Cashern Sins – 04

Short Synopsis: Casshern meets a girl who loves fighting.
Highlights: Subtle emotions rock.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
You know, back when that first episode ended I remember noting how Casshern Sins was too one-sided and how Casshern was too angsty, but I’m right at the point where I’m going to take that one back. Casshern Sins has been getting better and better with every episode, and at this point it’s my favourite of the new Fall-series after Mouryou no Hako (but then again, this one does have a few episodes of advantage against series as Tytania and Michiko to Hatchin, so who knows?).

The stories of the people that Casshern has been running into have all been excellent so far. This one explores a girl who through the chaos has come to love fighting. nd if she’s going to be destroyed, she might as well be destroyed being happy, and doing the thing she loved. That’s the basic set-up, but the really memorable part is the subtle character-development, with which she and Casshern come to understand each other through the course of the episoe. The pacing is very slow, but the subtlety makes excellent use of it.

I think that having a slow pacing like this series has, can either make or break your series, depending on how well you know to use it. The danger is of course boring your viewer to death without anything happening soon. The world Masterpiece Theatre solved this problem by adding lots of realism to keep the viewer busy, and with Casshern, it’s very subtle dialogue. A lot was said in this episode, and even though I didn’t understand everything, it felt that every line of dialogue contributed to the end result. On the opposite side of the spectrum, you have of course series like Naruto and Soul Eater, who try to lengthen their airtime by adding pointless exposition that everyone already could have guessed and doesn’t develop anything.

There’s just one thing that I want to see more in this series: an in-depth look at one of the robots who didn’t decide to look like a human. The ogre in this episode was a good start, but I’d like to see an even more in-depth look. As beautiful as the human designs in this series are, I think it’d really benefit the stories if we also get to see a bit more of their side, and why they’re letting themselves get killed off so easily.

Also… what happened to the dog?