lot as well, which made the relationships richer). Besides playing the basic tasks of fighting for and protecting their partners, they also spiritually support them with their troubles and anxieties, strive to make they always give and do their best, and help them rise from obscurity once they’ve fallen into it. They are also given a voice here; they think, they have an opinion and suggest ideas about what should or could be done regarding the many situations they have to go through, so they are treated more than just the children’s “slaves” that have to do everything they order them to do (and in fact, they even get to rebel against them whenever some conflicts arose) and the cool creatures with cool designs used to boost the toys’ sales. Coupled with the fact that they are all given their own distinctive personalities, with their own strengths and weaknesses that differentiate them from each other, giving them some layers and which adds an appealing sense of variety, as a result, despite playing secondary supporting roles, the show still successfully manages to make them feel like an important set of characters the audience can care of and become fond of in the way. Speaking of personalities, there was the question about whether to make the creatures mere character-extensions of the children with whom they were paired, or whether to make them different to some degree. And the (clever) answer was: why not both? which made things way more interesting, since that way the audience could see all kinds of relationships, how they developed and how they contrasted each other. Having opted for just one of the options would have been quite “samey”. There you had in one of the ends the perfect Taichi/Agumon match, both cheerful, vigorous, upbeat and group-motivating, and there you also had in the other one the completely odd, irregular Joe/Gomamon pairing, where the human part was strict and obsessive and the creature part was more carefree and lively, which made this relationship probably the most intriguing to see how would it play given the personalities’ disparities and the fact that they were the ones who most had to learn and understand from each other. Seeing how the pairs complement and interact with each other was another of the main assets of the show. Finally, it goes without saying that watching the many, distinctive designs of the digimon, which go from very basic, rounded cute forms to more sophisticated, imposing ones as they advance in their evolutionary lines, certainly adds a lot to the cool-factor of the show (especially the Patamon one!). The adventure Of course, you can have a large set of well-written protagonists, cool-looking supporting creatures and lesson-teaching goals, but none of it will feel complete or fully-realized without a proper invigorating, exciting narrative, which the series also has; the second word of its title is not mere fancy decoration. Together with everything I’ve already mentioned, what also plays well for the show is that, despite some issues I’ll talk about later, its storyline is generally well-constructed for kids’ shows standards; it’s carefully thought, with virtually no inconsistency, plot hole or bad tonal handling, balancing well all the serious, intense and funny moments, managing to efficiently move forward without ever leaving the characters behind going hand-in-hand with their development, and always finding the way to not fall into repetitiveness by innovating the story-structures in each part, keeping this way the storyline always intriguing while at the same time never losing focus. In addition, another aspect to highlight here is that, being a long 54 episodes show, not a SINGLE one of them is useless or feels skippable and absolutely all of them contribute with the story progression in a relevant way, which is saying a LOT for a successful long-running series and it is something that not many shows of its class can brag about (not even the highly acclaimed Monster!). It never loses rhythm, it’s a non-stop ride from the very beginning to the end with no unneeded stretching, no wasted episodes whatsoever, always keeping the audience interested thanks to the permanent modification of circumstances, the introduction of challenges and the internal development of characters. Not a single of its moments feels ever tedious, and it enjoys having a fantastic, intense climax and a conclusive ending that nicely wraps everything up with no loose ends. Furthering on this aspect in not so cold, technical terms, what truly elevated this series for me were all these absolutely delightful feelings evoked by this particularly charming way of executing and presenting the story. The show breathes this irresistible, captivating sense of wonder, which, when joined with this charismatic, realistically-portrayed big set of characters and their pet-partners interacting with each other, makes everything translate in the end into a highly enjoyable watching experience. This appears as most noticeable during the first arc, Devimon, and the second half of the third arc, Myotismon, also known as the “real world” arc and the fan-favorite part of the show, since it’s the undisputed most entertaining and thrilling segment of the whole series. In the former, which is basically a story of survival in the wilderness, the kids wander through a wide variety of exotic, unfriendly places and must figure out where they are, how they got there and what are they doing there, while being attacked by various other digimon at each stop they make. This, added to the fact that nothing is revealed regarding what is going on but towards the end and that the locations are pretty strange, surreal and/or lonely, helps to create this immersing sense of mystery, uncertainty and exploration and of feeling disoriented walking aimlessly across an unknown, faraway world, without knowing what to expect. In the latter, since this time the action takes place in our real world, it shows events that could very well be happening in your own neighborhood, and the families start getting involved, which brings a great sense of familiarity and “closeness”. This part may also very well be one of the best examples of how to make a fantastic “action/noir-thriller for kids”, with the group racing against Myotismon to find the 8th chosen child, traveling completely alone through various Tokyo’s neighborhoods at nights, keeping at all times a genuine sense of suspense, and by upping the stakes and the scale of the conflict including the city and its inhabitants in the battlefield. Also, the story for the most part is told with a multiple-POV approach; it jumps from one child perspective to another one, giving the audience a delightful sense of omniscience by having absolute knowledge of all the circumstances and of what each kid is doing at each moment without them knowing themselves all this information. Anyway, the thing here is that, for reasons I can’t accurately describe, the dramatization feels so real and is so carefully thought, that it almost makes you feel you are also part of this team in the midst of all the danger and the unknown. And it’s all ultimately…so damn fun. The artistic decisions also widely explained and enhanced this particular charm. I’ve read how some complain that the backgrounds were blurry and not well-defined, which is something I don’t understand since that was precisely the idea. First, they were that way only in the scenes taking place in the Digitalworld, since in the scenes of the real world they changed to more defined ones. And this was not random; it was intentionally done this way to highlight the difference between one world and the other. The real world is a known world, so well-defined backgrounds are suitable. However, the Digitalworld is an unknown, unfamiliar and mysterious one where no human being lives, so the decisions of drawing and painting its landscapes and locations with blurry outlines and unsaturated colors were a hit, since thanks to them the desired feelings of being lost in a faraway land and of walking unsafe across it not knowing what to expect that the kids were experimenting, could also be effectively transmitted to the viewer. The chilling, magical sense of surrealism and mystery present in the Digitalworld could definitely not have been fully expressed had the backgrounds art been more well-defined or clearer. And we also can’t in this regard forget about the music, which also played a definite key role here. While not entirely original (some of its tracks had already been composed before for the Sailor Moon series), it’s still plainly and simply…awesome. Everything regarding the music department, from the insanely catchy, legendary and iconic opening theme “Butter-Fly”, the highly stimulating, blood-pumping digi-evolution sequence theme “Braveheart”, the insert songs of every chosen child and the vast collection of memorable tracks that perfectly suit and enhance the mood of every type of moment (especially the famous classical piece “Bolero de Ravel” used for some of the most captivating ones) is nothing short of spectacular and awe-inspiring, and did a top-notch work when it comes to capture all the sense of adventure, wonder, surrealism and thrill the show wants the audience to feel. It even recognizes when it’s the proper time to not use any music at all! Finally, I’ll briefly close this section to talk about moments. The show is filled with highly emotional and epic moments throughout. All of these work because the series actually bothered to properly build them and to make the viewer care for every character in the way, so none of them comes as unearned. No one is just thrown there easily expecting to generate a genuine impact without having previously worked for it. Without spoiling, in particular, the big moment of the first arc is one of the highlights, because it was so beautifully and silently built up in the way and comes as thematically -and structurally- very significant and noteworthy. Similarly, in relation to this, some contend that the conclusion was somewhat anti-climactic, when to my eyes it was the exact opposite; it was exactly what the show needed to convincingly gain a better, impactful sense of closure, both narratively and thematically for both the story and the kids’ learning journey, in spectacular fashion with a “final bang”, with the most memorable and meaningful villain of the whole series and with the action taking place in the most fascinating, metaphysical location of all. Without it, the ending would have felt somewhat…flat. The final scene is powerfully moving, and possibly the favorite moment of the fan who managed to get fond of this large group of 16 characters throughout their long, tough, but also joyful journey. Making you feel like a kid again Last but not least, I didn’t know if to include or not this point, not only because it may sound corny, but also because it’s just very personal. However, considering I perceive it to be this kind of “sum of all ingredients” that perfectly summarizes all the feelings I got from the series after re-watching it 2 years ago, I think it comes as necessary. The magic of Digimon Adventure is that it managed to make me feel a kid again, and this was possible thanks to realistic characterization and story-staging. Unlike Digimon, not many children programs can effectively achieve that sweet feeling because they choose to have either static, formulaic main characters and/or too-perfect ones. I love other kids’ shows like Detective Conan and Pokemon, but none of them offer me an experience where I can genuinely project into the show the “kid soul” inside me. Conan is this perfect, flawless prodigy kid-hero you know is always going to win, and Ash is always Ash and almost never stops being the same Ash that left Pallet town once. They don’t feel real characters enough. The characters of Digimon, to the contrary, actually feel more human. They are not perfect heroes, they are not over-skilled, over-smart and over-mature people for their ages, but instead, just common, normal kids: they are flawed, immature, let their emotions dominate them, they are insecure, they doubt, they fear, they feel vulnerable, they miss home, they change, they learn, they don’t have this unrealistically happy, nothing-bad-will-ever-happen lives in a happy, totally safe world, they behave and speak according to their ages, they make the mistakes normal kids their age would make, recognize them and take responsibility for their consequences, and have no idea how to travel alone in the city! Which makes them feel more real and at the end, more relatable. Thanks to this, I can see the me-of-my-childhood in them, and feel that one of the kids could have very well been me or one of your normal elementary school’s classmates, which, coupled with the realistic, serialized dramatization of events that takes itself seriously, also allows to feel that it could have very well been the you-of-your-childhood the one who’s given the possibility to do all these cool things and live all these exciting adventures said “you” always wanted to do and live. Meeting and befriending cool-looking creatures, exploring bizarre worlds, getting lost, solving mysteries, and even only walking through the city at nights without your parents knowing or staring how a big, dense layer of fog covers your whole neighborhood from the boring balcony of your room by the time every kid should be sleeping. (I guess this also partially explains why the “real world” arc is the fan-favorite one; because the action takes place from the intimacy and familiarity). Digimon is full of childlike wonder, and successfully makes all those whose internal child-flames are not totally extinguished, can feel as such again. And this is, what sealed the deal to me. The digi-flaws Having covered in detail all which I consider the strengths of the series, it’s time now to have a look on the not-so-wonderful side of things. First, the animation quality. Digimon was made with a low budget, so it is limited. It features recycled animation sequences and still images (although, I contend that it’s not a problem for the digi-evolution sequences, since they are shown in an imaginary setting). The 4 CGI digi-evolution sequences may also look cheap, though considering the time the show was made, they look acceptable. Anyway, it’s not like it looks terrible either, and personally it’s not something that bothers me that much (and I even consider it part of its own charm), but what does bother me in relation to presentation were some episodes where characters looked off-model, especially in the Etemon arc. Second, the poorly characterized villains. They may all look cool/stylized and menacing, many of them based on horror archetypes (demon, vampire, creepy clown and so on), but substantially speaking most of them are simply too basic; their