Shameful Otaku Secret!

And his name that sat upon him was Gonzo

During the Spring of this year, Gonzo’s initial online streaming experiment began with two series: Tower of Druaga and BLASSREITER. Both shows were featured not only on Crunchyroll and BOST TV, but YouTube as well for an unlimited time. Tower of Druaga was pretty well-liked, and its twist ending caused some interest in Gonzo’s new properties. Then, of course, Panty Witches was a raging success of the dumbest kind. So what about Blassreiter, arguably the most “Gonzo-like” of the series?

Well, it doesn’t immediately stand out the way either Strike Witches or Druaga did. The series tends to slip into Gonzo’s comfort zone pretty quickly, and as such exhibits a quite a few of their typical problems. But it’s not without merit either — in fact, at times it was really engaging.

Story

Without getting too much into it, since part of the fun is watching the story unfold, Blassreiter tells the story of a human augmentation project — somewhere between Twenty Faces’ cybernetic super-soldiers and Gendo’s Human Instrumentality — gone horribly awry. The augmented monsters, called Amalgams, start running all amok in Germany on their way to destroy and remake the entire world. Through it all, the only people with the balls to try and save the world are some glorified cops on motorcycles.

XAT uniforms require cleavage, regardless of gender. I found this to be pretty progressive on Gonzo’s part.

Characters

The series gets a few episodes in before you finally realize who it’s actually about, and it’s not so much racing hero Gerd Frenzen (which you might think through two or three episodes) as it is XAT cops Amanda and Hermann. By the final episode, they’ve become fantastic leads. Amanda is the strongest female I’ve seen in anime in a very long time. If you’re looking for her to break down and need a man at some point, take your moe elsewhere — she stays on point for 25 episodes.

And, she’s a pink-haired looker!

Animation

Notoriously, a lot of people (myself included) ditched this show from minute one when they saw just how bad Gonzo’s trademark CG had gotten. It was like a video game had invaded my anime. But two things happened: First, it got better. The CG fight scenes between the dextrous amalgams were fast-moving and creatively directed. And second, I watched a couple Speed Grapher episodes and saw to exactly what level Gonzo will stoop if they don’t feel like animating a vehicle using cels.

CG motorcycles it is, then.

I mean, motorcycles are cool, right? Right?

The Gonzo Factor

Gonzo tend to try really hard to make their “adult” shows seem very “adult.” That usually means gratuitous violence and ridiculously amped-up sexuality (lol bewbs), combined in a way that makes everything feel decidedly un-adult. Rather than upping the sex-and-violence quotient, Blassreiter’s crew opted to use hopelessness, despair, religious themes, and insane amounts of character death to create something you might actually find somewhat mature.

Themes

Blassreiter’s characters struggle most with trying to maintain their belief systems and their sense of right and wrong in a jacked-up world where most of their friends have been needlessly slaughtered (sometimes twice). A lot of the characters are Christian and question their religious beliefs, and Zwölf is a church-operated organization, but Christianity is a theme that remains mostly unexplored. Ultimately, the characters like Gerd who become Amalgams cling to any belief, even if they doubted it during life, just to try to remain human as their basest instincts start to take over their minds.

Bottom Line

Blassreiter was part of an experiment for Gonzo. They’re not doing all that well money-wise, but they dumped 2 million USD into Crunchyroll, so something apparently worked (probably Panty Witches, actually…). [Edit comes in the form of getting schooled in my comments section — that money came in April so it's actually part of what powered this whole thing.] Considering more Crunchy shows this season and the off-balance amount of Gonzo stuff in Funimation’s iTunes store, these guys are going to be anime’s first real fixture on the Internet, for better or worse. The good news is, you could do a whole lot worse than Blassreiter.

If you like your anime dark and full of action, but without the over-the-top indulgences in sex and violence that Gonzo can be guilty of at times, give it a shot. I think it’s their best “traditional Gonzo” series in a while. And even if you’re just curious, you can jaunt on down to YouTube and check it out for nothing, so why not?

That’s what she said

Normally a 22 or 24 episode series has me pretty much hooked by episode 15 or so, even if it’s half-shit. After all, that’s a major time investment I’ve already put in. Yes, a show should really be selling you by episode 3 at most, but sometimes I keep pressing on without really knowing why. Shakugan No Shana really took a while, I was pushed on simply by the occasional island of true brilliance in its sea of clichés.

But one series that has let my interest dwindle more the farther I go, rather than the opposite, is Texhnolyze. What is it about this show that can’t hold my attention? Let’s look at the facts:

• It’s about gangsters. Gangsters are rad! Everyone knows that.
• It has a creepy child. Creepy children rock the house.
• Cyberpunk, despite being a little passé nowadays, is still pretty swell.
• Juno Reactor, that sure as shit is better than some generic J-Pop.
• Broody anti-hero lead character, OK, I can deal.
• Atmosphere, atmosphere, atmosphere.

We should be good to go, right? Apparently not. I was really excited early on about this show, but my attention span is nonexistent as of about episode 16. What happened?

First off, they blew their wad pretty early on. The incredibly atmospheric, nearly dialog-free first couple episodes were outstanding. They were almost Lynch-ian, and like nothing else I’ve ever seen, although I saw shades of a sexed-up Lain (did that sound gross? I totally apologize). But they couldn’t hold that without totally alienating everyone trying to follow what the hell was going on, and the more I learned about the weird moss and the warring gangs, the less I cared. I loved Yoshi, who comes in for the express purpose of fucking with everything (and having a mustache), but without him the show became pretty standard young guy-joins-gangster-organization fare. Just without Al Pacino.

The animation also started to get to me. The job is really sub-par for Madhouse, both in character design and straight up quality. People aren’t distinctive, and drawn without any real appeal. Of course, they’re also written without any real appeal. I’m guessing that Ichise will manage to develop some sort of personality as a climactic event, but as of now his aimless floating through existence is not endearing to me.

And as for the plot… I accused Shana of introducing too many new elements all the time, but those are just standard anime plot contrivances designed to get the writers out of whatever corner they paint themselves into. Texhnolyze’s story just adds layer upon layer of humorless, dry intrigue that just isn’t very intriguing. I love following a complicated plotline, especially in a gangster story, but I really stopped caring a while ago.

I’m sure I’ll finish at some point, and maybe then I’ll change my tune, but as of right now it’s collecting dust. Which is a shame, because this seems like the kind of show that is designed to have some appeal to Western audiences, Akira-style. But when I’d rather watch the next Clannad than something with gangsters and cybernetic limbs, I think there might be something wrong.