“No matter how cruel the world is, life has meaning” – Joseph Jobson
I know it is strange to start a review by giving the significance of this anime and the message it leaves behind, but I believe it is something in life that is kept quiet about.
Suicide…Self Sacrifice… Submission… Never Lose Hope... Never Give Up
While watching this anime, which I highly recommend, not for the artwork but for the story think about change. Think about the importance of human life and being alive each day. Think about why you were born into this world. Do not ever forget that you having a meaning in this world and that you are important.
The name of the anime “Blassreiter” which is a German word that translates to “Pale Rider” is a very unique name. Many anime’s are either named in a very simple matter… for instance “Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo” which translates to “The Pet Girl of Sakurasou” which literally translates word for word what the anime is about, or you have anime’s like “K” where there is no solid meaning but you can pull hints from like the names of each episodes or maybe translating it as “Kings” by pulling information from the songs used, and what the anime is about. But Blassreiter is different, I am sure many of you don’t know what a “Pale Rider” is as I was unsure, but upon investigation it means “a horseman” and in those terms I understand fully why the anime was named that, but I will not explain why because it does contain a huge spoiler. You will have to watch the show to find out what the true meaning of this show is.
Within watching the first 2 episodes of this anime, I was already confused. They throw all these terms at you like “Amalgams” and “Demoniacs” and to be honest after those first 2 episodes I just became hooked. The first day I watched 16 episodes, and the next day I watched the remaining 8 episodes. I do sometimes manage to go through other series at this accelerated pace, but most of the time I will end up skimming some of the episodes and skipping over unnecessary parts that are just their as fillers, this show however I managed to practically watch the whole show through.
Story:
At first I thought the story had no clear direction in which it was going, but after a while you figure out generally what is going on. The story takes place in a “fictional Germany” and research is conducted to create almost like “perfect humans” but for war. There are 2 distinctive sides in this show, a military group called XAT, which is trying to stop the outbreak of Demoniacs, and then the other side which I assumed you have figured out.
Characters:
There are 4 main characters in this show that I will be talking about.
Gerd Frentzen: aka “Champ”. He is the undefeated racing champion and seen as an idol by many.
Joseph Jobson: He is a unique character whom you probably will not understand his intentions until later on in the story, and you can decide if what he was doing was correct. In my opinion, aside from being one of the most important characters he is also one that teaches you the most important lessons.
Hermann Saltza: He is an officer of XAT and also Gerds best friend who sticks up for him no matter what.
Amanda Werner: This is the character that so highly resembles Mayor Lil from “Ergo Proxy”. Almost everything about them is identical and being able to see a character like this just put such a big smile to my face. Aside from that, Amanda is an officer of XAT and is partnered up with Hermann.
This is one of the shows where character development was huge and all the main characters had such a big impact. Many shows I watch, you see main characters who get tons of screen time but you wonder what their real purpose is, and after finishing the show you realize… nothing they just needed to add someone as a filler almost. Those types of shows tend to sadden me the most because they always had the potential to be able to shine. This show I became absolutely attached to all the main characters but if I had to choose one it would have to be “Amanda Werner”. There is no other obvious choice for “me” because of how similar she is to Mayor Lil. Mayor Lil is by far one of my favorite characters, from her personality, all the way to her looks and design. So me becoming attached to Amanda Werner was no big surprise after all.
Artwork:
I have to be brutally honest I am normally not super critical about artwork, but the artwork in this show was absolutely horrendous. Maybe horrendous is a little bit over kill but I am sure you understand, it just angered me to the bottom of my soul. To have such an amazing story and such amazing characters, for it to just be killed by the artwork is just such a shame. What I hated the most out of all was just the design for Demoniacs, they just looked horrible and the designs were very repetitive throughout each Demoniac. Aside from that factor, the artwork for the rest was okay. Also going based on the battle scenes everything just happened too fast. I don’t mean “fast” as in they could have added some episodes in here and there for more development I mean it just hurt my eyes to watch the fights. Everything was just all over the place and it was hard to follow what was actually going on, and the next thing you know someone was dead and you missed everything. I cannot stand shows that do this; to me it is just like people who are too lazy to throw their trash away. This show was almost too lazy to go into more detailed battle scenes and just threw it together like a mosh pit.
