Blassreiter vol. 1 — anime dvd review
Okay, so since I’ve been promising this review for quite a while, I’ll make it short and sweet.
Blassreiter is a fairly inventive sci-fi anime stemming from a joint effort from studios Gonzo and Nitro+ (the latter a multimedia company focusing on digital novels and eroge). The series’s story is a bit hard to describe – the back story doesn’t really get fleshed out until the 10th – 12th episodes – but I’ll do my best. The series is what you might get if you put Tron, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, The X-Files, Resident Evil, and any Vampire/Norse mythology horror/fantasy effort in a blender, strained it, baked it, and left it in the fridge until it grew legs and took over the city. The show is set in a near-future Germany, where a mysterious virus seems to be turning mild-mannered citizens into metal-fusing monsters. Whether the plague is supernatural or purely technological in origin, no-one really knows. Regardless, the XAT (Xenogenesis Assault Team), a crack team of special police, try their best to stop the infection.
There are some additional elements of the supernatural, prophecy (ie: A human-demoniac is prophesized to rise up and become the Blassreiter (German for Pale Rider), a sort of super-demoniac), but this all serves as a backdrop for a series of intensely character-driven story arcs, each focusing on a specific individual’s temptation by, and eventual fall due to demoniac super-powers. The first 12 episodes cover roughly 2 1/2 of these story arcs, the first concerning Gerd, a motocross superstar who falls from grace after suffering a paralyzing accident, and the second, Johan, an adopted boy dealing with constant bullying and the loss of a close friend. Both end up accepting Faustian bargains, gaining Demoniac powers in order to right wrongs done to them, and both end up suffering for their decisions. These setups present a steady stream of ethical and moral dilemmas, making the story substantially more heady than its cover would convey. Also interesting is that the series does feature a primary character, a pacifist human-demoniac in total control of his demon side, though he remains in the periphery for the majority of the episodes (at least in this volume). All the intertwining sub-narratives provide an intriguing structure, which kept me savoring this set until the tail end of last year. In order to stay spoiler free, I won’t divulge any specifics, but the narrative proves admirably complex, with just enough tantalizing clues and insights into the core mythology to keep you watching for the story first, and the action second.
But that’s not to say the action is at all bad. Blassreiter features its share of demon-robot battles, car and motorcycle chases, strong women, and super-heroics. Many of the altercations are presented in a cell-shaded CG fashion, which is satisfyingly smooth and provides a fair share of interesting visuals. That said, some of the CG is a bit wonky at times. For example, 3-D models seem to be moving without concern for physics (ie: gravity, particles, impact from vehicles), and elements colliding in the same sequence seeming to adhere to their choice (not always in agreement) of the Earth’s, the Moon’s, or Jupiter’s gravitational fields in different points in the frame. Still, the quality of the presentation is strong enough that these small things can be overlooked.
Character models can be fairly generic (ie: the strong silent guy with the dark bangs, the busty bespectacled science officer), but each is varied enough to allow for easy identification, and none I would accuse of being totally uninspired. I watched the English dub of the series for the most part, and aside for some swearing that’s not in the Japanese subtitles, it proved pretty on target. Furthermore, the voice acting was really a top notch effort from all involved. It’s one case where I actually preferred the English language track over the Japanese.
One final thing I would like to address is the series’ music. Nitro+ came up with over 2 hours of original music for the series, and the vast majority of it is catchy enough that I would actually recommend picking up the soundtrack (Do the same for Claymore as well!). I found both the shows opening and closing tracks, Nonsense Afterimage (Minami Kuribayashi) and Sad Rain (Aki Misato), stayed with me throughout the day every single time I watched an episode. Great stuff.
In closing, Blassreiter is a surprisingly awesome anime, and one that I can’t wait to finish. The series is action packed, smart, and funny, and well worth a pickup from the discerning anime viewer. Check it out.
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