motivations do not go beyond seeking world domination because they are evil, and some of them don’t even have a personality and are just 0-D destroying machines. And I say most because some of them do have a more elaborate background (Puppetmon/Apocalymon). So, if some could have it, why not all? Anyway, at least they were all treated seriously and portrayed as real threats, including the megalomaniac Etemon. Then, some poor conveniences/unrealistic occurrences, not only for the general plot-armour of the kids, but also for example, how a villain in the middle of the battle stands still allowing the group to think of a way to defeat him instead of taking advantage of their vulnerable condition and just attack them, or in terms of narrative how villain number X enters the scene only once villain (X-1) has been previously defeated, like if X had never intended to get involved before despite having always been around there, which undermines its credibility and makes it feel like a videogame. The digimon fights aren’t very creative either, and most of the time boil down to just one attack of whatever type to beat the bad guy in turn, and in this regard admittedly Pokemon had the advantage, since the Pokemon fights involved more strategy according to their types and physical traits. Finally, a general lack of major world-exploration. Being a show whose story developed largely in another world, the Digitalworld, its origins, nature, characteristics, physical laws and so on, are slightly explored, and it’s not treated beyond just the location where the action would take place. The audience never gets to know it in greater detail, which would have been certainly a nice addition. Personally, I’m not really bothered by any of this -save for the off-model characters’ moments-, but it’s understandable that others may be. However, despite certainly being elements that don’t do it much favor, should we really be that harsh when remembering the audience it was designed for and aimed towards? Besides animation quality (which as I said is just limited, with quite acceptable CGI for the time), I don’t see how any of this should harm the experience, considering it is a kids’ show which is precisely the demo that is least going to meticulously think too much or demand too much from everything they watch (and much less when some of these kinds of faults are some of which not even some celebrated more adult-oriented shows are exactly free of). You can’t judge a kids’ show the same way you would judge an adults’ or even teens’ show, things are very different when the tone and approach are designed for them, so the bars have to be lowered and adapted to their sight. Judging a kids’ show the same way you would do so with a show like Monster, Death Note or NGE, not only is totally silly, but also totally unfair. Does it have a childish tone? It has. Does it mean it’s stupid and we should look down on it? Don’t really think so. Didn’t do it back then when I watched it as a kid and I don’t see any reasons to do it now, much less when for kids’ shows standards, it features plenty of other things working in its favor that make it shine above its class; characters, values, messages, and entertainment value as well. By remembering this and being able to accordingly adapt our perspectives, we will be able to see the solid show it is. Digimon Adventure, the first of a string of entries of one of the most important and popular kids’ anime franchises out there, is a stand-out when it comes to children’s anime programming. Filled with heart and childlike wonder and engaging all the way through, it proved that action-packed kids’ shows could be more than just so-called “dumb-fun” merchandising vehicles. With its large, diverse, immensely endearing and fleshed out set of characters being the true focus, all of them getting their fair share of spotlight; its well-balanced, well-constructed, filler-less storyline full of epic, well-earned moving moments and a riveting, conclusive ending; its surreal, captivating artwork and great music; all the wide variety of value/lesson-teaching themes of common life it tackles and the fantastic sense of adventure, mystery and thrill that it breathes, it hits plenty of right notes and elevates itself as one of the best shows out there made for that demo that can also be enjoyed by adults who want more than just kids and their pets fighting evil guys (which is also entertaining to watch on its own right) as well, if they are –obviously- able to understand who the show was targeted to and to accordingly adjust their standards in the first place. It falls precisely in that ideal spot where it isn’t overly childish/simplistic to be unappealing to them and where it isn’t overly mature/complex to be inappropriate for the little ones either, with the right, manageable dose of darkness. It’s a show that did not happily hide them the evil, adversity and hostility of the world, but that also at the same time brought them beautiful messages of being brave, to have hope and to see the light in times of despair. It probably won’t become your new favorite show and won’t resonate with you as much as it did with me, but I firmly believe nonetheless that it does have all the credentials to be a very enjoyable and rewarding experience, all the way through this long adventure of 8 normal kids and their 8 digimon-partners. Today, 20 years after it started, it hasn’t lost its touch. 9/10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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May 25, 2019
Hunter x Hunter (2011)
(Anime)
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Mixed Feelings
**This review will contain spoilers**
Hunter x Hunter (2011) is widely considered by many (along with Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood) as the peak of action shounen anime and as what every action shounen anime should aspire to be, an opinion I can’t agree with since, to my eyes, it’s not really a completely well-functioning neither a fully satisfying show to begin with. Keep in mind that, obviously, this is only a perspective based on my own experience, as I can still see and understand the reasons why this is such a praised and beloved series by its fans. I need to start this review with some clarification and ... background. You’d be thinking after reading this that I’m no fan of Hunter x Hunter, but that isn’t the case. (I would definitely not be writing this lengthy review of a TV series if it didn’t mean much to me). Back in 2016, after reading somewhere else how this series was “so much better than Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood”, a series I had recently finished and liked, I felt naturally interested to know what the craze about this show about a boy with spiky hair, a green outfit and a fishing rod was about. I knew it had two versions, one from 1999 and one from 2011, but as a lover of the 90s cel-animation aesthetics (and because it had a dub in my own language), I felt inclined to start it with the older one. And it was love at first sight. It’s quite hard to describe with words, but never before I had felt with such intensity a true sense of immersion from the very start. Hunter x Hunter made me understand the true meaning of the word “hook”; I was to my surprise immediately and joyfully dragged into its world thanks to its enormously captivating, mysterious yet realistic nature and atmosphere and its irresistible somber feel, that made me want to genuinely follow this orphan kid in his quest venturing into the unknown, uncovering mysteries, facing all sort of obstacles and meeting friends and foes in his way. And by the time I finished the mind tests in Trick Tower, the feeling of amazement had become so intense that I knew this series had already become an instant all-time favorite. The original version of Hunter x Hunter gave me a watching experience of those you don’t find very often. I didn’t honestly feel much of all this when starting later the 2011 remake version by Madhouse. I don’t want to sound like an annoying broken record here, but I really have to say that when it comes to the execution of the first four arcs, Nippon Animation’s 1999 adaptation is so immensely superior that it’s hard to understand how can anyone who has seen both of them believe otherwise. This is not just because of the grittier, bleaker art style and the more natural, earthier color palette and shading/lighting -both in characters and backgrounds- that mix together to create a delightfully sinister, realistic atmosphere that makes you feel you are not only a mere external TV watcher, but instead another character inside this wondrous yet wicked world joining the adventures of our cast, a feeling present since minute 1 that expresses at its fullest during the York City arc, where the city is not shown just as a mere setting, but instead as another omnipotent character lurking from the shadows enveloping the whole cast and narrative. It’s neither just because of the much more realistic characters' designs, nor the more mood-setting, emotion-stimulating music, that here is crafted with way more personality and is more than just BGM; it actually plays a key role in establishing the atmospheres, creating the moments and sucking the audience into the world. No, it is also -and mainly- because of the overall direction and this very meticulous, careful attention to small details which are the true responsible of fully submerging the viewer, capturing way better its desired sense of adventure and mystery, cleverly composing and joining together each scene, setting way better the desired moods for the right moments, keeping the viewer at the edge of his seat always wanting to know how the story would unfold, and ultimately bringing a vastly more exciting, warmer and memorable experience. 2011, on the other hand, is just not the same. There’s nothing technically wrong with its execution, but here I didn’t feel the same level of mind, heart and passion poured into its production that I did feel with 1999. For a lack of a better term, the best way I can describe it is that it just feels “okay-ish”. It lacks touch. It feels somewhat insipid. It just does what it has to do, with minimal effort required. Let’s do what we have to do quick so then we can go to party. The art doesn’t feel anything special, and the colors and lighting decisions don’t suit the overall dark, gloomy and realistic nature of the show (the colors are just excessively bright and the edges too clean to be able to create a more human, natural, relatable environment and the rough, outdoor sense of the show; instead, they make it feel more artificial, plastic-looking and videogame-ish. Nothing inherently wrong with this, but it’s just way less charming, haunting and inspiring!). Some of the characters' designs look too goofy for their own sake, especially Illumi, who in 2011 looks more like a ridiculous clown, whereas in 1999 looks actually like the menacing, merciless creepy murderer he is. Music is nowhere as full of personality, mood-stimulating as the one of the older version is and the tracks are barely memorable, some of them painfully generic (especially the boring drums and guitar riffs one, that doesn’t suit well with the tone of the series), though I have to admit that it improves a lot later during the 6th arc. (Although, when “Legend of the Martial Artist” is played like 2 times per episode, it eventually becomes tiring). But much more important than art and music, is the way the story is told, and especially during the Hunter Exam arc, where the differences are more noticeable. I can’t blame those who say that this arc was “nothing special” or “generic, boring shounen introduction”, because it’s precisely this okay-ish execution that makes it feel like that, as opposed to 1999 where it was a complete different story! The older version put much more attention into the introduction and build-up of both the world, the characters and their backstories, there you can see them interact more with each other and you can see how their relationships grow more smoothly, it does a much better job when it comes to establish a genuine sense of mystery and intrigue about what would happen later on and there are many scenes with nice attention to characters’ facial expressions, showing what are they feeling in regards to everything they are living, an approach that here adds a great sense of naturalism. The 2011 version just paled in comparison regarding this, which decided to speed things up by cutting many relevant moments in order to get to the unadapted content as soon as possible. I initially wanted and I’d love to delve more into this matter by providing and describing concrete scene-by-scene examples, but considering that would have made this review insanely long, I had to dismiss the idea. Nevertheless, I think my point is clear, and these comparisons can be found with great detail in many other places for anyone interested. All I’m going to add here is that it saddens me the little love and attention Nippon Animation’s adaptation gets in comparison to Madhouse’s one, when it isn’t in any case inferior to it despite the latter going further in the story, much less for shallow reasons such as “because old animation”, “because newer version with higher resolution”, or because “it has fillers” (seriously, this idea that 1999 is “dragged by fillers” I don’t know where does it come from, when the filler count is a mere FIVE episodes and guess what: they are GREAT! Since not only they are actually well-integrated into the story, but also they enhance it: in particular, the additional bonus stage in the exam where the examinees have to cooperate together in order to make an abandoned battleship work to save themselves is very good since not only is highly enjoyable and one of the highlights of the arc, but also because it sets a nice contrast with the following test where they would have to hunt each other). Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say here that 2011’s version of the earlier parts isn’t worth the watch, it’s just that the 1999 one is in a whole superior level, it’s something else, is way more enjoyable, is the one that understands that there’s a viewer outside the screen eager to live something memorable and the one I would recommend, even if unfinished. But of course, putting stylistic and directing differences aside, substantially speaking on paper it’s 90% the same thing. Regarding the first four arcs (Hunter Exam – York City), it’s a competent show featuring a well-constructed, well-thought intriguing storyline that flows well from arc to arc, blending well the dark and lighthearted moments, and there’s hardly anything wrong to say about them apart from a somewhat anti-climactic ending for the York City arc that didn’t live up to its full potential, by leaving some things not concluded and postponed for later on. It also features a likeable and relatable, yet complex set of characters each with their own motivations, backstories and well-defined personalities that feel real and contrast nice with each other, with Killua being the most interesting of the bunch as he’s the most mysterious and layered one and rightfully so the one that “steals the show”. (There’s also this debate on whether Gon qualifies as a “typical shounen protagonist” or not, which I will not address here since, typical or not, he is a good character anyway). With the exception of ¼ of the main cast (Leorio), all of its members receive a fair share of attention and/or development at some point. The set of antagonists is also good with the Genei Ryodan/Phantom Troupe members being the highlight, who are more than just bad guys who want to do bad things because villains and feel real with good motivations, distinctive personalities and backstories as well. Finally, it features a complex power system (nen) that allows creative fighting (though there’s nothing inherently wrong with just power levels and brute strength, by the way). I don’t want to delve further here since all these elements have already been described better in other reviews. However, by the time the 5th arc of the show -Greed Island- starts, where Gon and Killua would participate in a game Ging had created and would train their nen abilities, the first real problems arise when part of the “magic” is gone; the series starts to feel quite different by the introduction of a straight fantasy and scifi-ish vibe with the whole getting inside a video game phenomenon (even if later it’s explained that it wasn’t really that) which felt out-of-place when remembering the fairly realistic, natural setting and what I like to call a warm “wood and stone” vibe that had characterized the show so far and which caused the audience to feel a little uneasy. The fantasy elements of the show, which so far had been limited to just some special, quirky abilities of the nen users and some weird creatures in the beginning, are taken to an extreme here when nen starts becoming the excuse for all kinds of unimaginable situations to happen, like building up not only an entire island out of nowhere, but also its inhabitants (!), materializing from nowhere any type of object just by spelling its name, getting teleported and summoning an angel that would out of nowhere regenerate a body part. It was in this arc where it became evident that Hunter x Hunter didn’t have the intentions to keep its original concept the viewer had stuck its mind to and had invested its expectations. Nonetheless, these feelings of strangeness still lay within tolerable boundaries and were nowhere as strong as the ones the next arc in the series would give, an arc which in my opinion, consists in Hunter x Hunter’s fatal error, the lethal wound from which it would never recover and the main reason explaining its non-functioning condition. And here’s where I wanted to get. The Chimera Ants arc. The famous Chimera Ants arc. Regarded by many as the so-called “best arc in shounen anime”, the 6th and longest arc in the series is without a question the fan-favorite one, the one that explains most of its praise, and the reason why it places so high in anime online rankings. However, to my eyes (and fully aware I’m in the minority here) the story is quite the opposite: it’s actually the main reason why I think Hunter x Hunter (2011) is NOT really a series that works well, why it frustratingly disappoints and why I had to sadly withdraw from this Hunting party after seeing the direction it had taken. And this is not because “it drags on too long” or because of the “heavy, annoying use of narration”, which are the two most common criticisms people make towards it (and that to my eyes, are not problems at all), but rather because this arc…has absolutely nothing to do with anything that had been shown before. It’s a total momentum breaker, a complete deviation from the premise that had been developing so far, that established an annoying sense of discontinuity thanks to a sudden, unannounced change in focus, making the audience ask itself: “what is this? This is not what I was watching!”. This can be better seen and understood by making a recap of all the previous arcs. If we consider each arc of the series as a chapter of a book, this is, in brief, how the Hunter x Hunter story was progressing: • Chapter 1: A boy, motivated to find his dad that had abandoned him since birth, leaves his home and must complete a famous, dangerous exam as the 1st step, where he would also meet his first real friends. He passes it. • Chapter 2: After an unfortunate event towards the end of said exam, he goes to rescue from his wicked family one of those recently met friends, since he wants to be with him and wants him to join him in his journey. He succeeds. • Chapter 3: The two boys, now together, realize that, in order to be able to survive alone in their quest, they need money, so they go to a place where they think they can make a lot of it quickly. They make it, and then they decide to take a break and return to the boy’s home to rest a bit and evaluate what to do next, where, now with Hunter’s license in hand, they discover the next clue to find dad. • Chapter 4: The two boys travel to the city where they need to be at to find the next clue, and where also one of the other friends they met in the Hunter exam is going to solve his own issues. • Chapter 5: The two boys participate in a game that, if won, would put them one step closer of dad. They win it, which leads them to meet a close friend of him that could give them valuable information regarding his whereabouts and/or could give them hints regarding what to do next in their journey. • Chapter 6: The two boys instead, decide to join a mission to confront an invasion of overpowered beasts that threaten the world. Huh? This “6th chapter” I’ve just described, as it can clearly be noticed, has little to just no relation with the five previous ones, and constitutes a drastic rupture in the flow of the story. In one minute, it is about a boy who was in his quest to find his father and in the next one, about the same boy and his best friend fighting and stopping from dominating the world powerful beasts that -narratively speaking- come out of nowhere. There is no natural continuity here; the arc is entirely a forced detour from the street in which the plot had been driving so far which hadn’t even been previously signaled at all (foreshadowing), inevitably catching the audience off-guard since there was just no way it could see it coming and getting prepared for it. In other words: the Chimera Ants arc simply pops-up in the middle of an unconcluded story, interrupting the natural flow of the show’s overall narrative, changing both its focus and vibe overnight and forcing the audience to now pay attention to something else completely unrelated to what it had invested both its interest and time in. It almost feels like the magical card Gon uses at the end of Greed Island arc teleports us to an entire different show! No offense to anyone here, but it really makes me wonder if all those who didn’t have any problem with this were actually caring about the story they were watching or not. It doesn’t help the fact that the transition to its development is not even credible (in which case its inclusion would have been at least more acceptable). Gon and Killua, since the ants issue clearly wasn’t something related to their dad-finding quest and wasn’t any type of “next stage” he had prepared for him like the Greed Island game was, never had any believable reasons to join Kite’s biological investigation and to get involved in it from the beginning, even more when considering that it’s not as if anyone had asked or obliged them to do so or they never really had an option. After spending 75 episodes worth of sacrifice, pain and struggle, facing and overcoming all sort of complicated obstacles to find his dad… why would exactly Gon after all this, have any real intentions to embark himself into another different mission that just never had anything to do with him (and dragging Killua in the process, since he just follows him anywhere he goes) and was not going to help him to fulfill his initial real objective? His attitude made no sense, and his curious voluntary decision to join Kite’s team was nothing but an artifice on the part of the author to build the (artificial) bridge among arcs he needed to be able to now develop a story that had nothing to do with anything he had written before. (Of course, it’s not as if Gon’s sudden change of priorities couldn’t be possible, it’s just that, for narrative purposes, and from an audience standpoint, it was not believable). And it is precisely this lack of a believable or justifiable link between the motivations of the protagonists and the recently emerged biological threat which gives the audience few to no reasons to feel genuinely interested in it, much less when it had been already interested in another conflict/thread beforehand that hadn’t even been concluded yet. If there are no reasons why our protagonists should be caring about this biological anomaly, the new characters it introduces and their stories, then why the audience should? Some people argue that this isn’t really an issue because there was never a “main story” in Hunter x Hunter to begin with, that it was instead always just “Gon and friends exploring the world”; a collection of stories with different purposes and tones with the protagonists as the only constants, and that this arc was just one of the many different quests, a statement I fully disagree with. Hunter x Hunter was never about random adventuring. Here we had a clear, well-defined goal from the start. Moreover (and unlike some other battle shounens), the protagonist was actually and actively doing actions for the achievement of that goal since day 1. It was this goal the common thread that was unifying all the previous arcs. How can it be said then that there was never any overarching story? There was a clear direction here, and the Chimera Ants arc opted to deviate from it. Others say that Gon didn’t dismiss his search for dad, and just decided to follow Kite because he was well-respected by him. This could be true, but we as an audience, we expected him to continue with what he had been doing so far because we were invested in THAT struggle, yet the show, in the form of Gon’s decision, asked us to now be invested in something else and to forget for a (not precisely short) moment of the main reasons we were following the show. The whole arc then for these reasons felt ultimately like a gigantic filler arc, except that it wasn’t! It’s quite funny and curious to notice how the arc that was sold as the “main dish” or the “main attraction” of the series, and the one the fanbase favorites the most, actually was the one with the least amount of relevance and that least had to do with its premise! But what was really wrong with this? Why is it really bothering? Not only because of the continuity break and sudden focus-change I mentioned earlier, but in reality because the “DNA” of the show is suddenly artificially mutated into something else here. In concrete terms, with the forced inclusion of this arc, Hunter x Hunter is transformed (at least the way I see it) into what it never really was: a straight battle shounen about fighters and fights. Gon and Killua are now these full-time, “badass” super-warriors with cool superpowers that feel the duty to stop evil creatures from doing damage to the world, and Hunter x Hunter, once a series about a boy in his quest to find his dad, is now a series about fighting powerful enemies and saving the Earth. Like…seriously. Is this the reason why the audience signs up for in the beginning of the show when it knows nothing about it? Does the audience expect to watch another Dragon Ball Z with large-scale battles, powerful enemies that threaten the world and warriors who confront them when it’s watching the first arcs, when it was all about fairly normal people living adventures and trying to accomplish simple, mundane goals? I don’t think so. The C.A. arc makes Hunter x Hunter feel like a completely different series from what it had been and it is both disappointing and unsettling to notice. And while it’s true that the show had featured some (scattered) fights earlier, the show wasn’t really about them, they were never the focus, and all of them were still “down-to-earth” (this is: no “over 9000” stuff) and were actually linked to the motivations and purposes of the main cast; they represented real obstacles the protagonists had to face in order to meet their goals and/or to move to the next stage. And that can’t be said about the nature of the fights in C.A. arc. Hunter x Hunter was not a show about fighting and defeating powerful enemies that appear in the way. It never suggested to be so, despite having a power system, because Gon and Killua were never the cool shounen super-warriors owning powerful enemies after training and getting stronger. Yes, they were special, quicker and stronger than average people, but just that, they were still two normal boys the audience could always relate to since they were never depicted as shounen heroes who were going to take down the enemy in turn with world-domination or destruction purposes, but rather as people that could have been your simple, next door friends. Unfortunately, that sweet sense of relatability was totally lost here, where they were both turned into unrecognizable super-warriors having their badass “super saiyan” shounen moments (I know technically they aren’t that, but it’s still how they feel) and the down-to-earth feel of the series was lost too. It was quite a shame and a displeasure to see how a series that had given the impression of being just about fairly normal boys going in adventures, uncovering mysteries, facing and overcoming challenges in their quest to achieve clear personal goals, betrayed its audience when it suddenly replaced its adventurous nature by a straight battle shounen setting, feel and structure, despite having promised something else in the beginning. You’d be thinking after reading all this that I have nothing good to say about the C.A. arc, but that’s not the case. It can’t be denied that the arc has the most ambitious writing of all, is morally complex and features thought-provoking ideas by exploring well the themes of the relationship between human beings, animals and their coexistence, the man vs the beast, the food chain and what does it mean to be a “perfect being” that will rule every species, among others. Also that it features a well-written main antagonist and that it shows interesting character development for both sides (though, it’s a shame how we finally got some great development for Gon during a conflict that had a filler-feel attached to it), all of these elements that certainly add value in a story. However, in line with the aforementioned continuity issue, the only way all of these elements can materialize their value is if they belong to something that feels to the audience relevant to begin with and/or contribute in a significant way to the main story of the series, which isn’t the case here when remembering there was never a natural transition to the arc, so they become -as harsh as it sounds- useless. No matter how dark and deep it wants to be, if it is something unrelated to the core of the series, there’s little reason the audience should care about all those themes. It’s hard to do it when the arc is structurally flawed since it doesn’t fit or can’t be connected in an organic way with all the previous ones. Besides, it doesn’t help that all of these themes have actually more relation to the character of Meruem instead of Gon. In fact, it can be seriously said that the main character of this arc is in reality Meruem than Gon. Why should then said themes matter much when they have little relation to the motivations of the main cast of the series? Themes alone are not enough to carry a narrative if the events surrounding them have little relation to it. In the end, what I’m trying to say here is that it’s not that the arc is bad on itself, it’s that it reduces the overall value of the whole show when joined with what had been developed before, because it makes it not work in the long run. (It’s the complete opposite to a synergy; making a mathematical analogy here, let’s call the value of the first 75 episodes (A) as V(A) and the value of the chimera ants arc (B) as V(B), what we have here is that the value of the combination, V(A+B), is less than the value of the sum of the parts: V(A+B) < V(A) + V(B)). Despite some issues, the C.A. arc is an interesting arc, but only when thinking of it as a separated, stand-alone entity from the earlier parts of the series. I can’t help but thinking that it would have been much better had it been part of another series where it could have fit more. Speaking about issues, the arc isn’t exactly free of some of them that, while not (that) severe, they certainly don’t help its cause and make it hard to consider a perfect one like the fanbase claims. For the sake of not making this review longer than what it already is, I’ll just list some of them, without going into much detail (and no, the slow pacing and the narrator aren’t part of them). • It made 50% of the main cast be nowhere to be found for 50% of the whole show (it’s curious how other shounens are criticized for leaving relevant characters behind, yet Hunter x Hunter for some reason is excused for doing the same!), which is not something irrelevant narratively speaking. Kurapika and Leorio deserved better. • Some of the “ants” had plain ludicrous, laughable aspects, which made it difficult to take the arc as seriously as it wanted to be taken. • The Gyro episode was totally useless, since he never becomes a relevant character later on, as well as those dedicated to showcase an uninteresting fight between some minor ants and some Phantom Troupe members, who were by force crammed in the story just so it could be said “hey, see? We haven’t forgotten about them!”. • Why would the Hunter Association let two inexperienced kids help them to get rid of the ants instead of asking more experienced hunters do the risky, difficult job? • How did the ant queen get there and why is she larger than the “normal” chimera ants shown in the first episode by the lake? There is little explanation as to how these creatures came to be, which would have been appreciated. • Also how the ants were able to retain part of the memories of the human beings from which they were created was too unrealistic. What’s inherited were genes, and memories have nothing to do with them. • The character of Komugi is presented as a plot device to show development for Meruem. She wasn’t ever really important. • Part of Gon’s development is rather acting out-of-character when he threatened to murder an innocent blind girl he knew had nothing to do with Pitou. • Some highly dramatic and serious moments were partially ruined with bad comedy in the form of Pouf’s eccentric, effeminate behavior, in particular during the king’s recovery process. That was... just bad. • I really don’t have a problem with this, but I do have a problem when I see how other shounens are criticized for the inclusion of the so-called “power of friendship”, but Hunter x Hunter is curiously not when it does exactly the same thing when we see how Killua could remove the needle his brother implanted in his head thanks to…remembering his friendship with Gon. So no, it’s not like Hunter x Hunter completely avoids any type of emotion-based solution. • Some people contend that Gon having an anger burst for Kite leading to his transformation was questionable since they hadn’t spent that much time together to develop enough feelings for him. I don’t agree with this, since Kite had always been an important figure to him, but I do agree that it would have certainly been much better and impactful had the murdered figure been someone more important to him like Killua or even Ging (had the case been he met him after G.I. arc). • Finally, and the one I consider the worst one, Kite “reviving” into a little girl was plain dumb, and this only served to drastically diminish the emotional impact of Gon’s said transformation scene shown only 5 episodes earlier. Now it turns out that Gon had lost his shit for someone that hadn’t ever really died! (at least, not his soul). Narratively speaking is anti-climactic. Moving to the last arc of the show, where the Hunter Association has to discuss how to elect its new chairman, Killua once again has to solve some family issues and Gon is magically recovered by a more sophisticated version of the dragon balls (literally), Chairman Election arc is a very disappointing way to conclude the series because not only it deals with the consequences of the Chimera Ants arc; it also suffers from them. Its most obvious unfortunate result is that yes, Gon finally meets his goal of finding dad, but not thanks to his own efforts, but rather thanks to fortune; Ging would not have gone to the celebration of the election at the Association had Netero not died and Netero would not have died if the ants had not shown up. In other words, because of the Chimera Ants arc, the show misses the opportunity of a more intriguing goal-resolution and a well-earned final prize for Gon. He finds him thanks to circumstances that didn’t depend on him. Why announcing the quest of finding Ging as a puzzle if at the end the puzzle never had to be solved? What was the point then? Moreover, it doesn’t help that the way the long-awaited first meeting occurs is not as inspiring as it should have been, considering it was the reason of the audience's investment in the show and all of Gon’s hard work. The crucial moment, instead of being treated dramatically and seriously, is treated very lightly with unfitting comedy, funny faces and funny music for no reason, like it hadn’t ever been serious business. Pretty underwhelming way to show the most important moment of the whole series. I can’t see Hunter x Hunter (2011) as a fully satisfying show, much less the peak of shounen anime. Not when it fails to deliver what it had promised in the beginning and suffers from severe continuity problems both in vibe (starting in Greed Island arc) and later also in focus (in Chimera Ants arc), that turn it ultimately into a troubled, deformed show where the audience doesn’t know what it’s watching anymore and feels confused regarding what it wants to be or do. I can’t help but thinking it would have been much better had it stuck to what it set out to do from the start and had it kept its initial focus instead of straying from it (with not even a natural, believable transition) with the inclusion of the Chimera Ants arc that made it not work in the long run. Why couldn’t it just follow the path it had clearly established, with a story related to the objectives of any member of the main cast? What was really the need to depart from it? If the answer is adding more maturity, thought-provoking ideas and showing more development to Gon and Killua, there were better ways to do so with a continuation actually linked to the premise, with for example a more complex next stage in their mission to find Ging that would have been much more interesting and rewarding, instead of massively shifting the attention into a story that for the protagonists' purposes was just a side-quest with fillerish-feel and little relation to the driver of the narrative. As someone who found very good and enjoyed the earlier parts of the series (especially in its first 1999 adaptation), was deeply immersed in its story, characters and world and was obviously very interested to know how it would keep unfolding and end, I badly wanted to like Hunter x Hunter (2011) and join this party, but unfortunately that couldn’t be the case for all the reasons I’ve explained. It’s not a straight bad series at all, but -despite understanding the reasons why it enjoys such a good reputation among the fans- it also isn’t something I would easily recommend to anyone, nor call the “best action shounen of all”, a distinction I’d contend either version of the Fullmetal Alchemist series enjoys (and this even when neither of them is my all-time personal favorite), which, unlike Hunter x Hunter (2011), are both of them fully well-functioning and satisfying in their own ways. 6/10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Mar 4, 2019
Saint Seiya: Saintia Shou
(Anime)
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Not Recommended
And we haven’t even hit July.
Because seriously, how much longer is this franchise going to suffer? Hasn’t it been humiliated enough? At this point it almost seems like it has been victim of a curse, since after the failure of Heaven’s Overture movie in 2004 the franchise never knew again of a new installment that had been both successful and satisfying. Acts #2 and #3 of the Hades arc were mediocre with a bullshit conclusion coming right after a fantastic and spectacular act #1, and then the show was followed by a series of bad spin-offs which mostly only contributed to sink the reputation of ... the original. Omega with its excessively kiddy approach didn’t do it any favor, Legend of Sanctuary movie was almost like a terrible CGI version of Seiya’s equivalent to Dragon Ball Evolution, Soul of Gold was just a bad excuse to sell more shiny and expensive action figures, and the single time they hit something right with the competent Lost Canvas, the japs just didn’t give a fuck and the prequel series was canceled probably forever. Now, Saintia Shou is the latest attempt to put the franchise back on track but unfortunately, it has turned out to be the complete opposite; it gives yet another stab wound to an already badly injured franchise and has made it hit a new low. (Ironically, I’m convinced the only way to “save it” or really redeem it is precisely making what always has had to be done; the Heaven’s Arc, precisely the continuation of the movie that started the bad-luck streak!). First of all I can’t say I’m disappointed since after so many mediocre offerings, I never had many expectations with this one and I just watched it because well, it’s another addition to the universe that bears the name of one of my all time favorite shows and I just watched it out of curiosity. It’s not like I was genuinely excited from the beginning. So instead of disappointment, what I’m really feeling after completing this is only deep lamentation and regret for the bad luck its name and reputation have had to bear… once again. I really can’t believe what I saw. This is by far the worst adaptation of Seiya I’ve seen, and judging by the awful overall score it currently has in the site, I think I’m not alone here. When I thought nothing could be more awful and insulting to the legacy and reputation of the original series after Omega and Soul of Gold, well, I was wrong, it could! So much that I don’t even know where to start from to explain, nor how. Simply put, the story is plain bad and the execution even worse. The latter is just so mind-bogglingly horrible that it almost feels like the staff wanted to troll the fan on purpose. It almost feels like an utter joke. The low budget assigned is no excuse. Many shows have been made with low budgets and their staffs have come up with creative ways to overcome that constraint in order to anyway make them at least acceptable, but this wasn’t the case. You just can almost tell like the staff just never really cared about this show and put very little effort. Heck, even with early Dragon Ball Super you could tell they were giving something more than a damn! **Some spoilers of the original series**. The story expands the original Seiya’s universe by introducing a new class of female saints known as “saintias”-who are not the same as the traditional female saints presented in the original work by Kurumada- in an attempt to create the female version of Saint Seiya featuring 5 female warriors protecting the Earth and the goddess they swear allegiance to from the threat of other gods because wouldn’t it be sooo cool to make female versions of action shounens with female heroines instead. Saintias are not saints strictly speaking; they are just maids/bodyguards serving and protecting Athena and are not forced to use masks unlike traditional female saints, which seems to be really the only difference, since “normal” female saints well, also train, serve and protect the goddess. So, why having a different, new class now? The reason is one and only one: because it obviously would have looked so weird to have a cast of main heroines all wearing a mask all the time without ever seeing her real faces! Obviously, from a commercial perspective it wouldn’t have worked at all. It’s understandable, so it can’t be an issue really. But what is an issue and what comes as inevitably annoying is how bad the story tries to fit with the events of the original, since it chose to chronologically take place within them. We are on this occasion asked to happily believe that at the same time Athena was carrying out her Galaxian Tournament (who now we are told had assumed her role before this event, not after it), she was confronting the threat of goddess Eris and that this totally didn’t interfere with the celebration of the former since it couldn’t be the case since in the original obviously this never existed and we don’t wanna establish inconsistencies, right? It now inevitably feels weird that in the original