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| 4.
One Classy Bloke 
Wow, this really pulled off putting 20 volumes of manga in
three epiodes well. Well, the first two mainly. The third episode was really compressed
to fit in everything it needed before it ended and only just managed it. But then
they stuck a little bit after the credits to mess up everything. While I have
yet to read the manga, i still think it came out well. The animation was very
good, but that's what you would expect from an OVA series. The music was very
good, but what really made this shine was the plot. I am a fan of any story that
bashes the hell out of religion and this anime gave a very unique view of angels.
While most people see angels as divine beings beyond greed, lust and hate, these
feelings are all present in Angel Sanctuary's angels. As
the main focus is on the resurrection of Alexial, the side story of the forbidden
love between Setsuna and Sara interested me much more. It really shows how the
morals of religion can easily over ride true love. While that did not happen here,
you can see the strong use of religion to try to stop the relationship. The plot
is easily the strongest factor of this anime. However, I didn't really feel much
for the characters. All the characters, except a few, all had a good human feel
for them (even though most of them weren't human). If this anime had a fourth
episode to explain some of the other things better, it may of gotten the 5 stars
I wanted to give it. |
| 3. Olmanek
Unfortunately this is bound to offend people who hold strong
religious views, which is a shame, as it never claims to be precise or true to
any religious ideals or lore, it merely offers angels and demons, a heaven and
a hell, never specifying anything much more, it simply wants you to think of things
in the most basic childish way, 'heaven/angels good, demons/hell bad,' it then
offers an interesting point, which shows a realism of the angels, without a perfect
disposition, with petty, jealous and vicious points, but as always it's all a
matter of perspective, a belief in a greater good is the cause for the actions,
however, as can be surmised, to achieve a peace by instating a war, not precisely
of course, but that is a similar way of things. The story feels far too short
though, with many characters which weren't properly covered, and most annoyingly
interesting characters, there are a lot of subplots which could have been explored
but which weren't given the time, it is disappointing to think how good this series
could have been, had it been given a greater amount of time, perhaps if they had
cut down on the animation quality to give extra budget to the length, but that
is just wishful thinking. An interesting watch. |
| 2.
Iodine 
A three-episode fantasy tale of various supernatural entities
from Heaven and Hell converging on a boy named Setsuna, in the hopes that they
can waken the fallen angel, Alexiel, who resides within him. However, Setsuna,
having fallen implausibly in love with his younger sister, has his own troubles
to deal with. Secondary characters, most notably the conflicted Kira, wind up
the major movers of the plot. This is probably one of the most feeble, if not
downright insulting anime ever made, cannibalizing the Christian faith and pulling
every cheap theatric in the book for the sake of shock value. Most of the characters
are one-trick cardboard cutouts. Possibly the attempt to cover so much story in
such a short period forced the utter lack of character development, but that doesn't
excuse a plot built up on mainly cheap twists and painfully bad dialogue. Honestly,
not one mistaken gender character, but two? Animation
is, sadly, far too good for the story. The loveliness of some of the artwork and
design makes the flaws of the writing all the more evident and painful to watch.
The predictably tragic-but-with-an-escape-door ending is probably meant to be
uplifting, but I for one certainly hope we'll never again be subjected to these
distressingly wretched characters ever again. |
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