Dec 26, 2014
Story: The story was absolutely grand. Devoid of plot holes and captivating, the story is a wonderful mix between drama and racing. Of course, it does start out slow, taking about 6 episodes to get interesting and another 4 or 5 to become as captivating as it did, but once you get interested, there'll be no putting it down. The story is great, it deserves itself a 9, just shy of a ten due to the starting slowness.
Art: The Style is definitely unique. Oban uses a mix between 2D and 3D visuals and while it works wonderfully, the 2D animation is where it seems
...
to fall slightly in. The animation itself, while crisp, seems somewhat lazy, the human characters don't even have noses, and are the whiskers on Jordan's face supposed to be peach fuzz? But where the 2D animation may lack, the 3D animation makes up for, being smooth and entertaining. The racing scenes seemed particularly entrancing. Overall, a good 7.
Sound: The sound quality was absolutely wonderful. The racing scenes sounded realistic and made the star-racers come to life, the sounds of the environment were very well done, so then why do I give this an 8 instead of perfect 10? Well, the answer would be the voice acting. Living in the U.S. it was hard to find the original Japanese, so I got an English version, so remember that this is strictly based on the English voice acting which was somewhat unbelievable, and not in a good way. Starting off, the voice acting sounded somewhat forced and unrealistic. Given, as it went on the voice acting got better but there were still some off-episodes. So due to this, I give the sound a good 8 for having outstanding sound effects but underwhelming voice acting.
Character: The characters are full of life. Their personalities written well and their relationships with each other are even better. The only reason for myself docking a point is due to one certain character's unbelievable folly that no good real life version would make even under the circumstances he was in. But, aside from that, the characters are vivid, have great stories, even better relationships and deserve a good 9.
Enjoyment: I enjoyed this anime very much. I first saw this as a child of 8 years old when it first aired and I heavily enjoyed it then, just for the racing parts. Now that I'm older and able to understand everything, I must say I had an even more enjoyable experience this time around. Of course, as I've stated before, it was a bit slow to start, not enough to drop it by any means but still a bit slow, but it makes up for that with everything that happens after episode 6 and for that it deserves a 9
Overall: To conclude, the anime was very well made and it's very disappointing that not many people know about it since Jetix changed to Disney XD. This anime was a childhood favorite and still a favorite now as a young adult. I'm very happy i decided to rewatch it and experience the characters, story, and amazing races that I (barely) remember watching as a child. Overall, this is a good 8 and i would recommend it to anyone who likes racing anime or drama.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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