Athena had never ever mentioned anything about Eris and neither the golden saints and the Pope that were similarly aware of her existence and threat and also how the bronze saints seemed to be totally unaware of both the conflict and the saintias themselves who were also protecting Saori considering how close they were to her. It just makes things harder to believe, since the original now makes it look like all this had been something going on in secrecy when it didn’t have to be the case. It’s hard to believe now that the Pope was also concerned about Eris when in the original it looked like he was dedicating his whole time to the recovery of the Sagittarius golden cloth and her conflict with Saori from the distance. It also looks, while feasible, so convenient that Eris had been seemingly defeated right before the start of Sanctuary’s assault under the orders of the Pope only to show up again and make her comeback right after the conclusion of the same Sanctuary conflict because -obviously- it couldn’t be another way if we didn’t want to introduce more questionable circumstances. Athena vs Eris round was yet another Athena’s classic damsel in distress countdown, this time lying in between the Sanctuary and Poseidon clashes. What looked so funny is that now Athena had to face another one of these death curses, in a matter of just hours right after she had miraculously survived the previous one! It looked so silly, please, somebody give this lady some time to breathe! I know this was also the case in the Asgard to Poseidon transitions, but at least in those arcs there was more creativity regarding the type of threat Athena was facing (in Asgard she’s not really running a risk of dying, she was only slowly losing her energies) and it wasn’t THAT immediate! It comes as surprising that after 3 decades and several installments, the amount of creativity here is this low, and that they had opted for this way when the original already presented creative ways to showcase the same plot-structure. Additionally, some other elements of the conflict looked quite laughable. A floating temple under a giant tree about to collide with Athena’s Sanctuary? Memories and regrets of the dead become “alive” under the awakening of Eris thanks to how much blood was spilled in the 12 Houses’ fights? Really? Not to mention that Eris herself is a terrible, lousy enemy to begin with. While her motivations are interesting enough to consider her a decent villain, it can’t be helped that she literally looks like an evil Disney fairy-tale movie witch that doesn’t inspire a single pinch of true intimidation and authority unlike other goddesses like Artemisa or other previous female enemies like Hilda and Pandora which were portrayed in a much more respectful and serious way. Laughing maniacally with this “I am so evil and I seek destruction, muahahaha!” voice and face totally goes against the more serious nature of all the enemies of the franchise. The voice actress behind seems like she thought she was playing the evil witch role. It’s sad to see how Shou sells itself as something to take seriously, but at the same time takes these tactical decisions that are more suitable for a kids’ morning cartoon. I don’t see here the same adult tone of the original which is what I and most of the fans think when thinking about Saint Seiya. It didn’t help the fact that it also unnecessarily depicted in different ways some events in the original just because it wanted to be more faithful to the source. For example, now it turns out that Saori and Saga had already met before the conclusion of the Sanctuary arc like it was the case in the original, partially ruining the great sense of tension and suspense this decision established by making the two parts not knowing each other until the very end and fighting in blind since the start. It also turns out now that instead of the bronze and gold saints beautifully meeting, taking a bow and walking with Athena all the way up to the Pope’s house and lastly everyone involved confronting Saga in Athena’s temple, Athena this time just walks alone, meets Saga in the middle of the road, there’s no Gemini cloth abandoning and testing Saga’s will, no one-last-time Saga’s evil side trying to win while explaining what drove his actions to everybody followed by Athena’s inspiring, compassionate answer, and no Gemini cloth’s helmet crying! And the final suicide moment comes as totally uninspiring as opposed to the gripping one we saw in the original. This show doesn’t make justice to that fascinating final encounter. While Shou’s version of the events is the real manga version, honestly, I feel the first anime version pulled it off way better and improved upon the source by caring to make the moment more thrilling and memorable, actually managing to make a powerful impact. Also… no Seiya being hit by Saga while he was aiming the shield to where Athena was lying at the last minute! Like, come on! If something already worked great, what’s the need to make it work not so great!? Oh, and finally…now it also turns that Milo and Aphrodite always knew about the truth regarding Saori…and still stopped and delayed the bronze saints in their way up! Making honestly no sense. I can’t help but feeling this new story would have been a better idea had it not developed in the same universe as the original but rather in another new one. That way none of the aforementioned issues would have ever been a thing. Moving on to the execution, the series is just too god-damn short for its own good. One of the most notorious and main problems in the series is that they decided to make something that should’ve lasted at least 25 episodes in… 10. There’s just so much relevant stuff going on in such a small amount of episodes that at the end it feels like you’re watching in 3x unintentionally. The rushed feeling of storytelling is so damn high that at the end the whole series feels like it was just a very long recap of something bigger, and as a result, hardly the viewer can give a damn about anything that’s going on because it utterly fails to immerse him in the story at all (especially regarding Athena vs Eris supposedly grandiose clash between the saintias and the dryads and ghosts armies that lasted the grand total of… 3.5, yes, 3.5 episodes. How could they really expect to build and develop an exciting and memorable clash in just 3.5 episodes? It’s virtually impossible to do so, and in the end, the conflict is rendered as something only anecdotal, like a forgettable, short non-canon extra movie). Everything from beginning to end feels like a quick fulfillment of a checklist. Have you ever seen one of those short franchise-specials that quickly summarize an entire arc or storyline of the parent series? Saintia Shou feels virtually like the exact same thing…except that this is a normal series, not a special! It totally lacks a sense of natural progression. You can really tell like if there were some missing scenes that naturally connect all the events of the story and that ultimately are the ones that actually can make the viewer care about what he’s watching. The amount of time to develop the story was so little that as a result there was no space to properly build the tension, the digestion after the release and the viewer's immersion into the world that would have made this at least minimally interesting and entertaining. Fights and conflicts also, given this, do not feel thrilling nor impactful enough (even the ones involving the popular and beloved golden saints) something the original series knew how to pull off so well. Every single event here, be it in the introduction, development or conclusion, like just…come and go! Without trying to leave a proper impact, a proper trace, and do not carry a single bit of emotional weight at all. To such an extent that even Soul of Gold looks like a masterpiece regarding this in comparison! But obviously, there was no budget for 25 episodes, so they had to do the best they could, but honestly, if the result was going to be this bad, it would have been better not to adapt anything in the first place. In addition, in Shou everything, how can I tell this?…feels so incredibly and annoyingly.. fake! In Shou everything is depicted like if it was a fucking children’s school-break game. Nothing feels remotely real. There’s no sense of realism. No sense of seriousness. Everything feels so IN YOUR FACE. No sense of watching something that at least TRIES to feel real. Many characters here behave and talk like they were actors not giving a damn about the fictional work they were realizing because they were being underpaid or not paid at all! Or because they didn’t feel it was “relevant” enough…like one of those high school festival plays nobody involved takes seriously enough. It feels that amateurish. It’s embarrassing and painful to watch, to say the least. The series, again, due to the extreme rush and compression of events, also fails to make us care about and relate with all the set of new characters, including the protagonist Shouko, who essentially is the female version of the determined, kind-hearted and impulsive Seiya by mirroring -and paying homage- to his themes (separated from her sister at a young age, a mythological-horse as a guardian constellation, the same iconic technique, among others). With the exception of Shouko, virtually all of them felt like empty shells. All the rest of saintias that were not Shouko, how can I put it? were just…there. None of them is introduced properly, and given the short run there was no time to do anything remotely engaging with them, which is what was seen. Not even their cloths look distinctive enough from each other. I’ve read that the series omitted a lot of relevant content present in the source in this regard. The only one that matters here is Shouko and all the rest are almost shown like they were just the backup singers, as opposed to the original which brilliantly knew how to make relevant all of the 5 main members, even from the start. Here, we don’t get to care neither get along nor feel anything for them. Consequently, why should I care what happens to them if the show does nothing to make me care for them to begin with? Here, the all-time fan (who is honestly the only one that was going to watch this show) will only care for the characters he already knew from before, this is; the golden saints and Saori. There were also some elements that felt so out of place for a “Seiyaverse-based” installment that made me feel I was simply watching another franchise. A saintia riding a frickin’ motorbike like she was taken out from a cyberpunk movie? A vampire loli enemy that looks like taken out from a dumb fantasy show? A Chinese girl acting like she was taken out from a Rumiko Takahashi comedy? And a fight against a fuckin’ giant TEDDY BEAR, among others? None of this feels appropriate in the very serious mythologically-based universe of Seiya, more so if the installment takes place in the same original timeline. In fact, it is quite annoying. A saint driving a motorbike doesn’t look “mythologically” romantic, it looks instead quite… mundane. And I haven’t even mentioned anything about the god-awful animation yet! While the show is in most of the episodes beautifully drawn, using again the beautiful art style by Shingo Araki in (most of) the character designs, the same can’t be said about the animation. How can we feel true excitement from battles when movements are limited to showing a character’s body just stiffly shaking in a corner of the screen in front of a sea of fast-moving parallel lines and that’s it? With no sense of realism at all and looking incredibly boring to watch? We don’t even see any type of minimal scratch or body damage after any character has been hit by an attack! This is quite curious considering this was not even shown on TV! Music didn’t help either. How can I describe it? Most of the BGM here feels like taken from a kiddy Marvel comics' videogame. Really. Completely failing to set the proper serious and fascinating moods like it was the case with the original. I just couldn’t believe it when I knew that the same guy that gave us the amazing, captivating and full of personality score of Hunter x Hunter (1999) could make in this occasion a score this uninspiring, generic and forgettable. The opening wasn’t bad, but didn’t feel fitting either, since it looked like an opening from something like frickin’ Madoka Magica. Despite all of the above, I have to recognize the show still presents some points that I liked and that were nice additions to not render it as a completely worthless experience from an all-time fan perspective. It was good to see for example how it is mentioned here the realistic outcome that not every boy sent to train to foreign locations to become a bronze saint got to achieve it and came back with the cloth, and that some of them developed an understandable disdain towards Saori after years of mistreatment in the foundation, as brought to light in the figure of Toki. It was good to see how Saori feels guilty about this and overall how the series explores much more in-depth how does she actually feel in regards to her role as a goddess and protector of the Earth, its meaning and implications, her anxieties, and how her actions in the past have impacted the world she’s supposed to defend, making her a better-developed character, something we never really got to see in the original. I also liked the explicit inclusion of the conversation among Shion, Saga and Aioros regarding the future of the Sanctuary and the new Pope. And that the golden saint that got the most screentime and participation this time had been Milo; he has always been to my eyes one of the coolest golden saints of all and it was very welcome to see him enjoying most of the spotlight. Nonetheless, obviously, all of this just isn’t enough to compensate for an overall terribly executed story and show. Rushed, horribly directed, horribly animated, uninspiring, unexciting, unpassionate, unmemorable, devoid of any soul and made by a staff that looked like they just didn’t care, Saintia Sho only served to sink even more the reputation of the franchise after the streak of entries ranging from mediocre-to-terrible like the conclusion of the Hades arc in original, Omega, Legend of Sanctuary and Soul of Gold. Watching adaptations like Shou honestly made me want to go back to the times when I wasn’t caring about anime anymore (which was a long time span), so that I didn’t have to be curious to watch entries like this one, spoiling my good memories in the process and missing the old staff of the original series who actually put love and care in their work. 2/10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Dec 12, 2018
Saint Seiya
(Anime)
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Pegasus... Ryuseiken!
