I wanted to find some other pages about Blassreiter to comment on, and I was really disappointed to find that very few (if any) bloggers covered Blassreiter. I was also guilty of assuming that Gonzo + CG + Motorcycles = Fail, but so far the show has been very engaging. This post will be pretty spoilery, but I just wanted to talk about a few things related to the plot and characters. I now regret not blogging this series, as there is so much to love and so much to mock at the same time.
Story
The story is definitely the most surprising part of Blassreiter. It starts off looking like your standard monster-of-the-week cheese with motorcycle-centaur Demoniacs zipping around the city. I think this is the image that is seared into the mind of every viewer who stopped watching Blassreiter after the first episode. Fortunately, Blassreiter is not a show about motorcycle-centaurs, and after the first third of the series the emphasis on motorcycles decreases dramatically.
When characters start dropping left and right, it is a real shocker but it is also rather invigorating. Gonzo did a great job of getting me to care about minor characters, even after I realized that many would be quickly eliminated. Where I’m at now, loyalties are being questioned and the grand plot is being revealed. I am still fearful of a crappy ending, but now I understand that the possibility of a great story exists.
Characters
The XAT team is surprisingly nuanced, and I liked almost all the members. Hermann falls a little flat for me since he is always huffing and puffing around, but he is still a great friend. All the stuff he did for Gerd and Amanda is very admirable and I can understand why they like him in spite of his faults. Al and Brad were cool too, and it is just so refreshing to have snipers that are actually useful to the team. In contrast with most anime special forces teams, Brad and Al are integral to XAT and the teamwork with Amanda and Hermann is exciting to watch. Their lounging outfits are totally dorky and Brad’s retro haircut makes me giggle, but I liked the snipers. The stealth raincoats were really sweet as well.
Unfortunately, none of the XAT team can match the awesomeness of Wolf and Meifong. Both started out so boring and then became so fantastic. Wolf’s transformation was especially amusing to watch. He was your stereotypical battle-hardened boss at first, but once he got infected he turned into something completely different. I couldn’t help but laugh as he was stumbling around popping pills and having long monologues while humping Beatrice. The fact that Wolf turns into that coworker (you know, the one who comes into work looking like crap and gets everyone sick) makes him that much more exciting as an enemy.
Then there’s Meifong. You think you know someone, and then she turns out to be a double-agent who would carpet-bomb your cafeteria without a second thought. I bet Meifong never went to any of those company picnics or team-building events either. I’ve started to look at all my coworkers in a brand new light now, and I’ll be taking notes on which ones are dating Demoniacs and/or serving as Zwolf spies.
The powerful Demoniacs haven’t gotten as much attention yet, but I figure their story will come out more in the second half. Joseph is boring so far as a standard stoic hero with a tortured past, but at least all his action scenes are super-slick and exciting. The scene where he burns himself with his sword to prevent blood from splattering a kid was really awesome. His sidekick Elea could do with some more screen time, but I’m sure we’ll be getting a massive Joseph flashback soon. I also like Joseph’s carving hobby, as this sets up so many easy jokes.
The only other characters that really made an impact are Gerd, Malek, and Beatrice. Gerd had a good run, and I liked how Gerd rode the waves of public approval. His story ended up being very powerful, and his passing marked the end of the motorcycle-centric episodes. Malek is kinda annoying, but having an absentee hottie step-sister and a bunch of rich bully enemies can mess you up. Those bullies made me rage hard, and I thought the scene where Malek gives in to his rage was exceptional. Finally, at first I really despised Beatrice and her bicycle-helmet hair, but as she went around corrupting Wolf, Malek, and Gerd I grew to appreciate how evil she was. I especially liked how her idea of pillow-talk with Wolf was to burn images of hell and destruction into his brain.
Random Stuff
- I liked how we got to see Lene staring at the loading scene as her Paladin transforms. The idea of loading scenes in mechs amuses me for some reason.
- I have a love-hate relationship with the eyecatch. I find it incredibly cheesy, and yet I’ve come to expect it. I can hear the haunting jazzy melody in my mind as I type this post.
- Why didn’t Victor arrest the scientist who was helping Amanda and Hermann? Did he have to go rush off and pick up his priestly dry cleaning?
- The CG is smooth and much better than expected.
- Will Joseph succumb to Xargin’s offer of pretty pretty ponies in exchange for allegiance?!
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16 Comments
I don’t think the problem with CG was ever that it’s not smooth enough. It’s quite the opposite at least for me, it’s too smooth which is even more apparent when combined with traditional animation. I find it especially annoying that with CG everything “bobs” around as if they wanted to show off how dynamic the animation is. The bikes and especially the cars very often look like something you’d expect from a ten year old computer game. I’d prefer a consistent look over highly fluent animation any time.
The other thing I loathe in GONZO productions is the use of monsters. I guess the Japanese audience still loves all this sentai and godzilla crap but to me that’s the very definition of azn trash.
That being said, I mostly enjoyed the first two episodes despite these negative impressions because the rest of it looks really good. I definitely like the more mature character designs albeit they seemingly didn’t dare to avoid clishes in these. Amanda is sure cool and spicy.
Beatrice is so hot, I doubt she really needs that lighter to englight her cigarettes but it’s kinda ridiculous that she always walks around in her white gown. Granted, it’s very madlax.
The neoprene suits are nice sabisu sabisu…at least with respect to the female team members or whatever floats your boat. It’s only fair I guess.
