The story overall is ok, but still loaded with cliche and dumb ass-pull moments. The story moves along quite quickly on an episode-to-episode basis, but still somehow feels like it's moving at a snails pace while you are sitting and watching. Plot arcs come and go at an alarming rate, often resolving with no obvious purpose to the overall story. By the time the show ends, you will be hard pressed to remember anything that happened in the first half of the show or why it was important to the conclusion (mainly because it wasn't important!).
Art direction is also ok, but your enjoyment is going to come down to how much you enjoy the CGI action/robot sequences. Personally, the actual look of the CGI wasn't overly offensive, but the way the action scenes played out was. A typical CGI 'fight' will often just boil down to two or more creatures/jets/mechs etc. circling around each other at high speed, firing off missiles at each other, and constantly dodging/blocking everything at the last possible second. This looks kind of cool the first few times, but after a while it's just dull and at sometimes a bit nauseating. Theres no pacing or intimacy to the action, it's often more like watching someone else playing a video game. You don't feel connected to the characters or their struggle when all you have to look at is a bunch of flashing lights. I'd take the still-frame action scenes from the 1997 'Berserk' anime over something like Blassreiter's 'flashy' action.
The Traditional animation is perfectly functional but completely un-invigorating. Like a lot of Gonzo's other work, it's very Substance over style. Character designs range from bland to stupid- Amanda being the worst offender. I'm not sure how the Audience is expected to take her seriously when she intentionally leaves her jump suit unzipped down to her Naval for 'ventilation' purposes even during moments of critical drama or character death scenes. If the show was a bit more light-hearted then a fan-servicey design like this wouldn't seem so out of place, but when combined with the down to earth/serious personality of the character, creates a bizarre contrast. The show could have benefited from more humour to break up the sour-face missery of the typical conversations the show is drenched in.
The characters overall are a mixed bunch, very few of them really resonated with me. A lot of characters do not get sufficient screen time to really connect with before they are killed or otherwise removed from the story. I couldn't tell you who my favourite character was, because none of them stood out by the end. As I've mentioned before, their are no light hearted roles in BR, everyone is sour-faced and miserable at all times. I didn't even really care who won the final battle, as whoever it was wasn't going to be less mopy than the loser so it probably wouldn't have affected the ending.
Overall I did not enjoy much of Blassreiter. That is, until the last few seconds of the show...
MAJOR SPOILER
If you wan't to watch this show, I'm about to discuss the very end of it, so you might want to stop reading now:
At the very end of the show, Amanda meets up with Malek on a random-ass hill somewhere. And guess what, Malek has a surprise for her: everyone in the who that died, good and bad, is still alive as a hologram inside Malek's motorbike. Their faces are all projected against a beautiful rainbow, and everyone get to say hello to Amanda. Isn't that sweet?
I don't know about anyone else's reaction to this, but after being bored out of my wits for 24 episodes, Blassresiter finally provoked a reaction from me:
I fell out of my chair laughing!
After all the Po-faced SRS BZNESS of the entire show, droning on about the nature of Morality and Death and all it's other quasi philosophical BS, to have the show pull something so ridiculous in its last few seconds came completely out of left field. What was the point? Was it ever hinted at that everyone was alive in hologram land? Doesn't it negate the point of the characters suffering and die-ng if they all just go to happy hologram land anyway?
For a few seconds I could only stare in disbelief, but at the point where the villain's hologram goes 'I'm sorry' I couldn't take it anymore. Did he really just apologise? Really? Is that the dramatic payoff to that villain's character arc? It's just stupid.
Ok I'm ranting now. The point is the show took itself way to seriously for what it actually is, which given it's essentially a show about robot people hitting each other with swords.