Ahh, Saint Seiya. The curious case of Saint Seiya. An absolute classic that helped Dragon Ball in popularizing the long-running fighting shounen "genre" back in the late 80s, that yet, as opposed to Mr. Toriyama's work, gets so little attention, interest and recognition online in comparison to virtually all of the other big ones that followed it later, with some of them even being inspired by it (well-known authors like Tite Kubo, Masashi Kishimoto and CLAMP have all declared to have been inspired by this show. In fact, Bleach’s most popular arc was inspired by Saint Seiya’s most popular arc too). Along with the ... fact that this was the first ever anime show I completed back in the 90s (when internet wasn’t even a thing yet) that instantly became one of my all-time favorites, I must admit that this has been somewhat disheartening to notice. Though, this result is understandable when remembering not only that this is an old property, but also that this was the ONLY major long-running fighting shounen to absolutely BOMB in the highly coveted US market and by extension in every other English speaking country due to an unfortunate very late release in Toonami back in the early 00s (almost 20 years after its original release in JP) with probably one of the worst cases of localization in all of anime (see “Additional comments” at the end of this review), which ultimately prevented it from building any relevant fanbase there forever. Anyway, no matter its scarce knowledge and traction in English based sites, truth is that Saint Seiya’s position as one the most famous battle shounen shows worldwide is undisputed, mainly supported by the Latin American and Latin European (France, Spain, Portugal and Italy) regions, where its fate, as opposed to the one it suffered in the Anglosphere, was quite different. In fact…the polar opposite. Saint Seiya was HUGE here, even more than in Japan, and the French are the ones to blame, by being the first in bringing the series to the West and renaming it as “Knights of the Zodiac”. So much that, specifically in Latin America, this show got an almost religious following since it first aired. To put things into perspective, pick random people in any Latin American street, ask them what anime shows do they know, and Saint Seiya will be among the titles with the most mentions along shows like DB, Pokemon and Naruto. Go to any anime related store or shopping center and you’ll see the radiant (and expensive!) action figures -whose sales are still red-hot after all these decades- being displayed right in the main shop windows. Every time anime pops-up as a theme of conversation in social meetings, Saint Seiya is vigorously discussed. And this is the ONLY fighting shounen franchise along Dragon Ball that has ALL of its installments (including non-canon movies) completely dubbed to Latin American Spanish, something that not a single member of the so-called “Big 3” ever achieved here. It’s truly an icon of the “Latinsphere” pop culture and its collective memory. But why was it so successful? What was the reason behind the madness? If I had to describe it in few words…simply because Saint Seiya is just a fascinating tale about honour, courage and loyalty, and a blast of energy, style and passion. Well, let’s start digging out this. The universe Undoubtedly, one of the main reasons of its appeal has to do with its setting: Saint Seiya is a shounen heavily inspired and nourished by mythological themes, mainly greek. This is a world where mythological deities coexist with the real world and fight for the control of the Earth, in large-scale conflicts known as “holy wars”. For this purpose, each of them count with an order of warriors (in the case of the Goddess Athena, the one the author chose as the “protector of the Earth”, known as “Saints”), who swear them allegiance. These warriors wear armours known as “cloths”, sacred robes forged by gods which not only are used to protect their bodies, but also to enhance their powers, which represent diverse mythological concepts/entities. In the case of saints, the 88 greek-based constellations; for example, the Leo warrior, representing the constellation of Leo, wears a cloth that when not being used, its pieces assemble together taking the shape of a lion (watching the assembled form of each of these cloths is such a pleasure, especially the zodiac constellations!). The cloths must only be used for noble causes and never for personal ambitions, and aren’t mere inert objects, they are imbued with a “soul”, and a form of intelligence, they establish a bond with their bearers and may even reject them if they detect that they have deviated from the right paths. To acquire the title of saint and wear a cloth, the warrior must first learn to channel their inner spiritual energy called “cosmos”, from which he gets his powers (the equivalent to chi, chakra and nen). Ever heard that every human being is “made of stars’ dust”? Well, battle system sorta plays with that; it relies on the fact that the spirits of individuals are linked to their “guardian constellations”, which protect them and grant them power if they discover how to “become one” with them. It’s nothing really complex, but it’s still, let’s say, very “poetic”. And as a show with a mythological motif, this actually fits. This way, fights aren’t really entirely decided based on who’s physically the strongest, but rather on who can manipulate and “burn their inner cosmos” or create an “explosion” inside their bodies and become one with their guardian constellation the most. Fights are NOT decided by mere power levels! The warriors Within the order of Athena’s saints, there are three different ranks: the bronze saints (the lower rank), the silver saints (intermediate rank) and the golden saints (higher rank). Our main cast of 5 members belong to the first category. All of them are orphans with painful pasts which represent the tests they have to overcome in order to grow as better warriors. SS might not be exactly your show with lots of characters study, but it still does a good job in making its main characters more than just the powerful cool dudes that go to the field to fight, throw some attacks to defeat their enemies, entertain the audience and that’s it. With every fight they grow as both human beings and saints, so it’s not like the show does nothing with them besides using them as plot devices to just showcase the cool action scenes. It’s also important to note that, unlike what happens in most battle shounen series, Saint Seiya is a role model in having a team of warriors all of them sharing equal amount of spotlight; the distribution of fights is pretty even (despite the fact that at the end of every conflict it is Seiya the one who, given his MC status, gets a brief credit-plus). Seiya, who gives the show its name, is the “main” of the 5. He represents everything in old shounen heroes: brave, determined, impulsive, the nice dude every kid wants to be friend with and…wears obviously red! Then you have Shun, who started the trend of “the girly” dude in shounens (he may have been the inspiration for Kurapika, who, the same as Shun, has powers related to chains), very sensitive, delicate and kind, with a soft personality and pacifist. He’s the younger brother of Ikki, the cold-hearted, powerful and distant lone-wolf who’s always arguing with the rest of the group, acts by himself and obviously wears…blue. Before Vegeta, there was Ikki! He’s also the most psychologically complex of all since he was basically trained in Mordor, where he was inculcated the hate philosophy: hating yourself and the nefarious world around you will make you stronger. And that’s as far as archetypes here go (though to be fair, Shun and Ikki pretty much were pioneers, so they weren’t really archetypical back in the day), since the other two, Shiryu and Hyoga, seem pretty “untaggable”. The former is a noble, serene and wise chinese dude with a strong sense of honor, loyalty and self-sacrifice, embodying best the ideals and virtues of a saint, and the latter is a russian dude who’s by far the less stereotypical of the bunch with a very real characterization. He’s the “cool”, calculating and smart of the group who shows himself as strong and tough, when in reality hides a very emo-ish side and has the hardest time when it comes to overcome his tragic past and grow both as a person and saint. The style You would probably be thinking, after reading all this, that Saint Seiya is "oh, just another dumb battle shounen show made for kids". Don’t get me wrong, the saints wear cool-looking armours, use, pose and yell cool special moves, and give passionate, overdramatized speeches, and all of this is certainly appealing to kids, but this doesn’t mean it’s just another 80s show with a kiddy tone made only to sell tons of action figures. In fact, it’s quite the contrary: Saint Seiya (the original) is probably one of the shounens with the most grown-up, adult feel you’ll find out there. Not because it tackles “dark themes” whatsoever, but because unlike most shounens, the tone here is very serious and basically never lighthearted. Saint Seiya never feels “shounen-y”, in the sense of presenting a charismatic set of characters you would like to “hang out with” that will put all these funny goofy faces and will engage in funny dialogues during lighthearted/silly parts which are typical of most shounen shows and that try to make you “love” the characters. There’s none of that in Saint Seiya. Believe me…SS is closer in tone to Trust & Betrayal rather than the TV Rurouni Kenshin! There are a bunch of comedic moments, but they are minimal, only for very punctual comical relief (and most of them involving a situation with kids), they are “lovely” rather than goofy and only come in during the first part of the show. The show is just fully dramatic and sober the whole time and avoids the inclusion of any type of silliness, something that not even more substantial shounens like FMAB or HxH can say. It is important to note that it’s precisely thanks to this overall serious, dramatic and classy tone that all of the cheesy speeches the saints give never feel fake, tasteless, cringey and annoyingly forced like it may occur in other shounens, but indeed are actually effective in making the viewer really feel all the passion this series breathes out in a credible, intense and inspirational way like an heroic, ancient epic Greek drama. Finally, the fact that this appeals to kids doesn’t mean it was suitable to them, since Saint Seiya is VERY violent and bloody and never tries to hide it. Characters are seen being tortured in most of the fights with some gruesome moments and a lot of times bleed rivers (though towards the latter arcs the level of violence is relatively softened). This is exaggerated and may look absurd at times, but its part of its essence and style. It wasn’t so heavily censored in the US turning it into a complete failure there for nothing! I mean the very first episode features a human ear being ripped-off! Not for no reason the show generated a lot of controversy back in the 90s among parents and even the Church who could not understand how could something this violent could have been aired during after-school timeslots, and the series was even prohibited in some countries. To conclude: no, it may be appealing to kids, but it’s not a kiddy show. Following with the style, the show may not be anything truly outstanding when it comes to substance, but it CERTAINLY is in regards to its artwork, one of the other main factors that explained the popularity of the show. The level of detail and creativity poured in the designs of each of the many cloths to make all of them appealing, cool-looking and distinctive from each other and also into all the many buildings/temples that pay homage to the beautiful arquitecture from ancient Greece and the Neoclassicism artistic movement (Sanctuary itself is reminiscent of the Acropolis), reveals all the passion, love and hard work that the designers had to put in which are nothing short of admirable. The designs of all the many characters are also very detailed and stylized and there’s no one that will look similar to another. This is another thing: Saint Seiya, despite being a shounen, actually has a very shoujo-esque artstyle, because of the relatively big eyes, the long, fluffy hairstyles with vibrant coloring and the fine body proportions that not only made the characters look handsome, but also so respectable and so CLASSY, particularly the golden saints. It it also important to note that the artistic decisions in regards to character designs largely contributed to give the series the adult, solemn and serious feel it irradiates that was explained earlier. No single relevant character has a “funny”, “sweet”, “kiddy” or “teeny” appearance (excluding children obviously), something that can make lighter the tone of a series, especially in shounens, and in fact, the bronze saints (the main cast) while all of them officially around 13-16 years old, are really drawn as if they were WAY older. Seiya is the only one that can pass as a teenager, though never younger than 17. Finally, animation can look a bit poor at times, in fact there’re lots of reused animation sequences here (think of Sailor Moon transformation moments), and there’re clear budget disparities among episodes, but this is pretty much the norm in every long-running show (especially from Toei) so it’s nothing to feel very bothered about. Also the visual-effects are stunning, especially the ones to animate the cosmos gleaming light that the knights irradiate from their bodies that have nothing to envy to modern techniques. Overall, Saint Seiya is a gorgeous anime to look at. And not only to look at, but also to hear. Not only because the voice-over cast did an excellent job, but also because it features probably the most outstanding soundtrack in anime history. I’m sorry if I trigger anyone with this comment, but if you think that Cowboy Bebop, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood or Attack on Titan enjoy the best OSTs in anime, well, that’s because… you haven’t seen Saint Seiya yet! The music is simply INSANELY good. I know this is highly subjective, but what it’s not subjective is the fact that that the amount of memorable, resounding and powerful tracks that the genius Seiji Yokohama composed (as opposed to many shows with good OSTs but that in reality just feature at most two or three tracks that truly stick in your mind) is VAST. Most of the tracks not only boost the epic, triumphant and colossal nature of the show and brilliantly fit with EVERY single frame of it, but also explain a large part of what makes Saint Seiya the legend that it is. It just would not have made the same impact without them. You can really tell that each of the tunes was composed with the heart and brain at their fullest and there was a LOT of hard, passionate work behind them. I’ve