Anime Review: Blassreiter

Welcome to another fabulous anime review. Today, I will be reviewing the fast-paced motorcycle anime Blassreiter.

Story and Plot:

Story:

The basic story behind this is that there a supernatural beings, known as Demoniacs, who randomly  appear, and seem to transform from humans, and terrorize the city. The show is placed in a somewhat modern (early 21^st) version of Germany. The Demoniacs are superhuman and have claws/weapons and the ability to fuse and take control of technological entities. (cars, motorcycles, hacking computers)The  Xenogenesis Assault Team or XAT, is an agency that  stops and controls Demoniacs from terrorizing the city. Who are the Demoniacs? Where did they come from? Why are they attacking? Find out on the next exciting episode of............................Just watch the show.

Score:  4.4/5

 Plot:

This shows plot is a mixed bag. It has a few questionable flaws and its pros are not amazing, but they are still good. A big flaw is the lack of a concrete lead/main character. It's true that Amanda could be considered the lead, but what about Joseph or Hermann. This loss of a main character is especially true when the whole story is very centralized around Gerd in the beginning and the other 3, bar maybe Hermann, are not even introduced or look to be supporting characters. Advancing into the teen (10+) episodes we can start to see that these 3 characters are much more like main characters. Aside from the main character issue, I found the plot to also possess too many coincidences. Too many times, character X happens to know a relative of character S and they end up helping each other. Actually, scratch the coincidence part and specify it with "Character Coincidence". The show has a lot of these. The characters are somehow linked to each other by family and friends. Too coincidental. This wasn't too big of a deal, but it was somewhat irritating. Finally, the last flaw notable flaw is that the show did not have a solid plot. We were not aware of who was the main character and who was the "Main Bad Guy".  There are a couple possible "bad guys, but you can't really tell who was the main one. Also, I'm still kind of confused of their main goals and I feel that their histories were not looked at in deep enough. The plot is just basically just looking at the lives of some characters and then some random events happen to move it forward.

As for positives in the plot, this show does have too  much. The overall pace of the show is fast and with some stops along the way. The biggest positive here is that the show does a great job at keeping the aspect of mystery for much of the show. The characters are presented very well and their stories are kept a secret for a while. The show also introduces a couple few plot twists including a large one in the middle of the series to keep the audience watching.

Score: 10.6/15

Overall: Lots of confusion going around here, with few, but smart plot twists. Probably the worst thing  about the series.

Sound and Animation:

Sound:

Once again not my strongest point. I felt like this series didn't have anything extraordinary. The battle music was good. Also, during the many sad and depressing scenes within the show, the music is pretty good. I also particularly liked both openings especially "Unripe Hero". I didn't really like the first closing/ending song too much, but I definitely liked the second one. A complaint here, is that they don't really change the second ending at all. I would have liked to see another ending that was different. The pictures want to remind us of the events that have happened, but I feel like seeing the same thing too many times and not replacing the pictures with newer scenes was a flaw. Another strong song is D.D by Itou Kanako. It is very catchy and keeps the mood of the scene when it used.

Score: 8.5/10

Overall: Suitable music and sound for the sad and action scenes, with a few notable performances.

Animation:

I really liked the visuals of the series. The 3-D animation is very well utilized and the action scenes are very well presented. Also, another strong aspect is surprisingly the amount of blood. This series is honestly more of a psychological/character type of series. The action is definitely an important part of the series, but when comes down to it, it is the characters that really attract us.  Otherwise, I don't really have much to say about.

Score: 8.5/10

Overall: Solid animation, and a nice feel with the dark atmosphere.

