Summer 2010 Anime

[A Black Falcon]

Well if you read my posts there, I honestly find the crazily confusing plot to be the worst thing about the show... do I want to watch part of it again in the hopes that maybe there is some kind of explanation there that probably doesn't exist (not really, no, I'm not doing that), or just give up on it for just being completely confusing and nonsensical... but I was just so confused by the plot. It's like they tried to put in a lot of depth, but either were so rushed in how quickly they had to tell it all (I think that was definitely part of the problem) or the people doing the anime were so confused about how it was supposed to go that it ended up half nonsense. Flashy nonsense, but unintelligible nonsense all the same.

So catastrophic is the narrative self-destruction that it's difficult to honestly enjoy even the non-plot-dependent qualities. The pervasive high-end fan-service becomes a hindrance during the climax, time being an endangered resource even before panty shots start eating it up. The way the intrusive censorship yanks us out of the fights doesn't help either. From a purely technical perspective, the fights themselves are excellent. Their mix of impact-heightening shortcuts, punchy intercutting, smartly-deployed animation, and magical CGI glitz is rock-solid, and the inclusion of the student council and various ninjas and villains mixes things up nicely. But while undeniably cool, they aren't very interesting—a direct consequence of us not caring whether the participants live or are reduced to ectoplasm.

I sort of agree with this, they should have focused more on the fighting and less on the plot. The people doing the series were good at doing fight scenes. It's too bad that they wasted so much of their talents on plot almost no one watching could understand... they should have had more fighting instead. :)

It isn't a terrible set-up for a climax, but the restricted time frame—made all the more so by the occasional return to romantic complications best left in limbo—leaves it no space to unfold. Events are mashed up against one another like frightened sardines in a particularly small can, and you can practically see the series eyeing its watch as it plows through emotional confrontations, stripping them of all resonance. The pace is hectic, the progression of events is sloppy, and betrayals of character are common as there is no time to sufficiently justify anyone's behavior. The effect is disastrous, lending even the most obviously premeditated events an air of pulled-from-the-rear randomness. Akuto's long-anticipated transformation in particular is so flagrantly unconvincing that it fairly burns the enjoyment out of the entire climax. And then, just to bake the ashes a little more, the series reaches for the reset button, looks you right in the eye, and presses it. Crash. Burn. And with any luck, never return.

I think that this is based on a light novel series, and yes, as I said repeatedly in that post of mine, it was very obvious that they were very rushed in trying to fit the whole thing into 12 episodes... I think they really needed more. That or they should have simplified the plot enough to fit into the time they had. As it was, it just did not work.

I wouldn't bash it quite as hard as that guy though, I did care about the characters, and I definitely was entertained some of the time... but yes, it was not a good series overall. Was it worth watching anyway, for light entertainment? Maybe, I'm not sure. But either way it certainly was stupid. Oh well, what else would you really expect with this kind of show...