yet to hear a score more exquisit, detailed, rich, stimulating, full of passion and love than the one Yokohama crafted. If SS’s score would have been the one of a Hollywood movie, it would have EASILY won the respective Oscar, and I mean it. And to insist with this: even the detractors of the show have recognized how damm awesome it was! The clashes SS -similarly to DBZ- consists of 3 main arcs where the first one contains an introductory sub-arc. The first one (Sanctuary, episodes 1-73) kicks-off the series with a tournament part that introduces the 5 members of the main cast and their personal conflicts and that is interrupted towards the end by a major event (ever heard of this before?). Excluding the legendary Seiya vs Shiryu fight, it’s unfortunate that this string of first 15 episodes or so (a significant amount) not only is the less interesting/exciting part of the show; it is also the lamest. It does not give an accurate idea of the mythological essence of the show, it doesn’t tell you since the beginning that this will be a show relying heavily on fantasy, and introduces the terrible Black Saints which are literally a bunch of dudes looking exactly the same as all of our protagonists with no single explanation whatsoever. Bad decisions didn’t stop there and in the next part of this first arc (Silver Saints) Toei decided to cram in the Steel Saints who were basically the Centurions: biologically enhanced warriors wearing mechanical/artificial armours whose existence went against the mythological/spiritual nature of the show (think of them as the “Porygons” in the SS universe) and were included with the single purpose to increase the action figures’ sales. It was stupid and the studio knew it: they soon after made them vanish leaving no trace at all! It was also unfortunate that some of the Silver Saints were bad filler characters and their concepts didn’t even have associated real constellations. However, all of this is more than compensated given that this part still did a very good job when it comes to develop the dynamics, relationships and conflicts of the main cast, creating intrigue about what’s going on here by slowly revealing the details of the plot and universe and by quietly setting the stage for what would be one of the most memorable arcs in battle shounen history: the Golden Saints, the fan-favorite one, the highest point of the whole franchise and what granted Saint Seiya its legendary status. Spanning around 33-34 episodes, the last part of the first arc easily catches the attention since the very beginning when an unexpected event takes you by surprise and from there onwards it’s just a non-stop epic hell of a ride charged with large amounts of adrenaline, real drama and passion all of which brilliantly blend together to yield one of the most memorable and fascinating tales I’ve ever experienced not only in anime, but in media in general. Beating with incredible tension, what made it good was that not only is a thrilling race against time with highly dramatic fights, but also an inspiring process of personal growth and learning from both the bronze saints and the golden saints, which were all of them enemies with rich, well-defined characterizations that made the viewer actually care about them and made them more than just forgettable “enemies of the moment”. (In fact, the golden saints are as equally if not more popular among the fanbase than the 5 protagonists themselves). The arc also efficiently manages to keep clear of the monotony that could have arisen given its stage-by-stage sequence by presenting some sort of novelty in most of the links of the chain. Not all of them are solved the same way and there’s a lot of creativity poured in, which lastly prevents any type of fatigue. I don’t want to spoil much, but it’s for this matter necessary to highlight that the main cast DOES NOT win all of the fights in their way up which is the most obvious expected outcome for a “typical shounen”. It is also a very inspirational journey where their virtues as saints and their determination are constantly being tested. The conclusion is nothing short of amazing (episode 72 is among my all-time favorite episodes), and while some argue that the way the conflict ended seemed somewhat convenient in the sense that it gave the bronze saints more credit than the one they were “logically” supposed to have, this was in reality the necessary way to go to prove wrong and destroy the ideals and beliefs of the main antagonist (who was probably one of the most interesting villains in all of battle shounens given the nature of his personality and concept linked to mythological themes) and to convey the overall message that “power alone is not enough to rule and it will never overcome justice”, which was the entire point of the whole arc. The next two following clashes, Asgard and Poseidon, face some controversy since, given how successful and well-received the Sanctuary arc was, they copy-pasted its plot structure (a race against time where the 5 bronze saints have to fight a group of warriors step-by-step that culminates with the big boss at the end of the journey) adding some slight modifications here and there (in Poseidon for example, the ordered sequence was broken when some bronze saints reached the final boss before every henchman had been already defeated), a decision that for some may seem non-creative, and may make them legitimately think: “come on, this again?”. Personally, I never cared about this, to me they are still enjoyable rides, but the situation for others may not be the same and not without good reason. They have been also subject of controversy since, given the new context after the conclusion of the Sanctuary arc, it wasn’t the most logical decision that the bronze saints were the ones to go to the battlefield (twice) again, considering they were not the most powerful saints in the hierarchy and some mild conveniences had to be introduced to justify this situation. However, I argue that this was necessary considering that, otherwise, they would have lost their protagonist status, what wouldn’t have made much sense. Anyway, going back to the arcs themselves, the Asgard arc (episodes 74-99), where the saints have to face a threat from the cold north, is basically a lecture of a “filler arc done right” that most long-running shounens would kill to have. Toei did an excellent job and proved that fillers don’t have to suck long before some other shounens did. The arc is well-integrated into the storyline and while the new enemies (the god warriors) aren’t as cool-looking, beloved and popular as the golden saints, they are still respectable and are in fact more developed in terms of characterization and backstory than the latter, which made them still very interesting. It may not have been as exciting and suspenseful as the Sanctuary arc, but it’s still a competent, highly enjoyable ride, with the Siegfried (the last and most powerful god warrior) confrontation as the highest point. Finally, the Poseidon arc (episodes 100-114), where the saints have to stop the ambitions of the king of the seas, while enjoyable overall (especially towards the end where it showcases the most colossal, larger-than-life moments of the whole series; certain event in the last episode always takes my breath away), it relatively failed to live-up to the hype since it was supposed to be the hardest confrontation of the series given that this was the first time they were battling against a real god and its army, when in reality most of the henchmen (the marina generals) were mediocre and were defeated without much difficulty by the bronze saints, which made things less exciting. It didn’t help that 4 of the 7 were totally forgettable enemies with no characterization at all. Nevertheless, the arc (and the show) still manages to end in a high-note with an inspiring and cheerful final message. The Achilles’ heel Now it’ time to talk about the show’s actual main flaws that no SS fan has ever denied: the consistency of its storytelling during the first arc and its lack of worldbuilding. During this part, the show suffers from some inconsistencies that anyone with a brain and a pair of eyes will notice, all of them arising from the fact that the author didn’t really have a very clear idea of where to head its work since the beginning. There’s just too much stuff of the likes “how can this be this way if this other thing I saw before was like that?”, especially regarding the identity and ambitions of the first main antagonist and the information some characters are supposed to possess given who they are and what they have lived in the past (for example: Seiya, who had trained in the Sanctuary for 6 years, is unaware of the existence of the golden saints, who precisely live right there! It’s not believable). Also one of the cloths changes its shape overnight and no one even wonders why. There is some discontinuity in terms of places too: some buildings that were not supposed to be located in a certain place given what had been shown before, suddenly are. And let’s not even talk, as I mentioned earlier, about the sudden vanishing of the Steel Saints. There are many others, but I don’t want to spoil and there’s no need to mention them all; the point is clear. Also, the show leaves a lot to be desired in terms of worldbuilding: it will leave you wondering many aspects about its universe and its functioning that will never be explained. For example, it never bothers to tell where the cloths come from, who crafted them, when does a saint stops using it (they are after all humans and can’t be fit warriors forever) and inherits it to its next holder. It’s also never explained how does the Sanctuary interacts with the rest of the “real world” (the Sanctuary is a place where “normal” people can’t get in, it’s supposed to be hidden, despite the fact that it’s an open place right next to Athens!) and what kind of roles does it have besides being just the place where Goddess Athena will stare the world from its heights. In the end, the show raises a lot of questions regarding its universe that will never be answered in it, but rather in the source, other media or simply in interviews with the author, however I do think that it would have added a lot of value if they had been answered/explained within the TV show. Personally, as one of my favorites, I’ve never been really bothered by all of this, the lack of answers and inconsistencies are really all minor and hence unable to diminish by enjoyment, however for adult starters, this could legitimately not be the case. So as a final advice: don’t think this too much. It is not a show to expect logic from. It is a show with a mythological concept after all! You should watch it as if reading a myth, a poem, the nature of SS is highly poetic, so instead of feeling lazy or illogical, it actually feels romantic. The tragedy The unfortunate case of Saint Seiya is that for starters it might look like a shounen show that “didn’t age well”, and is in fact something that is said about this show by some people. (I myself hate using that term, not only because it has been overused to death and because it has become the cheapest way of all to argue that modern shows are better than older ones, but also because I just can’t think that artistic productions are subject to lose value in time like they were cars or any type of electronic device). Why? Because during the last decades, anime fans have become more “brainy” and rational when it comes to judge (and enjoy) shows and in Saint Seiya EVERYTHING is in reality “hearty” or “faithy”, something that hence inevitably isn’t compatible with their demands, and that ultimately has led them to be unable to realize the whole point of the show (more of this in next paragraph). They started watching shounens like FMA, Hunter x Hunter, One Piece or even Naruto, all of them who helped to modify the shounen trends, became the new generation battle shounen benchmarks and consequently have been placed as what every shounen should aspire to be. Unsurprisingly, when they out of curiosity watch (after them) a shounen from the 80s (15-20 years BEFORE the aforementioned shows premiered, when the trends where clearly completely different), they deem it as a “generic, cliched shounen”, when the truth is that it wasn’t really (that) generic during the time it came! Which is exactly the fate Saint Seiya has unfairly suffered. Would Saint Seiya look generic today? Maybe. Was it generic when it premiered? NO, since it, alongside DB and HnK, were among the first ones in using many of the common tropes that many other battle shounens keep using until these days! It was definitely not (that) generic when it was released. Of course, battle shounen realm has evolved in such a way that shows like Saint Seiya with simple premises and no major substantial themes (even if they aren’t dumb) may not be appealing for newer generations (especially if they are already adults) who are more demanding after having established shows like FMA and Hunter x Hunter as the shounen benchmarks, but this doesn’t have to render all the shounen shows that came before them and that obviously could not follow these new modern trends they established necessarily as bad ones. Saint Seiya, as one of the first long-running battle shounens, was indeed a good show by the time it came (though not necessarily the best) and it’s very important to have the right mindset and perspective prior to watch it. Comparing an 80s show with a post-2000 not only is unfair, it is also pointless, since it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison! In line with the aforementioned issue, Saint Seiya has also been very criticized for its heavy use of shounen cliches like plot armour (the bronze saints suffer in many times severe damage, bleed like hell, are in many times at the edge of dying, and they never do, except for one of them), power-ups that seem illogical, main characters that stand up and never give up no matter how hurt they are and the so-called "power-of-friendship" resource that has nowadays been completely demonized after certain shows have overused it to an extreme with no grounds whatsoever. Some people were bothered that the fights did not have “tactical”, “strategic” or “logical” solutions, which demonstrates that they really never had a clue of the show they were watching and is a testament of the problems that arise when anime watchers become overly “brainy”: they are unable to understand shows that do not follow realistic paths. What do I mean with this? Saint Seiya is a show with a mythological motif, that pays homage to all those mythological greek tales, is entirely faith based, and people ask it… logic? Do all those tales seemed logic to begin with? To me, it’s just not the case. While I do agree that fights solved by strategy are more creative, this doesn’t imply that the ones that are not based on it have to be bad, and even if we consider