Category: Wolverine

It’s great to see that this series is actually getting slightly better again with this third episode. I mean, this show fixes so many of the problems that Iron Man had. Wolverine is quite unique as an anime protagonist, especially in this Winter Season, and thank god the creators actually make use of it. This is what I’m expecting of a superhero action series.

Both Iron Man and Wolverine had to find ways to balance their characters, and prevent them from being too god-moded, and it’s hilarious how badly Iron Man failed at this by turning into an ignorant wimp at times. There was really no tension to this character as you could completely predict when he would win and lose. Wolverine is different though: the past three episodes showed that he’s an unstoppable beast, and yet there are plenty of people who have more refined combat techniques. Everyone in this series actually has a different way of fighting. This episode also showed that with the help of his female side-kick, Wolverine can come up with quite some interesting ways to fight back, like with the Molotov cocktail bombing.

Above all though, I love how well this series makes use of its simple storyline in order to never really slow down. It always keeps the balls in the air. The action scenes are long, but not too long and make sure to provide new small twists in order to prevent it from getting stale. The soundtrack is even better than the one from Iron Man and really helps to complement the action. It’s a simple action series, and it definitely isn’t as well animated as some of the other action this season (Madoka Magica and Yumekui Merry in particular), but it’s definitely some good, clean fun that I dearly missed t Iron Man.
Rating: * (Good)

As for the series I’m not going to blog:
– Infinite Stratos has a male lead who despite only piloting a mecha once, has 1337 piloting skillz. Yeah right, been there, done that. Moving on,

Anyway, now that the entire season aired, I can really say that it has one HUGE advantage, and one huge disadvantage:
– The great thing about this season is that just about every series has an awesome soundtrack. There really is a TON of ear candy here.
– The bad thing about this season: teenagers. Whether it is the series that continued on from previous seasons or the ones that debuted during the past two weeks: nearly every freaking show revolves around kids and teenagers.

The only exception is this one: Wolverine. So of course I couldn’t pass this up, especially how much better than Iron Man it has turned into. Wolverine pretty much had the worst possible publicity with the disaster that was Iron Man: poor in just about every way. Let me reassure you though: Wolverine was made by an entirely different production team. One of the few similarities is that they had their soundtracks composed by the same guy, and even there Wolverine is better.

Now, I am not really a fan of Wolverine, so I don’t really care whether or not he’s different from his American version. Still, I’m not going to complain that this series is going to adapt a number of the comic books that are integral to his backstory, especially after how Iron Man screwed up with its original story. Wolverine’s action also was much better than the incredibly dull fight scenes of Iron Man. It’s well directed and makes great use of its soundtrack in order to build up and create its atmosphere. The fights themselves aren’t particularly well animated, especially after watching Madoka Magica and Yumekui Merry, but they still work thanks to a good sense of timing and atmosphere.

The acting is very stiff, this episode showed that again, especially during the quiet parts. Still, the characterization is good enough to make up for it. The female character who was introduced in this episode actually kicks ass, compared to Iron Man’s love interests whose roles were completely shallow and corny. Yukio’s backstory meanwhile is simple, yet effective. It fits the whole superhero series much better.

Ironically, two and a half years ago Madhouse and Osamu Dezaki pretty much created the perfect example of how an anime superhero crossover should be done with Ultraviolet: it had interesting plot and characters and a unique style and creative vision. Wolverine ultimately is too simple to be as good, but this simplicity is more than enough to keep my attention here because beyond the stiff acting there’s nothing really wrong with this one. Still, this remains a great sign: all of the marvel anime are going to be completely different from each other, instead of the same. Who knows, perhaps X-Men and Blade are going to be even better?
Rating: * (Good)