Blassreiter

Genre: Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
Format: 24 Episodes
Allegiance: Gonzo
Director: Ichiro Itano
Vintage: 2008
Intelligence Agency Report by: Shadow
In Germany, humanity is on the brink of destruction. Amalgams (also called Demoniacs), living dead that are able to assimilate technology, threaten to end all human life in a crazed and unforgiving manner. The only thing that stands between the Demoniacs and their goals is the Xenogenesis Assault Team, yet even the XAT begins to have its own problems from amalgams as well as from internal conflicts. As time wears on, one thing becomes clear: one amalgam will determine the future of the world— the Blassreiter.

Field Agent Report by: Shadow 
Plot
Characters
Impact
Visual
Audio
9.00
8.00
9.00
6.00
5.00
Overall 9.00
(not an average)
 

Pretty high marks, considering relatively few people know about this anime; impressive. Before I delve into the fun, I want to give you two warnings:

1.) The initial theme song is HIGHLY addictive. I’ve already hunted down a download.
2.) FOUL FOUL FOUL language! If you are a Christian schoolboy who hates profanity, just stay home. I heard more f-bombs in this series in my first night watching it than I drop in an entire week, and that was only 12 episodes that are 20 minutes a piece (4 hours, a lot of cursing).

Now, with those two warnings aside, I get to gush about this anime. Unlike my game reviews, I’m not giving you ANY special details about this; you only get veiled hints. To start with, this is an anime that actually employs both 3D and 2D graphics as it progresses. For the most part, as they switched and didn’t show both animation styles at the same time, I found it to be rather nice. Amalgams themselves were done in 3D and unfortunately looked like crap (except the hero characters that are also amalgams; they took their time on those… so wrong to not give the same attention to the other Amalgams). When they did decide to combine the anime styles, it also had relatively poor results. Otherwise, the graphics were pretty good, and often helped draw out little details in the anime that made it even better.

Music in the series was great, especially the theme songs. As far as audio volume goes, however, that’s another story. Simply put, my TV was on a volume of 70% for the ENTIRE series, and got up to almost 80% at some points. That’s a very poor indicator, as I run it at 40% on most shows, 50% on some channels. However, once you get your TV’s volume where needed, just sit back, grab the popcorn, and enjoy.

I won’t go into details on the characters for two reasons. One, it’s a lot more interesting to see these characters evolve in the series. Two, the series will actually revolve around different characters at different times (not during concurrent events but actually successive ones), making it hard to really fully define characters all the time. What matters is that they put time into these characters, their development, and their personalities. I would find that I’d hate a character for the first 16 episodes, and then, over the last 4, watch that character evolve and learn to the point of being likeable… or just hate one of them for 24 straight episodes (so much fun to do).

As far as the plot, I don’t want to ruin the surprise. But be aware that it takes essentially HALF the series to really figure out the plot behind it. The last 4 episodes put it all into perspective and give you the whole truth because, as with all stories, there are multiple sides. But don’t take this as a recommendation to say “I’m just gonna watch the last 4,” because I promise that you’ll miss the backstory that explains characters’ attitudes and even some of their most anguishing and triumphant moments. I HIGHLY recommend watching this anime. Rent it, clear up a weekend, get a lot of popcorn, soda, and a best friend and watch it. Oh, and if you love motorcycles, you’ll enjoy this anime all the more.