The newspaper headlines regarding Gerd were pretty hilarious. The guys could be working for the BILD (a brand of toilet paper). What’s also pretty funny is, Gerd’s name seems to be based on Heinz-Harald Frentzen, a German Formula One driver. I don’t think he’s secretly fighting demoniacs though.
I’m quite surprise there is someone who actually cares about this series on the blog sphere. I’ve being following this series since the beginning and loving it.
So are you going to blog this series or will you be giving it a half series review for the rest of the episodes?
Although the Demoniacs are generally quite fugly (except maybe for Joseph in his Blue form), I like the human character designs a lot. Beatrice’s is ok, but at first I was annoyed at how much her hair looked like a bike helmet!
I think I’ll just go with a half and half. I don’t like to post about episodes I’ve already watched, as my typical pattern is to write notes as I am watching the episode at the same time. Also, I think I may be picking up Real Drive, as I really like what I’ve seen of it.
Hermann’s blustering rezally starts to wear on my nerves. Does he have any sort of opinion that he doesn’t have to scream in someone’s face? And if your only on episode 12, get ready for a change of pace.
I’m amazed that you didn’t mention the one character which pulled me through the earlier less impressive episodes, and who is – in my opinion – THE driving force behind the story:
Amanda.
Admittedly, it was my Shizuka Itou fetish which dragged me to Blassreiter and which kept me there, before the story pulled me in. But I consider Amanda as one of the most pleasant female leads of the season: Kind, reasonable and fairly smart. The kind of character I need in shows like these: One which you can easily identify with and root for. Yet, hardly a mention of her from you? What’s wrong??
Well then, be brave suffering to the heavy-handed two flashback episodes 13+14 (which I didn’t like), but then the jump back to awesomeness in 15 and 16.
Glad to see you’re about to at least semi-blog the most underrated show of the year.
Hermann was a little more normal while Gerd was around, but now he just kinda yells everything. Oh well, moot point now I guess.
As for Amanda… actually she is probably my favorite character in the story. See, this is why I don’t usually do these really long episode summaries; I tend to forget things. Amanda is capable, caring, and determined, and for some reason I thought I had already mentioned all that in a paragraph. Plus, there is not much to mock about Amanda. It’s kinda like how when a candidate is a front-runner (so that everyone assumes he/she will win), and then nobody shows up to vote.
Interestingly, other than Lene (who is too minor to really count) and maybe Elea (who seems to be an AI), Amanda is the only woman in the show who is not a liar or a villain.
I’m afraid to even read most of this post, because I’m only up to episode 8, but you an color me surprised about Blassreiter.
I dropped it like it was hot early on, but now it’s got me hooked.
Take Lene, as an example that you’re perfectly right about your commendation of how Gonzo/Nitroplus are doing the secondary characters (“minor” sounds almost derogatory here).
I for sure remember Lene. And in the short time, I got to “understand” and like her pretty well. How often does it happen that you remember just the _names_ of secondary characters?
Wolf wasn’t exactly humping Beatrice. Rather she was hand-raping him while he was scared to death due to his halluzinations. This was probably the weirdest cover-up of an explanatory monologue ever. If you want to explain someone something, you don’t give him a hand-job to keep his attention. I hope Beatrice has a second set of her clothes or washes it between seductions.
How far are you? There is more than one Wolf-Beatrice scene.
DID SOMEBODY SAY CHEEEZZEEE??!?! NOM NOM NOM!!!… too bad I don’t watch this! I wanna know about hand job monologue bike helmet hair too!
From the pics (thanks for all those captions =3), its sort of reminds me of Gantz, but I wasn’t a big fan of that show.
I was talking about episode 8, the scene covered by the caps in the second row above. Too bad she didn’t finish with “You know…I love blondes”.
J-chan, have you decided to use rori charm to capture Kabitzin’s heart?
J-chan? Well, at least its an improvement from “white boy wannabee gangsta”, “Ichigo1000″, or “Hey Girl Hey!” =3 (and it sounds very KAWAII DESU so please keep calling me that Chris! I think you’ve just hit the spot!… if you know what I mean! HURR HURR HURR)
Man, loli’s are sooo not Kabi’s thang! I’ve been trying for
yearsone whole year and I’m pretty sure Kabitzin will never consider me til I find his weakpoint! Well, you guys seem to like fat people… and I happen to be overweight… *takes off clothes* OHHH YEAAA!!!… wait, or did you mention “rori charm” because of my gravatar? If so, lol, yes, as some of you may have noticed, I was testing some gravatars out. I’ll stick with Meru-girl (from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei) for alittle while longer, but in truth, she not really like me at all. Yea, shes the quiet type, but also the abusive internet/mail hater/troll type of person, and we all know I’m no where near that!
for I love all human beings!… and you love me too, right Chris? 
, cause I love you alot too, as a friend! *huggles*
Actually, consider these two scenes:
Scene 1
Wolf: Tell me what’s happening to me!
Beatrice: Blah blah blah blah, you’ll turn into a monster, blah blah blah. Want more?
Wolf: No thanks, that was quite boring.
Scene 2
Wolf: Tell me what’s happening to me!
Beatrice: Blah blah blah blah, you’ll turn into a monster, blah blah blah. Want more?
Wolf: OMG DON’T STOP NOW, KEEP GOING!!!
See what I mean?
I didn’t understand a word. Let me try again whilst fapping.
After watching the humping scene in episode 10, I realized Beatrice needs this techno babble to get off. This lowers my image of slashdot even further…
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