Characters:

This is where the show really excels. The character are very well developed with a wide range of different and interesting characters. The characters are definitely what make this series great. From the 3 main characters, Amanda, Joseph, and Hermann, to any other of the supporting cast, they are all well explained and developed. My only complaint for character development would be a lack of development for both Al and Wolf. The characters all bear hardships in their past and are now all together to face this new and growing problem. When we look past the action, we are left with the strong and emotionally wrecked characters. Many or even all of the characters are either emotionally wrecked or psycho/power mad. They all have pasts that have brought them to where they are now and there are a few surprising character stories in the mix too. A particularly touching story, is that of Shido, and how/why he came to become a Knight for Zwölf. It is intriguing and very sad. Honestly, it is really hard to speak of the characters without spoiling a big point in the show that makes the characters so strong. Knowing this, I'll will not delve too much further into the emotional or psychological developments in the show, but I will hint that in some ways it is like a small scale version of Neon Genesis Evangelion. The beginning is much of a mystery, with no one really knowing what's going on. While, the characters aren't as developed as in Evangelion (which btw, I just finished watching Eva 3.0 today and I really liked a lot of it, but found a few not major, but big flaws in it. Overall: about 7.5-9.5 out of 10. Definitely will be making a review of this movie, but only after I have reviewed everything before this; which might take a while.), there are more characters than in Eva. Also, the mecha style of both shows is similar, in that the battles are just used to keep the show going, though they are somewhat important in Blassreiter. Think of it as a much lighter, more action packed, but still depressing version of the original Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Favourite Male Character: Hermann and Al

Favourite Female Character: Amanda

Least Favourite Character: Honestly, I didn't really like Xargin. Maybe Jill. Damn Jill.

Score: 18.7/20

Overall: Definitely great characters, with only a few characters missed, in terms of me wanting more.

Enjoyment:

I really enjoyed this series. I think it did a great job at doing a lot of things. The characters are really life-like, believable, and different and it is an overall great series put out by Studio Gonzo. I enjoyed most of the ride, but my enjoyment came to a slight stop near the end. Part of this was because of the series actually ending and not having any more episodes, but the other, larger part was that that the ending wasn't really what I expected. I will talk about this later. Many people agree that this was an entertaining series. But, there aren't too many people that say that this series was great or a must-watch. I'm one of those people that thinks, that it was great, but not necessarily a must-watch. If you like action, then it is a must-watch, because even if you don't like the characters, the action is good enough to just watch alone. But, if you don't really like action, even if you like strong character development, you might not like this show. It isn't really a thinker as much as it is just a sad story of humanity. For those who don't like action, sometimes the action get in the way of this characters and really screw some of the sad moods. One last thing is that I didn't really feel the Catholic/Christian thing in the show. The show talks about God's punishments and if he is really here to help us, but that is about it. There really isn't any other point to this and I feel that this could have been avoided. A definite 2-sided argument, but I would be in favour of getting rid of it. Finally, would I enjoy a sequel? No, this series cannot receive a sequel because select eventssssss ( a lot of events) that happen in the first series.

Score: 27.9/30

Overall: Although this rating may be a little high, I found this series to be very enjoyable and it is without a doubt underrated by many people.

Ending:

*Sigh*. Do I have a problem or something. For many animes I watch, I feel that I'm never overly satisfied with the ending. It might just be me who is bad at judging endings , or maybe they were just bad. This series had a mediocre ending that was resolved, but in a very anti-climactic. The ending was not as epic in the action department, or powerful in the sad/psychological/emotional department as it could have been. The good news is that it a pretty complete ending, but there are many  flaws and places that could have been improved. If you ask me, I think they could have had ended on the ending of Episode 22, if they replaced some of the events of 24 into 22. Episode 22 was just a much more emotional episode. Anyways, I'm not going to go too deep into this.

Score: 6.6/10

Overall: At least it wasn't terrible or leave too many questions unanswered.

Overall Score:

4.4/5

10.6/15

8.5/10

8.5/10

18.7/20

27.9/30

6.4/10

Total: 85.2/100

Conclusion:

I really enjoyed this anime and would recommend it to anybody who is into action and to a lesser extent "thinker" animes. Anyways, stayed tuned for more anime reviews. The next anime review seems to have been voted as Claymore, so that should be next. As always, Follow, Comment, Enjoy, and CYA!