Zetman seemed very promising at first to me. It was dark, it had rather realistically drawn characters, it was very violent, and had people turned to monsters and using lots of gruesome superpowers. It would be a nice change from the average superpower shounen with its comical goofy kids and never-dying cast. And yet the anime managed to make me lose interest just from the pilot episode by being nothing but a parody of Power Rangers. By parody, I don’t mean it is funny but rather that it makes fun of the genre than being the mature seinen show I thought it would be. It is just than it is obviously poking at the stereotypes and saying “We will have more violence and sex than Naruto but it will otherwise still be like Naruto.” So yeah, it is still just dumb and it is not going to require any brain cells to figure out what is going on; the storyline is just what it appears to be. Idealistic good-hearted kids taking on evil organizations run by adults. They are just more selfish and violent than usual; something that hardly offers more depth to those who got bored of the easy going violence of normal fighting shounen and want more gore.
So, what is the story all about? There are these people who can mutate to monsters and are used by the rich and powerful in death matches for amusement. Some manage to escape and believing they are better than the rest, they start causing several deaths and mass destructions. The hero is a poor orphan who lives in some slum and after his friends and family are attacked by said monsters he decides to protect them by turning to a slum gang leader who transforms to this macho monster and kicks ass of bad monsters who mess with his buddies. Plus, there is this rich kid who thinks it’s a paragon of justice and forms a team of school kids who protect the town from the monsters. There you have it, the protection complex strikes again and that is all you get. Oh, and there are token cute girls in there just for the sake of having some piss poor platonic romance. They are as important to the story as sand is to Bedouins. YAWN!
The cast is not any more complicating or realistic than your typical Power Ranger characters; they are still easily divided into good guys (always dumb teenagers) and bad guys (always ambitious old dudes) and it is just the depressing and violent backgrounds that make them appear to be a bit unusual. The illusion breaks very easily when you figure that they are not doing much with all that other than having them as dressing. Heck, just listening the more than corny dialogues is enough; they all talk like their IQ is around 80 and repeat the same 50 words over and over again (protect, power, superiority, stronger, love, etc).
Also, although I never read the manga (and after seeing the premise in the anime I probably never will) everybody who did, claim that it messed up the character depth of the manga source (whatever depth you could get in such a story that is) by rushing through several events instead of investing time to flesh them out. So the pacing of the plot is extremely fast, to the point lots of important events happen without the proper duration. That tends to make you not care if people die and stuff blow up in a few seconds. I mean, seriously, the first episode alone felt like a summary of six episodes instead of one normal one.
The artwork is definitely the best part about it… and still bad compared to the manga. It looks detailed and mature until you start looking at the fine details. The facial grimaces for example will feel way too off for such a setting to the point it feels like comedy. They react in very woody ways like it is all a bad theatrical play. And the action scenes are flashy on a very superficial level but otherwise lack any great fighting choreography. They are just disjoined simplistic attacks and the hero is unbeatable, so they lack excitement entirely. You may enjoy it for the gore but even that is censored and doesn’t last too much; so again YAWN!
The soundtrack is also nothing memorable. Despite sounding like an old fashion ballad at times, it is still far from ear catchy. It feels colourless and having to endure all the corny dialogues of the characters your impression won’t improve much.
So in all the only thing I liked is the rather detailed and realistic artwork. Nothing else seems to be above your dumb Power Ranger level, despite the show boasting to be a dark and violent seinen. Its ideology is still shallow and there have already been several other similar titles over the years that did far better; some of which are the following: Devilman, Guyver, Parasyte, Tekkaman Blade, and Soul Taker. I liked those far more in their early stages than Zetman and it’s not because I grew older or I don’t like buckets of blood anymore. The presentation simply sucks in this one; it is lifeless and shallow. Nobody with above minimum demands should give it a try or expect anything other than a forgettable time waster.
And now for some excused scorings.
ART SECTION: 6/10
General Artwork 2/2 (looks realistic)
Character Figures 1/2 (generic)
Backgrounds 1/2 (basic)
Animation 1/2 (basic)
Visual Effects 1/2 (basic)
SOUND SECTION: 5/10
Voice Acting 1/3 (retarded)
Music Themes 2/4 (average)
Sound Effects 2/3 (ok I guess)
STORY SECTION: 4/10
Premise 1/2 (typical)
Pacing 1/2 (erratic)
Complexity 1/2 (not much)
Plausibility 0/2 (none)
Conclusion 1/2 (cheesy)
CHARACTER SECTION: 6/10
Presence 1/2 (generic)
Personality 2/2 (rather cheesy but well founded)
Backdrop 1/2 (generic and simplistic but it’s there)
Development 1/2 (overblown but it’s there)
Catharsis 1/2 (overblown but it’s there)
VALUE SECTION: 1/10
Historical Value 0/3 (none)
Rewatchability 0/3 (too blunt to bother again)
Memorability 1/4 (generic and passable)
ENJOYMENT SECTION: 1/10
Art 1/1 (looks nice)
Sound 0/2 (sounds boring and dumb)
Story 0/3 (feels generic)
Characters 0/4 (they are passable)
VERDICT: 4/10
