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Garei Zero
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Animation - 9.0 |
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Sound - 8.0 |
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Story - 8.0 |
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Character - 9.0 |
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Value - 8.3 |
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Enjoyment - 8.8 |
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Average - 8.5 |
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| Average |
9.0 |
| Animation |
10 |
| Sound |
9 |
| Story |
8 |
| Character |
10 |
| Value |
9 |
| Enjoyment |
8 |
| To sum it up in two words: Katsuhiko Takayama. If you don't know who he is, he scripted Fullmetal Alchemist, Ef, and was one of the driving forces behing Kimi ga Nozomu Eien. One of the great anime screenwriters of our age. Ga-Rei Zero has deep, complicated characters and a serious, tragic tone, plus a great deal of action and a constantly-evolving plot. These are all things Takayama is very experienced with, and the writing is just what you'd expect.
Well, almost...one episode wasn't written by Takayama, and it was a disaster. That episode lost most of a point for story. I'm not going to tell you which one--it'll be a good test of your ability as a reviewer to see if you can guess which one it was.
Ga-Rei Zero follows the story of Yomi, Kagura, and the group of excorcists to which these two girls belong, starting with the time that Kagura's mother dies and she is adopted into Yomi's family. Even though I haven't read the manga, I had no trouble identifying with these characters. It's a delicate and touching happiness...right up until Yomi turns violently against everyone else.
Thus, Katsuhiko Takayama leaves himeslf with the monumental task of explaining why kind and loving Yomi suddenly started to hate everyone. This takes up much of the story, and unfortunately, Takayama is forced to rely on some supernatural forces for the transition to make sense. It's still handled well--there's a tragic series of events that leads Yomi to doubt everyone else, and that's what lets the supernatural forces work...but it's somewhat less of an analysis of human nature than I had hoped. Of course, I'm not sure it's possible to do any better with a plot like this one.
That being said, the characters and their struggles are very realistic. All of the important ones have strengths and weaknesses, doubts, and conflicting desires. There's none of the wishy-washy exaggeration of character for humor, like you get with most anime. It's actually quite interesting to see Takayama try to deal with characters that, in the manga, obiously served this purpose (e.g. Nabuu/Nabuu or the swordsmith).
Animation was actually quite beautiful; I especially liked the way the director dealt with darkness. The fight scenes are also especially good--the director has a way of not animating certain bits of it, which reveals the ways that the characters are surprised through the course of the fight. Of course, be very careful that you watch the DVD version--the non-DVD version contains censoring, which is quite distracting at times.
Sound was also above average, especially if you like electronica--though I must admit, I'm biased in favor of the sound since I listened with headphones. I particularly liked the fast violin part in the OP, and I have one song from the OST ("Pressure") permanently added to my library (which doesn't happen too often).
I'm going to again abuse the "value" category to mean "philosophical value". The remainder of this paragraph is spoiler. There was one line that really got to me--in the last episode, Kagura said something to Yomi that really made me think. "I'm sorry, Yomi. I believed in you. I believed you weren't evil, but that wasn't enough. I formed my own image of you and forced you into it, and that hurt you needlessly." (translation AniYoshi) It's a rejection of the common "hero" prototype, and it argues against believing blindly in somebody. Love is not equal to believing in somebody; love requires recognizing weaknesses.
As for enjoyment, this series was just too damn sad. I like my anime to be at least a little uplifting, and the ending of this one was nothing of the sort. I had the same problem with Kimi ga Nozomu Eien. Of course, some people like this, so I won't comment further.
I should also mention that some previous reviewers didn't like the first episode. I thought it was brilliant. It made the statement, "This is not the common shounen, where every battle ends neatly and the characters can just move on. No--like real battles, the fights in this anime can end in a mess." To me, that expectation was quite important while watching the rest of the series.
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| Average |
9.5 |
| Animation |
10 |
| Sound |
8 |
| Story |
10 |
| Character |
10 |
| Value |
9 |
| Enjoyment |
10 |
| A prequel to the famous manga. The story is very approachable for newcomers who never read the manga and the story is breathtakingly stunning and tragic.
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2 of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Ender |
(2009-01-28 22:08:25) 2009-01-28 21:47:42 |
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| Average |
9.2 |
| Animation |
9 |
| Sound |
8 |
| Story |
9 |
| Character |
10 |
| Value |
9 |
| Enjoyment |
10 |
| 整部動畫看完後，漫畫變得如此傷感，劍輔雖然活蹦亂跳，但是存在感為零。神樂的每一根pocky都讓人心碎，她與劍輔的每一次曖昧都充滿遺憾，她已經不可能再有最重要的人了。我想起了喬伊斯的不朽短篇——〈Dubliners〉中的〈THE DEAD〉。劍輔永遠無法真正和神樂在一起，哪怕漫畫中的她，是一個爛俗的倒貼女主角，不時提供就對他一人的走/光。這個心情，劍輔能感覺到麽——“Generous tears filled Gadriel’s eyes.He had never flet like that himself towards any woman,but he knew that such a feeling must be love.”他不會知道吧，一個女孩，長發披肩，許諾不會讓她受傷，最後靜靜地死在神樂的懷裏，抱著她的頭，用最後的力氣告訴她：“最喜歡神樂了。”他只看到這個女生的口氣滿不在乎，嘴裏卻一直叼著一根pocky。
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0 of 1 people found this review helpful.
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lord0din69 |
(2009-01-03 03:26:42) 2009-01-03 03:06:56 |
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| Average |
6.3 |
| Animation |
7 |
| Sound |
7 |
| Story |
5 |
| Character |
6 |
| Value |
6 |
| Enjoyment |
7 |
| To briefly explain the plot and setting, Ga-Rei Zero takes place roughly 2 years before the beginning of the manga Ga-Rei. It opens up the series first with the epic battle when Yomi tears up the city, and then does a flash back showing how Yomi and Kagura met. Sadly because of the flash back you already know the entire setting and purpose of the story now. It’s going to be sap story trying to make you feel upset about the tragic end of the friendship between Yomi and Kagura. However, you can gain some insight into other aspects of the Ga-Rei universe and how things work.
If you haven't read the manga, you're probably completely confused as to who these people are. Also you're probably confused about the first episode as most people are. It was just misleading episode that is all. Those characters you see in the first episode are never used again. Well... beside Yomi that is.
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1 of 1 people found this review helpful.
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