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Suikoden: Demon Century
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Title Info
- seen: 1 of 1
- type: OAV
- grade: watchable
- genre: magic_war
- made: unknown
- Review created: Tue Jan 30 11:13:14 EST 2001
- mod: none
Oh boy is this going to be a short review, because this is a very simple little anime. A strange cast of `bad' guys, as in tough, get together and kick the crap out of a bunch of bad guys, as in guys who deserve it.
And the plot isn't going to stand in the way of the violence. It seems that Japan was desperately waiting to go to pieces, and an earthquake levelling Tokyo was all the excuse they needed. Yep, Tokyo is now a ruined battleground full of vicious lowlifes, the occasional tough guy and lots of potential victims. And then into town strides a wandering cowpoke (well, someone from outside tokyo) with some fancy moves and a steely glint in his eye. It seems someone done put their hands on his little sister, and he's going to gather the posse and get himself some revenge...yeehaw!
Sorry, lapsed into western speak there. In any case while seeking for his kidnapped sister the young, but tough, martial artist gathers some of the weirdest companions yet seen. In time he also finds out that the modern wreck that was once Tokyo is ruled by a brutal criminal gang, and they were the ones who stole his sister. Fortunately all the other members of the group have their own varied reasons for seeking a touch of revenge, so it's time for a good old violence fest.
Of course in the background there's the absolutely expected `legend' to contend with. It basically suggests that all the people we meet were once magic assisted guardians in ancient China. They've all been re-born to fight an equally powerful foe. The whole kidnapping bit being nothing more than announcing the start of round one. But since this is obviously meant to be the foundation for later episodes, which didn't actually happen, it's not too important.
In other words it's really, really shallow stuff with absolutely no suprises. This is probably the most aggressively combat oriented anime i've ever watched. And it's plenty gory with a sufficiently large body count to keep fans of this sort of thing happy. The biggest suprise was that I quite enjoyed it as well. The characters themselves are pretty corny, feeling an awful lot like characters in an anime fighting game. There's a tough merc with guns, there's a heavy weapons merc who's also into religion, there's a suave police-man. They've got minimal backstory but they're so archetypal you can almost guess what special moves they've got. Mind you, the addition of a cross-dressing male martial artist, who's suspiciously fond of the lead, was a touch more twisted than I expected. The main thing is that while the personalities are not subtle they do make you want to know more about them. And some of the dialog does a marvelous job of suggesting character.
Even more pleasant is the fact that the production is suprisingly good. The characters look good, there's some lovely atmosphere to the scenery and the action, once it happens is actually smooth and fun to watch. While there's some errors, and it doesn't have a huge budget, this is actually very watchable. And the moves, even for some of the villains, match their sense of character very well. There's also some originality in the staging, and pacing, of the action as well as the fights themselves. It's all a little bit embarassing, so corny and obvious, but this wasn't bad at all. The voices must be pretty good, to get so much character into so little dialog. I don't remember anything interesting in terms of music.
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:25 WST 2009