Who the hell wrote this storyboard?
Canaan busted in with a nice pedigree, Type Moon character designs, and True Expectations. Did it deliver? Well, that depends on what you were expecting…
Story
Canaan has a story about Alphard and Canaan clashing again, but this time it’s the Maria version. This makes all the difference, but not in a good way. Maria’s importance is tied to her past with Canaan, and her mysterious connection to the Ua virus experiments. It seems promising at first, but the loose ends are never wrapped up. As Canaan is based on a scenario from the game 428, I can’t help but wonder if the show makes a lot more sense if you have already played the game. The anime basically felt like a prequel to a show I’ve never seen, as if there was other information out there and I just wasn’t making the connections.
Many will point at the story as a major weak point of Canaan, but I’m not sure that the story is bad so much as it is badly executed. There is a lot of symbolism thrown in concerning truly seeing, cat’s cradles, snakes, and escaping from one’s past and I believe that the director meant for these connections to be made. Unfortunately, the execution just is not there, and most of the symbolism comes off as either rushed or tenuous. Overall the story felt like something from a cliche action film, but I really think that with a little more effort towards making the story more self-sufficient the story could have been a strong point for Canaan, rather than a weak point. Instead, the writers decided to try to distract viewers with tons and tons of implied yuri.
Characters
The one character I really couldn’t stand was Maria. I didn’t hate her, but I did feel like her existence was a bit of an affront to the rest of the series. You know when a hack author takes/steals a great story and inserts himself/herself into the story as a character? That’s almost how Maria played out. She just seemed inserted into the story as a way of stealing screen time away from Canaan and Alphard. At least Maria was smart enough to snap a picture of Alphard before she got shot, but that scenario would have played out the same way regardless of Maria’s bravery. I would have laughed if Alphard was blinking in the photo, though… Anyway we never really find out about Maria’s past and she never does anything useful in the present. She’s not even depicted as a believable photographer. She just seems like a half-baked character thrown in at the last minute as Canaan’s plaything.
Aside from Maria, however, most of the characters are awesome. The Snakes are really cool, and I enjoyed Liang’s brand of crazy and Alphard’s mysterious ways. I especially liked Alphard’s plan to drag Canaan down with her, but naturally Maria’s stupidity shielded Canaan from any feelings of rage. Alphard is both a worthy antagonist and object of affection, and I couldn’t help but root for the Snakes from time to time. Many of the side characters ended up being quite enjoyable too, and I found myself really pulling for Yunyun and Minoru even though they seemed like throwaway characters at first. Canaan is a bit bland, but someone’s gotta play the determined, overpowered, Gundam pilot hero.
Tilt
The production values stay consistent throughout, and overall Canaan looks very pleasing. Although the action scenes are sparser than you’d expect, the choreography is excellent and some of the fighting is very inventive. The camera work, if you will, is especially good during the various Canaan vs. Alphard fights, although I suspect Alphard just makes everything better. I liked the OP, and of course Nene’s songs made for great inserts (especially when sung by the various characters). Also, the voice work was SUGOI.
Verdict
As I’ve mentioned before, Canaan is pretty much just an action flick with tons of yuri undertones. Still, if this is what you want to see, then Canaan is great. More than anything, Canaan feels a series of missed opportunities that would have lifted the show into something more than just a fun ride.
Kabitzin’s Rating: 4/5
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This post was written by...
Kabitzin – who has written 1940 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
One of the founders of Sea Slugs, I handle most of the blog admin tasks while wearing my I AM BOSS shirt. I like my action series well choreographed, and my romance series extra trashy. I also have a soft spot for puns.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Only good part of this show was Liang Qi stepping all over sugoi.
i did enjoy everyone treating Maria as a punching bag. Usually annoying characters get to whine in peace, but the Snakes made Maria pay!
Alphard is mai waifu. It kinda sucks that she only has one arm now, but you hack off her other arm and both of her legs and I’d still take her over Maria.
I am convinced it was a move to up Alphard’s moe levels.
Yeah, Canaan was decent but could have been better.
Highlights:
Canaan grabbing Alphard’s booty during the washroom fight
Liang Qi stepping on and beating up Maria
Alphard beating up Maria
Liang Qi going nuts in the end.
Yunyun
Lowlights:
Maria
Hakkoo’s necrophilia
How can you point to Hakkoo as a lowlight? That was hilarious!
Mwahaha
Sugoi, sugoi, SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-GOI!
Years later, her father found that it was actually a symptom of her brain cancer.
I would have enjoyed it so much more without SUGOI. All the promo material lead me to hope for Alphard and Canaan kicking ass the entire show. Instead we got some shit with Maria talking about how much she sucked. You’re completely right. She wasn’t even worth hating, it was just unbearably annoying.
That being said, Alphard losing an arm sucked, but I would also take Alphard without any limbs over Maria. Only reason I kept watching Canaan was to see her beat/troll the crap out of people.
Seriously! Is it any wonder that Spiderman takes his own pictures?
Gotta agree that the “side story” vibes are Canaan’s greatest weakness.
BTW, all thirteen episodes of Canaan are going to be screened at a theater in Ikebukuro next week: I have to wonder what sort of person could stand to watch all of the episodes consecutively (Liang Qi’s craziness is best taken in small doses, while Maria trying to be serious is, well, …). Although seeing the Canaan and Alphard fights on the big screen could be cool …
I think Canaan could actually be decent marathoned, because you could kinda ignore Maria and just wait for the next sweet action scene.
After the Cummings-Alphard showdown, my next favourite comedy scene has to be the one where Canaan told Maria that she had a SUGOI ahoge – the woman may have questionable taste in girlfriends but she knows a SUGOI ahoge when she sees one!
I loved the part where Maria said her ahoge boner wouldn’t go down. If your ahoge boner lasts for longer than 4 hours, you should see a doctor!
Pretty much. I didn’t have any expectations at all; if I had I probably would never had seen it through to the end. I didn’t even know about the Type Moon connection until I looked it up after watching the first couple of eps and wondered why the character designs looked familiar. TBH hardly any more of their influence shows through, certainly not on the Nasu side of things. I’d put money on it being a side-story to 428, if anything.
To me Canaan tried too hard. I could see where it was aiming for, but the director and/or screenplay writer seemed out of their depth and didn’t really know how to use what they had to work with. Hell, I can’t find fault in the animation. The choreography was superb but I can’t shake off the feeling that it was one storyboard draft away from being something memorable.
The cab driver was awesome though.
Exactly. If i knew more about 428 I would know if they were trying to fit everything in or if this was simply a WRITER FAIL. This is why you should do multiple drafts of your outlines and storyboards!
Heh, I love Canaan. I recently began watching it, and it’s brilliant.
With a full 25 episodes Canaan could have explored it’s plot and characters more, and would have been a much more rewarding experience for it. Removing the silly parts would have gone a long way as well, since Canaan tried so very hard to be taken seriously and then ruined itself with slapstick and fanservice idiocy, courtesy of Yun-Yun, a cat suit, and psycho lesbian. I’m reminded of how the once-great Star Wars was brought down by Jar Jar and C-3PO’s head being dragged around an arena.