them as “lazy writing”, facts still are that in this show every boost in power the saints experiment have a believable justification given the mythological context of the universe it takes places in and the rules it establishes since the very beginning which also are always consistent. The whole point and overall message of the show was always a highly romantic and “religious” one: imbued by the grace and protection of the god you believe in, overcoming seemingly impossible obstacles can be accomplished if your spiritual control linked to the cosmos, determination, perseverance and your faith in both yourself and the right causes you believe in and fight for, are strong enough, which is a theme that is permanently tackled throughout the whole show and is well-executed, so there’s never really any reason to feel annoyed by. Lastly, the “power of friendship” moments, aren’t exactly that, but rather “power of the union”, the same way the spirit bomb worked in DBZ. It’s not like the saints remember their friendship and voila, we are now more powerful, so the bad idea many people have towards this concept is not really present here. The legacy Saint Seiya, despite its minor flaws in its storytelling and its inconsistencies (that don’t really hurt the experience in a relevant degree), the repetitiveness of its arc structures later in the series and the fact that it may seem like a cliched story by today’s standards, it’s still a worldwide relevant and competent action shounen that executes its relatively simple ambitions in terms of overall messages well and which can be a highly enjoyable, inspiring rollercoaster ride (boosted by the enormous level of detail in its style) if you watch it from the right perspective. It’s a good show if you are both able to realize that this is a mid 80s battle shounen when the demo was only starting to take shape, when what now may seem typical wasn’t really so back then, and that it isn’t a show that you should ask for much logic, considering its mythological/religious elements. It also may not be a very thematically rich show, but this doesn’t mean it’s a stupid “turn-your-brain-off” one either. It’s pure colossal, passionate and cheesy 80s fun and from the best you can find. It may not be the most compelling shounen ever, but this one is still as classic and legendary as Dragon Ball and deserves to get more credit, attention and recognition than the one it currently has. 8/10. **Additional comments** • About the rest of the franchise: (i) Saint Seiya continued in 2002 with the Hades arc in OVA format, which, as canon material, should be watched. The arc has an spectacular first act, however, the second and third ones are sadly underwhelming. (ii) The first 4 movies of the 80s are all as interesting and exciting as your standard old DBZ movie. In other words: don’t bother with them. (iii) The Heaven arc overture movie was supposed to continue the show, but it was a failed project that never saw again the light of the day, so also don’t bother with it. (iv) The Lost Canvas is a non-canon “prequel” to SS. It is overall better written than SS, however, it also lacks the passion and excitement the original enjoys (still a good watch). (v) Saint Seiya Omega is the real “kiddy” dumbed-down version of SS. It is non-canon, has another universe and you’d be better avoiding it, as I did. (vi) Soul of Gold is just a cashgrab whose existence was as necessary as DBS. • If you haven’t seen this show and you are from an English speaking country, AVOID the dub. It is an abomination, one of the main reasons the show never took off in the Anglosphere and it’s not even complete. (For further details, check: https://landofobscusion.blogspot.com/2018/08/dics-knights-of-zodiac-i-just-ran-i-ran.html). • Despite the art being outstanding, sadly the versions that are available online are not very good and don’t make it justice, and belong to a “remastered” version that is probaby the only case of a remaster I’ve seen that ended being worse than the original. A lot of the beautiful details resulted butchered and the color pallette and contrasts are bad. Try to find the original version which is the best. • There’s this misconception that SS is a super sentai show and is “the Sailor Moon for boys”, since both use universe concepts, have a team of warriors who pose and yell their attacks and give speeches about friendship, perseverance, love and faith. However, that’s as far as similarities go. Aside from the obvious fact that SM is a cute and lovely and magical girl show, SS is a raw and violent shounen, and it’s NOT a super sentai show. In sentai shows, the warriors always go to the battlefield and fight together, while in SS the saints move separately and combats are always one-to-one. It is also not episodic and there are no transformation sequences like sentai shows usually are and include, respectively. • It’s also a myth that in SS the saints are overpowered. Sure, they are strong and powerful, but it’s not like they can destroy entire planets with their powers either like in DBZ. • It will draw your attention that when the bronze saints put on their cloths, for no apparent reason their hair grow a bit and their trousers change their color. For example, Seiya wears blue-jeans and when he puts on his Pegasus cloth they magically turn red. No: the cloths do not include wigs neither ink: it’s just an author’s whim. • The french (the first in bringing the show to the west) changed the title of the warriors from saints to knights, to avoid controversy with the Catholic Church, and hence in all the western dubs saints are known as knights. • Netflix is preparing a remake for 2019. The trailer has recently been launched. Watch it and judge for yourself. If I did here, this review would have actually never ended.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Nov 21, 2018 Not Recommended
Next December, the highly anticipated “Dragon Ball Super Movie: Broly” (which will finally fulfill the wishes of many Dragon Ball fans of bringing the character to the canon) will hit theaters, so I decided to check once again “Broly: The Legendary Super Saiyan”, the first of the 3 old DBZ non-canon movies featuring the villain and also the most popular and favorited one probably along “Fusion Reborn”, only to confirm my bewilderment on how can the former hold this distinction.
First of all, most of the old DBZ movies tell a story that either just can’t fit in the chronology of the main story (implying ... a continuity break) or unnaturally interferes with it in a questionable way, failing to build much interest in the audience due to the sense of irrelevancy and/or discontinuity, and this one is no exception. Right in the midst of the confrontation against Cell, and knowing how their world is in danger thanks to his presence, Goku happily accepts Kaio’s petition to investigate and deal with a threat coming from the southern galaxy without even knowing how much time this is going to take him, and Vegeta, who only wanted to fight Cell as soon as possible to prove himself, receives an invitation of another saiyan survivor called Paragus not only to become the king of a restored saiyan empire in a new planet, but also to fight against the legendary super saiyan who, according to Paragus, is causing havoc in the aforementioned galaxy, represents a threat to the new empire and Vegeta is the only one who can defeat him. The saiyan prince, who always heard stories about him, doesn’t even ask him why he would represent that since he was supposedly one of theirs, and tempted by the possibility to restore the glory of his race, also accepts to leave the same as Goku, both completely forgetting about Cell’s imminent threat and whose name, despite this, was curiously never ever mentioned throughout the entirety of this movie, as if that threat had never existed in the first place. How is the audience supposed to buy this? Was it really that hard to add just a tad of credibility by just dedicating a few lines of the script to this situation? Just a simple “hey guys, let’s make this quick, remember we have to go back to Earth soon to fight Cell!”? I know this lack of credibility and realism is present in many DBZ movies, but that is still no excuse. Anyway, once they arrive on the planet, they meet Broly, the son of Paragus and a very peculiar saiyan survivor characterized by a suspicious calmed and gentle personality (an uncommon trait for the saiyan race), but who in reality was hiding a monster inside that was going to cause a lot of troubles for the Z team. It just boggles me how Broly can be one of most beloved and popular villains among the DB fans. He is totally uninteresting, even for DBZ movies standards, or more precisely, was made uninteresting in the way. He could have been an intriguing villain. As someone who was overthrown and sentenced to death by his own people -given the threat he represented to the King for being born with an enormous power he had never asked for-, condemned to wander through the galaxies living in inhospitable conditions and who was later mind-controlled by his own father who wanted to make use of his colossal strength for his selfish purposes, he had a lot of valid reasons to be angry inside, to seek for revenge, and the potential to become more than just your average forgettable DBZ movie villain who wanted to conquer the world or something…was always there. But unfortunately, the movie failed to take advantage of this potential at all by presenting him at first as this enigmatic robotic dude who doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything besides making these wacky angry facial expressions whenever he stares at Goku (in such a way that it feels almost as if he was programmed to do so) and by then turning him into a dull over-muscled beast with just 2 brain cells: one that he uses to destroy and kill everything in his path, and the other one to yell: “Kakarott!”. And this was everything the movie did with his character, the famous Legendary Super Saiyan! We never get to know how he really feels or what he thinks about everything he has had to live, what his true motivations are, because he never speaks a single relevant line about himself; when he’s not the beast, his mind and behavior are under control (with a machine that the movie never even bothered to tell us how his father invented or how does it work, not even a single simple and quick explanation: it just does!) and when he becomes the beast, he doesn’t (and maybe, he just can’t) say anything about himself either, he just limits to yell: “Kakarott!”, leaving everything to speculation and allowing for some people to believe that, given the few-friends face he put to Goku and the obsession he develops towards him, the reason of all his anger was as stupid as he couldn’t bear Goku crying all the time next to him when they were babies, when the case could have perfectly been that, for some reason, he was to him just the embodiment of all the suffering he had to go through. Things are, since the information provided was so little and confusing, we could never know, losing all the opportunities to make the audience feel anything for him. At the end of the day he’s a completely shallow character, nothing else but a killing machine that likes destroying everything in his way pretty much like how Kid Buu was, except this time not even half charismatic and “lovable” like he was. The other aspects of the movie weren’t better. First, no matter how uninteresting your villain is, you can always arrange some exciting action scenes, which also wasn’t the case here. The confrontation (that takes half the movie) was incredibly tedious and flat, failing to create any tension or genuine excitement, so much that you just wanted the Z team to finish the job quickly to get back to Earth and resume their conflict with the much more interesting Cell. Speaking about Cell, Goku’s complete carefree attitude like if he didn’t have to solve this situation as soon as possible because Dr. Gero’s creation was waiting for him, not giving weight to the threat, was not believable. Goku was never that dumb! (At least not in the Z era). Vegeta acting out-of-character, easily surrendering after noticing Broly’s superiority, and as the prideful warrior he always was, also didn’t make sense; that was never part of his personality. Gohan, who was supposedly as powerful as his father (or even more) by this time, didn’t do much besides being passively part of the final solution and helping the alien race from the harsh labor conditions under which they had to work for Paragus, the same as Krilin and Trunks. And Roshi and Oolong, who had absolutely nothing to do here, were also included in the quest just for the sake of adding unnecessary comedy, which was terrible, unfunny and totally forced, doing no favor. Finally, the ending of the movie feels like…”well, let’s end this, whatever way, and let’s get out of here quickly”. After a tedious, over-stretched fight, we had a rushed conclusion with the climax literally happening in the last minute before credits start rolling and goodbye. Art and animation are pretty good, and in fact, better than the actual main series. But every single DBZ movie also does, so this is nothing particularly special here. Though I have to say I liked the greenish design of Broly’s hair and aura, which highlighted his status as an advanced and superior super saiyan. The music included some of the main series tunes (at least in the Japanese version, don’t know the dubbed one) but somehow I feel it was just ok, it couldn’t emphasize the intrigue and the action enough as opposed to what the main series always did so well. To sum up, “Broly: The Legendary Super Saiyan”, was just a total letdown. It promised to be one of the best but at the end became one of the most lackluster of all the old DBZ movies. To be fair, most of them are, but as one of the most relevant given its direct connection with the franchise’s most important storyline (the saiyan race), in this case the result should have been better. It missed the opportunity to leverage the legend of the Legendary Super Saiyan (forgive the redundancy) Vegeta was always talking about during the Frieza arc and was painfully boring, as opposed to the other two Broly based movies (“Broly: Second Coming” and “Bio-Broly”) which at least were funnier to watch since they featured the naughty kids Goten and Trunks going in an adventure and were considerably more enjoyable. I’ll honestly never understand what the DB fans found so good and entertaining in this movie and in Broly, who to me was never anything else than an over-muscled, 2 brain-celled beast obsessed with Goku for God knows why reasons, and I’m really hoping the upcoming movie, this time canon, could do something more interesting with the character and his backstory. 4.5/10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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