Sound: OP/ED
I am just going to go through some of the songs used in this anime, starting from the end.
The Last ED “Sweet Lies” – by Itou Kanako which is only used in the last episode (24) was by far the best one of this anime. The setting and mood that this anime left you in alongside then hearing this song was just soothing. This song was so perfectly chosen. Honestly when I was finished watching the show and then this song came on at the end it literally brought me on the verge of tears (I don’t tend to cry during animes but I get that watery feeling like when you are about to cry). This song just made me unbelievable happy and left such an amazing feeling that I was speechless at the end. Not many anime’s are able to evoke such an emotion. Even as I am listening to the full song while writing this (and I just finished the anime about 20-30 minutes ago) I feel as though I just finished watching it seconds ago and I am back in that moment.
The second OP “Unripe Hero” – by Minami Kuribayashi was just absolutely stunning. The lyrics of the song are soo fitting towards this anime. In General, OP/ED tend to be chosen very well, but in this particular case the Last ED was by far the best.
I can probably spend quite a bit of time on the songs used in this anime but the last one I want to talk about is the 3rd ED “A Wish for the Stars” – by Itou Kanako. Using the same artist again is something animes tend to do a lot of, and honestly it is something that leaves a really good impression. Now this song was honestly just as good as the Last ED but I cannot say it was because even though it had the same tone, the mellowness and serenity left inside the melody… I am going to try my best to put what is inside my head into words but I doubt it is going to sound 100% accurate. By using this song for about half the anime, I loved it but it just cannot beat using a song once for an ending that practically fits perfectly together like a puzzle. By all means thought this song was amazing. This show really kicked off using such amazing songs for the OP and especially for the ED!
Enjoyment:
There is really no place to start other than saying “if I managed to watch this in 2 days, it must mean something”. Like I wish I was able to take what is inside my brain right now and write it in words, but we all know that is nearly impossible so we have to compensate. On an enjoyment rate of 1-10, this scale cannot be used for how good it was, it is just over and beyond amazing. At first I was not expecting much because this show just threw soo much at you as I stated above but in the end I feel as if it managed to really kick through and leave such a big impact. Like honestly I have watched over 150 animes and I am going to say this is going be one of the few that I re-watch, I am not going to say like re-watch from episode 1 to episode 24 every minute, but I will probably re-watch at least 12 of the episodes fully, that is just how amazing of a show this was. The thing is like the suspense that this show left from watching the first time is something that I almost see as nearly impossible, to be able to evoke the exact same feelings at the same level as watching it the first time. Now I could be wrong but when I do re-watch this show I am going to probably skim through many of the episodes but will watch some of them thoroughly again.
Just as a little added special, I noticed that the top 2 recommended animes were Blood+ and Darker than Black. I am not going to say those are bad choices but in my opinion they are not correct. By far the most relevant anime relating to Blassreiter is Ergo Proxy. Once I was around episode 5 of Blassreiter that show just kept on popping up into my head and of how similar it was. I would highly highly HIGHLY recommend watching Ergo Proxy. The second show which I would recommend is Ga-Rei: Zero. I am not sure how to explain it but the stories are very similar, about self sacrifice and being able to protect what you love. Also Ga-Rei had one of the most amazing scenes on the final episode. What made me think of this show, was not only the story but the final episode. Like I can just remember vividly the music in the background which was soo similar to this its unbelievable. When I watched Ga-Rei I didn’t think I would be able to find an ending scene like that, but Blassreiter has managed to do it.
Well that was a very long review I just wrote… If you have any questions or comments please just send me a pm or write on my wall, I will try my best to answer to the best of my power! I will accept any type of feedback on to how to better improve my reviews, but please be constructive as well! Please also check my other reviews. Also if you want me to do a review on a certain show (whether I watched it yet or not) I will try to prioritize. Also check out my blog post (http://myanimelist.net/blog.php?eid=723679), to help me with future reviews!
