Okay, so this season I’m going to be blogging Canaan. It’s supposed to be a short series, and I’m not going to be expecting the most amazing things from it, but instead what I want from this series is the things it did well in its first episode: fun and well directed action scenes. For that, it’s going to have to correctly develop and characterize the cast, have a storyline that provides interesting and creative situations and a setting that’s dynamic enough to prevent from all those scenes from looking the same.
Canaan doesn’t seem to be a true adaptation, but rather a sequel. This is a plus, since the creators now aren’t bound by the length of the original source material, and instead can go in their own way and plan the story over 13 episodes accordingly. With this, they should be able to wrap up everything properly.
I haven’t read the original source material, and I don’t really think that I’m going to do so in the future. I’m not sure for how many others this goes, but I do hope that the creators take account of the ones who are unfamiliar with 428, rather than assuming that everyone already knows everyone’s back-story. And at the same time they’re obviously going to have to include this back-story, without boring the ones who did bother to read through 428.
I’m interested in the director, because this guy did Sword of the Stranger, which was a great movie in terms of action. If he can apply the same thing here for Canaan, it’s going to be a pretty enjoyable series while it lasts. The guy behind the seres composition wrote scripts for Simoun, has written the progress of series as True Tears, Sasami Mahou Shoujo Club, but unfortunately also a bunch of mediocre series, most notably Vampire Knight… I hope that with Canaan, we get to see his good side. And hey, the music is done by the composer of Noein and Phantom. That’s a plus too.
In this episode, we learn that for some reason, Maria and Minoru are now targeted, because they photographed something they shouldn’t have. Probably those strange infected people back then. The nature of the disease still is a bit of a mystery, because this episode shows an old guy with that strange mark on his face who can safely move in the open air.
My biggest fear right now with this series is that the creators are overplaying the chemistry between Maria and Minoru a bit. I can see them getting annoying quite fast if something doesn’t happen.
Rating: (Enjoyable)
Nice enough action sequence, but nothing special yet.
It’s an adaptation of a side story in 428. So I don’t think that you need to know allot about 428, although there are some references (the plushie).
Vampire Knight was actually one of the best adaptations I’ve ever seen, one of the very few that is better than its original manga. All the cliche, cheese and wangst was because of the source.
It’s still a mediocre show, but you must really admire the producers for how they adapted that almost impossible to do well manga.
This is unrelated but is it ok if I add you to my blog list? xD
Actually the chemistry between Maria and Minoru reminds me of the cute Baccano couple Isaac and Miria, that chemistry worked well because they weren’t the sole focus of the series and there were tons of other characters as well around them so they never got boring.
which happens to be the case in Cannan too .. if anything it reminds me of Baccano in terms of having a large cast of interesting characters, the right doze of humor, well executed pacing and top class action scenes.
Not to mention Baccano was a short series with 13 episodes too (yet it it felt like a 26 ep series .. so many things happened in those 13 episodes)
Mari Okada is a rising superstar in the anime scriptwriting business. Her approach to adaptation has been impeccable (Toradora! was especially stunning, with entire light novels convincingly presented in two episode arcs), while Simoun, Red Garden, and True Tears showed off some impressive original writing. It’s no coincidence that she gets so much work these days.
“The nature of the disease still is a bit of a mystery, because this episode shows an old guy with that strange mark on his face who can safely move in the open air.”
The mark hurts its host when he or she is in direct sunlight or touched by water, I think…
Yep,this was on my watch list as soon as i saw Mari Okada attached to it,he might be a hit and miss with psgels but with me it’s basicly just hit, from slice of life to action to romance,he can do it all.
Oh my god! It feels like Baccano all over again. Must watch! Must watch! PA Works and all the staff: thank you for giving us Canaan.