Story: 4/10
So I found out pretty quickly that the whole story is basically a teen with his feathery partner going through a city to steal whatever valuable items are there; and winning the heart of some lady along the way! This happens every.single.episode.
Now repetition is fine for children’s shows, and when you only see an episode about once a week or so. This is because the story doesn’t get as old as quickly. However, binge watching this show was extremely hard for me because it had the same pattern for the entire 13 episodes. The show was episodic as well, meaning that the episodes had no connection with each other, with the exception of the last 2-3 episodes, as the last heist of the series was told throughout those episodes.
Needless to say I just got bored with it halfway through, and I really got no enjoyment out of it in the end. It played off the same mechanics, with a bit of comedy thrown here and drama thrown there.
Art and Animation: 6/10
If I could give just one word to describe the art in Ou Dorobou Jing it would have to be “outdated”. The show was released in 2002, and it clearly looks like it. This isn’t a particularly a bad thing; the style is pretty classic for a shounen of the time (and it makes me feel nostalgic). However, it’s not aging well nearly 13 years later with the rigid lineart and bright colors. The animation is nothing special either, pretty stagnant scenes throughout the show. If you are a person that is really into art and animation then this won’t give you a very great aesthetic experience.
Sound: 5/10
I honestly can’t remember a single moment while watching this show where I stopped and appreciated the sound quality of the show. The background music in the series was pretty forgettable; the opening was a classic mild jrock that was appropriate for the show in my opinion, which was carried over to the ending in style and essence. They both had recognizable and somewhat catchy beats, but again it was nothing impressive.
As for the voice acting - I only watched the english dubbed version. 2002 was when dubs were still pretty bad (but improving) so if you watch it dubbed you’ll notice some misportrayal or underemphasis of emotion, annoying voices, and overacting. That being said I thought that it was translated well enough and the recording quality was better than some other shows that I have watched.
Character: 5/10
The characters were pretty bland throughout the show. Everyone in the series with the exception of Jing and Kir were only covered in one or two episodes, which didn’t allot much time to background stories. In every episode there was one girl that had her own backstory and was supposed to be the “love interest” that always ended up liking Jing by the end of the episode. These girls were basically all the same in my opinion, and I just did not care about a single one of them.
Jing and Kir are the protagonists of the show, which means you would think that you would watch them grow and develop. Well you would be wrong. I will admit that there is something to a lack of backstory for a protagonist - it makes them mysterious, and we must accept Jing is a well known bandit king and take it with a grain of salt. This frees up time to show off what Jing and Kir do best: steal valuables and do it well. However, the two never grown beyond more than a quirky and comedic duo who are good at stealing. They run into mild conflict in every episode, but nothing that creates a lasting impression of Jing or Kir as characters. This left me a little disappointed.
Overall: 5/10
It wasn’t good, it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t what I was expecting. The show felt more or less “filler” - esque and about halfway into the show I was just done with the repetitious story. There was nothing in particular that made me want to continue it other than the fact that I didn’t feel it was bad enough to drop completely. This combined with a lackluster ending left me feeling almost cheated out the time I could have spent watching something that I really would have preferred to watch.
