Hello ladies, peoples, and animals it is I, the Arcane Reviewer! Here to bring you a new review. You wanna know what I love? Well too bad because I'm gonna tell you anyway! I love post-apocalyptic settings. You can get really creative with just exactly how a world fell into dismay and then see the aftermath of it. Now while this anime I'll be reviewing doesn't do a lot new with the setting it does how ever do a bit different with the story of this destroyed world we see. So I bring to you my review for, Casshern Sins. How does it stand out from other dystopian futures in other anime? Well let's find out shall we?
Story:
The story for Casshern Sins is a bit of a mess but for good reason. When we first meet our main character he has no idea who he is or where he is. All he knows is that he is a robot of some sort and he is crazy strong. Along with his strength is a kind of berserker mode he has. Simply put; when Casshern is put under a lot of stress due to battle or hell even his memory coming back to him from time to time he well completely lose it and kill just about anything that's in his way. This actually comes in handy as he is constantly being hunted by other robots who all want to eat him. Yeah these robots believe that if they eat Casshern then they'll be saved by the Ruin. Oh yeah, you also have the Ruin too. The Ruin is a type of disease that only effects robots. Seeing as how this world is only inhabitant by robots that's actually quite scary. The disease causes the victim to rust away slowly and even fall apart, considering what part of the body is heavily infected. Casshern though is one of the very few who isn't effected by the disease. It's also hinted at that he may have caused this world to fall into ruin. So you have all of these half-crazed machines all gunning for Casshern in a last ditch effort to try and save themselves. This paints the world of Casshern Sins as a very dark and really depressing setting which it handles really well. As I said before the story is a bit of a mess but it's done so purposelessly because you're not exactly sure what's going on and what exactly happened to everyone. You're lost, just like Casshern. You are put into his shoes and you feel just as confused as he is until someone explains it to him which is not only a reveal to him but to the audience as well. The story also takes a some que from Cowboy Bebop. Now what I mean by that is that the show will break away from the main story of Casshern trying to figure out who he is and instead focus on another character who is only in the one episode that they're introduced in. These episodes will focus largely on this one character while Casshern takes a bit of a step back mostly just observes the character's actions. This helps in world building as you great a better scope of just what exactly this world is like and the people that inhabit it. These episodes are in my opinion some the best episodes in the whole series and they lend a of growth to this world and what the history is behind it. So I feel that the story here is very strong. Well, sort of. There is one big problem to the story but I'll touch apon that a little later.
Animation:
The production side of things here is very good. The animation is very slick and fast paced. But when the time calls for it the animation will be slow and patience as well. Action scene look good and in times when things need to get heavy on the drama the animation well go along with whether it's a crazy dramatic moment or a melodramatic moment quite well. The animation will also get a bit fancy with trying to pull off very artsy shots and slo-mo segments. This does give the anime it's own identity and I feel as though it was a very welcomed change of things. One small problem I had was that the scenes were sometimes a little too claustrophobic for my taste. What I mean by that is that sometimes the camera was pulled in really close to the action and it would be a little hard to make out just what the hell was going on in a given scene. This doesn't hurt the anime too much as it didn't happen often but when it did it was a bit annoying. But aside from the close ups the animation here is very nice ans stylish too.
Music:
Music in the anime was pretty good. Though nothing except for the opening theme really sticks to my head. The music is used not too often and when it is it's mostly for the fight scenes or the more calmer but heavy scenes. Like a couple sitting together taking in the possible end coming for them, things like that. Music was also used in times a very dramatic moments in the story but these moments didn't really happen a lot until the later half of the series. But in the beginning and middle the times when this did happen the music did stick out and helped the scene have an even more emotional weight to it. So even though the music for me is a bit forgetful it's still pretty good at points.
Characters:
Characters are okay to tell you the truth. Yes this is where the anime kind of drops the ball but not too badly. Like I said earlier the episodes that featured a one-time only character where great. They added to the atmosphere and overall harshness of the show. But the main cast is hit or miss at points. We has have Casshern who is a good character, but really only towards the middle of the show. In the beginning he really has no emotion at times and just kind of makes the same depressed face all the time. He's kind of boring for a while but he does however get more interesting as the show progresses. I won't spoil the villains as they are fun to watch but only two of them really. The main two you meet have some fun personalities and even have a small sympathetic side to them as well. While I feel that they were still pretty selfish villains I could a t least understand where they were coming from. The third villain was just a cookie-cutter villain. Also small spoiler, they build the asshole up to be a big threat but Casshern just kills him in a second. Pretty fucking anti-climactic for a guy you spend the whole series building up. The supporting cast fall under the same class as Casshern, nothing really interesting about them until the later half of the show. Which is pretty shoty writing to be honest. But I still feel that the characters from the one-shot episodes were still very good and the m,ain cast did get better over time. They're just okay but still enjoyable.
Nitpicks: (Warning!!!! Small Spoilers!!!!)
Now remember when I said that the story was kind of strong? Well allow me to elaborate. The anime had a strong story all the way through until you get to the end, or lack there of. Yeah the show doesn't really have an ending. The anime shows us Casshern getting back all of his memories and pretty much telling us flat out that crappy world that he's in right now is actually his fault. Then it shows that he's trying to live a life of peace with the main cast. Everything seems fine until we get another villain out and Casshern goes to stop her because of a sad moment which I won't spoil. Casshern goes, stops the villain, and then the show ends. Just like that. We get a monologue telling us that life returned to the world, I think because it was kind of vague. Then they tell us that Casshern became a legend. That's it. Nothing really happened in this ending and is was really unsatisfying after following all these characters and not even getting a conclusive ending to tie up the show. That's kind of bullshit.
Overall:
Would I recommend this show? Yeah I would. The show is pretty different and has an interesting story of a hopeless world with dying robots. That was enough for me to check it out and I left really liking it. But the ending does kill it a little bit so I have to deduct points because I don't like the ending too much. Still a good show but a disappointing ending.
Arcane Reviews give Casshern Sins a 7 out of 10.
You can watch "Casshern Sins" on:
Funimation (Dub and Sub)
Hulu (Dub and Sub)
