Watching this series is seriously making me think again about what makes a good anime. I mean, especially now that I dropped Hakuouki, this series features the worst acting out of all the shows that I’m blogging at the moment. It’s way over the top, way too early, and full of cheese. And yet, I just can’t deny that out of every show that premiered this season, it’s actually the most intense to watch by far.
With these kinds of shows that have very obvious major flaws, it’s always a matter of trade-offs: how much you’ll enjoy these kinds of series depends on how much of the flaws you can stand, and the way in which the series in question actually makes up for it. It’s very similar to series as Shangri-La. It’s obvious that this series is no Sarai-ya Goyou or Yojou-han, but still. Out of all the series that feature bad or sub-par acting this season, this show makes up for it the most. The key to this series’ success in the long term is that it needs to continue to keep the balls in the air. As soon as the show starts dragging, my suspense of disbelief will break and it’ll turn into just another dull series.
This episode however, continued episode 2’s pacing and delivered yet again one heck of an atmosphere. Baremoto’s entrance in the sea of fire was cheesy, but despite that it had something really cool about him. This episode was all about teamwork, and the manly bonds between the group of lead characters.
Because seriously, despite the fact that this just isn’t Madhouse’s best staff at work, you can really see the strength of the manga author shine through. One by one, the characters are shedding their stereotypes. Mario at first was portrayed as your typical punk. Yet, the previous episode showed that he’s just a softie. Baremoto, at first introduced as your typical bookworm instead also has shed his stereotypical skin in this episode. I also wonder how Psycho Guard was in the manga: how much of that ridiculously overblown scumbag was present in the manga, and how much of it did the anime creators just make up to increase the tension?
Rating: ** (Excellent)
I agree that it’s way too dramatic and the acting sucks.
However, you can enjoy a series even if it has a ton of flaws, or even if it sort of sucks. That’s sort of how I feel about Senkou no Night Raid. I’m watching it even though it’s ultimately pretty mediocre and forgettable.
Considering I have this preconception that anime on the whole is overacted and over-dramatized (I know it’s not a correct one, but I digress), the major flaws of this series (those I just mentioned) do not really affect me.
That said, I would probably give it a lot of room for error purely on the basis of the brutal realism of their environment, which is something I haven’t seen often.
Umm how can one tell if acting is entirely good or bad if they don’t fully understand the language? Psgels I can understand the opinion of since he knows Japanese but it always bothered me when people commented on Japanese voice acting.
sucks that this will take a month to be subbed.
@ex, actually, no. Last week’s sub came out the day after the RAW was released and this week should probably follow suit.
Chris: it’s not necessarily about language conventions, but rather everything that defines the characters. The voice acting is one part of it, but also the way they’re animated. There are of course the nuances that you can only make out if you know the language, but for Rainbow it’s so over the top that I believe that anyone can recognize it.
You can still hear whether or not there is an appropriate level of emotion in the voice or if it goes overboard for the situation/language being used, even when you don’t understand. I still don’t understand/comprehend a lot, but bad acting stands out even on those words/phrases I don’t know.
Hm I suppose I should be a better listener because I have a hard time finding bad acting in voice acting I don’t understand. I’m also one to love awful dubs so maybe I’m just easy to please in the acting department haha
Overacting? Well that kills my chance of ever watching this anime. Ever. 🙁
*prays to god the manga gets translated*
The exaggeration of a role is indeed a bit silly, but I don’t really mind or notice it compared to other anime considering the entire setting is overly dramatic.
The first half of this episode was extremely horrible: very cheesy, draggy and overdramatic. It was seriously a pain to watch it.
I don’t think the voice acting bothered me. I think it was all the over-reaction of several characters that irritated me. ‘Baremoto’ finally won over me near the end of the episode. He was one of my least favourite character. He indeed managed to get rid of the bookworm stereotype. I’m still having trouble dealing with (and understanding) Ishihara’s violent obsession with ‘An-chan’. It’s his obsession with ‘An-chan’ that’s disturbing, not his lust for violence.
Fortunately, watching the second half was really rewarding. Yay for heart-warming moments! And YAY!’An-Chan”s past has nothing to for with sex exploitation–so that’s a little refreshing, I guess.