Now this story moves slow, I mean VERY slow, and this is the first noticable flaw of Casshern Sins. This is supposed to serve as dramatic build up, but the schitck wears thin after five episodes, and establishes nothing outside of what the audience already knows. The trick to telling a competent story is to offer mood and then deliver the plot, from there you move on to climax, as opposed to the 12 episode circle jerk the first DVD boxset provides. Calling it a story gives it too much credit, because it implys that anything thats taking place is going to lead somewhere. Humpty Dumpty has more plot cohesion then Casshern Sins because even this nursery rhyme managed to tell a decent plot offering a character (the Egg), the situation (a wall he wanted to sit on), the predicament (he fell), and a conclusion (he died). In Casshern, we get the egg beating up a bunch of rotten eggs and other eggs talking.
There's lots of dialouge, but I lost interest in anything ANY of these characters had to say by episode nine.
Which is Cassherns' other problem: Bland as hell, one demonsional lead characters. Casshern himself is a six page rant in itself, so I'll just summarize the point of my angst in regards to this character and others written like him: I HATE AMNESIA-STRICKEN ANIME LEADS! This is a cliche that's been done to death and I am sick of seeing every other title being bogged down by a main character with a gimmick thats been used to death by Hannah-Barbera in the sixties. Writing a character that doesn't remember anything excuses the author of having to make their hero develop in a chronological sense with the rest of the stroy because everything has to grind to a halt until he says, "OH YEAH, now I remember!" It's insipid and five out of every ten shows is almost guaranteed to use this stunt. As for Lyuze, she's even more worthless than Casshern himself. Her grief against him seems simple enough, but becomes insufferable as time goes on. How do have complex emotions about a guy who allegedly destroyed your past that borders outside genocidal rage?! It's ricidulousluy stupid character writing and diving into her psyche only shows just how egotistical and self-deluded this writing staff really was into thinking they were creating a philosophical masterpiece. The villians Leda and Dio add nothing at all besides generic obstacles who, from what I could piece together, fail as antagonists, and Ringo's only driven purpose is to chew up as much scenery as possible before the Ruin hits. The characters in this show are episodic.
The animation is impressive at first, but gets hammered into your brain with as many cluttered, over-choreographed fight scenes as any given episode of Bleach, and the fights are just as meaningless. If this show isn't talking your ear off, it's showing Casshern laying waste to every rejected Mega Man robot master fans submitted in to be put into a video game and nobody can lay a hand on him! This guy no-sells damage worse than John Cena!!
IN CLOSING: Not since RaXephon have I made it all the way through an anime that could've been promising if it had direction, likable characters, and wasn't so pretentious and long-winded in it's own bullcrap writing. Characters talk, dialogue goes nowhere, then they fight and fight and fight, then stop for more talking. Intrigue was lost halfway through and the climax was God-awful. I'm sorely disappointed that I spent money on this. I'm gonna go turn myself into a robot bell.
STORY: 3
ART: 5
SOUND: 7
CHARACTERS: 2
ENJOYMENT: 1
OVERALL: 3 out of 10
PROS: English dub isn't bad
CONS: Lackadasical writing, boring characters, repetitive BGM, everything else
