Story: This anime is only twelve episodes long, which helps to illustrate what happens when you try to park a bus in your garage. Adapted from a manga, there is not enough time to explain everything or give side characters some depth. As a result, we have several animated paper bags running around with Tragic Story post-it notes stuck on them. Of course, the story is not really the main selling point for this anime. You are watching this for the gore fest and flying limbs and buckets of superpowered blood. So, by the time this ends and major plot points are left unresolved you don't really care.
Characters: We start off with innocent Ganta who after a certain point it is in a state of perpetual shock and spends a lot of time crying. That is quite understandable: after all, he is surrounded by psychopaths and sadists, like a mouse in a room full of cats. He doesn't get very annoying, props to the seiyuu, and grows a bit of backbone by the end. Speaking of annoying, we soon meet retarded Shiro who is less intelligent than a dog but physically stronger than the Hulk. And runs around in a body suit so tight it must give her an awful wedgie. Shiro remains constantly annoying and occasionally frightening. The rest of the characters have their (twisted) charms but their backstories are too rushed for us to care. Musclehead inmate Senji is perhaps the most appealing character and wisely kept to a minimum or else he would have easily upstaged Ganta as the main. Finally, the villains are all sadistic , sociopathic cartoons but they are fun to watch as they try to grind poor Ganta to the ground.
Animation: Stylishly done by famous Manglobe studio of Samurai Champloo and Ergo Proxy fame, now fallen on hard times and reduced to animating moe-tard shows to put food on their table. The opening sequence especially is beautifully done and the fight scenes follow with some nice details here and there. Visually, there are no complaints, it is a feast for the eyes (uh… maybe not quite the right expression in view of a certain episode).
Music: Personally, I am fond of the opening song and I've only put it on repeat for about 2000 times. It's in English, by the way, and thankfully not in Engrish. The background music is also very good, with some haunting arrangements very well fitting the mood and splatteriness of it all. Some would say such a good music score is wasted on a mediocre anime like this. I think they may be right.
Overview:
After all the shock value is spent and the gore fest is over, this is actually a mediocre anime. It certainly isn't a keeper but if you like splatters and dismemberments and pretty, bloody pictures then give it a go.
