Witchblade: The Complete Series
by Yoshimitsu Ôhashi
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DVD details
Actor: Cherami Leigh, Jamie Marchi, Mark Stoddard, Scott Hinze, Shizuka ItoDirector: Yoshimitsu Ôhashi
Brand: Funimation
Editor: Kiyoshi Hirose
Writer: Marc Silvestri
Writer: Michael Turner
Writer: Yasuko Kobayashi
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Subtitled); Japanese (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Animated, Box set, Color, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 600 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-10-28
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Funimation Prod
DVD Reviews of Witchblade: The Complete Series
DVD Review: Interesting idea marred by poor execution. 40%
Summary: 2 Stars
First of all, I'd like to say that I never read any of the Witchblade comics, I'm critiquing this anime only on its own merits.
I got interested in Witchblade about a month or two before last Christmas and decided it would be a good Christmas present for myself, so I ordered it and had some family members pay me back. I was hooked into Witchblade by its pleasant imagery (I am a guy, after all) and with its many promises of it delivering a "touching, grabbing story." However, as you can see by my rating, I was quite disappointed when this was over. I will say that for the most part, Charles Solomon did a good job summarizing this really overrated title, but I'll chime in with some points he missed. What's sad is that the first quarter of the series started out pretty strongly and had it stuck to the plot it established, it could have merited the heaps of praise it's been receiving, but like most other popular anime titles out now, it has plenty of filler and inconsistencies that ruin it.
"Sought by the greed of Men since the dawn of Humankind, but only bestowed upon the woman whose fate it forever scars - The Witchblade. Is it the Righteous Sword of God, of the Hand of the Devil Himself? Now a new bearer has been chosen and she must discover the answers for herself. As she stands on the brink of destiny, she is forced to seek the balance between ecstasy and ruin...
Masane Amaha is a woman on the fringe of society, bouncing rootless from town to town with her daughter, Rihoko. She struggles to build a life for her family, with no memory of the past and no clue as to what the future holds. But upon their arrival back in Tokyo forces conspire to separate parent from child, unleashing the fury of the Witchblade. The young mother will find herself conscripted into the service of the Doji Group and hunted down by the emissaries of the NSWF, all while seeking to balance the weight of this forced duality."
-Taken from product description (too lazy to summarize plot myself)
CHARACTERS
Partially contrary to what the gushing reviews are saying, the characters are a mixed bag. There are some that are intriguing, but many of them just seem to exist only for the sake of padding out the anime's running length and for the sake of adding extra "character development," when it's really just another form of redundancy. That's right, character development can be just as redundant as gratuitous action scenes, violence, and nudity/sex if said element doesn't add anything to the viewing experience. What I mean by this is that a lot of time is wasted by pointless interactions with Masane's future apartment mates such as the introverted fortune teller Naomi, the perverted elderly computer hacker (forgot his name and isn't listed on Wikipedia), and the giant guy named Michael who says and does nothing (great character traits). Again, development of the above characters would be perfectly okay if they were important to the story, but they really aren't. The secondary characters themselves aren't even that interesting, either. I mean, Naomi constantly fussing about the pronunciation of her name isn't funny or intriguing. Apparently, the creator of this anime said something in the booklet that came with the DVD along the lines that he wanted all the characters to be relate-able so that you can follow almost anyone in the anime. Sorry, but I'd rather relate to only a handful of interesting characters than a large amount of dull ones. Also, some characters seem to be fleshed out in pretty ridiculous fashions. For one, I think the idea of making Rihoko (Masane's supposed daughter) perfect and mature silly since while I know this isn't supposed to be 100% realistic, making a six year-old girl function like a fully matured person makes Rihoko a pretty unbelievable character, which is a bad thing for something claiming to be a character drama (which is what Witchblade claims to be). Development is pretty poorly done for some characters as well. For one, Maria (the main antagonist) suddenly develops from a whiny infantile brat into a fully matured young woman without any gradual steps between those two stages.
PLOT-HOLES
While plot-holes aren't that gigantic or abundant, they're big enough to lower the rating of the show. Something that irritated me pretty badly is that one of the main focuses of this anime is of course, the Witchblade weapon. However, the Witchblade itself isn't really elaborated upon that much. Instead, we get the aforementioned redundant character interactions. Also, the series starts off as Masane finding and killing cyborgnetic weapons called X-Cons. Masane joins the Doji Group, which makes the X-Cons, and has serious objections to the X-Con program, but those objections fade away without any sort of reason.
COMEDIC FILLER
Like most popular yet poorly made anime titles, Witchblade has moments of pointless comedy thrown in solely to pad out the running length, "lighten the mood," or add "emotional variety," when it just degrades the quality of the show. There's a part in Witchblade where Masane spends the whole day out with Rihoko and one of the things that they do is go to a public bathhouse to relax and what could have been a touching moment was killed by a moment of stupid risque humor when the perverted old guy tries to peek in on the two bathing. There was an episode in the series that was Masane and her neighbors just going to the beach and while that was a really bad case of general filler by itself, it had some really bad attempts at being humorous. The prime example of this would be when a bespectacled lady verbally chastises the perverted old guy for not knowing about Michael's fame, complete with the abhorrent over-exaggerated facial features that belong on generic swill like Azumanga Daioh than a serious character drama.
MATURE CONTENT
Witchblade just barely gets a TV-MA rating for one or two moments of ultra-violence, but most of the content is barely risque and blatant fan service given the Witchblade and Cloneblade designs.
APPEARANCE
The animation is decent, though the artwork is what really stands out since everything looks fabulous and if you're a straight male, the Witchblades and Cloneblades are pretty fine eye-candy. Though I must object the hiring of the character designer for Love Hina to design the characters because imagine how great the Witch and Cloneblades would look if they were designed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, who makes some of the best-looking female characters in anime. The use of colors in general was also very eye-catching and pleasing.
ACTION SCENES
Even though this sounds pretty shallow, I was pretty disappointed by the lack of action scenes in this anime since it was after all, marketed as such. The action scenes themselves are decent, though nothing special since they seem too short for their own good, though it was pretty neat to see several women in skimpy, exotic outfits slashing and beating the snot out of each other.
THE GOOD STUFF
Yes, there's good stuff in Witchblade, which is why it's above the one-star category. I found the themes of "being consumed by the dark side" and the mother-daughter relationship pretty interesting and in the case of the latter, touching at times. I did feel genuinely sad in some areas, particularly when Masane tells Rihoko to live with Reina Soho (her real mother), but realizes how much she misses her once she's gone, along with the moment towards the end when Masane converses with Rihoko about death and what will happen once she dies. However, as good as these were, there weren't enough to redeem the series.
FINAL WORD
Much like Hyper Police, Witchblade makes me sad in that the series had some pretty good traits going for it, but was wasted on a bunch of filler, poor character development, and poor plotting. While not nearly as bad as extremely loathsome garbage like Elfen Lied and This Ugly Yet Beautiful World, Witchblade doesn't deserve a viewing because you won't get much out of it. For quality Funimation titles, go for Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne and Shigurui: Death Frenzy. If you want to know what I did to my set of Witchblade, I sent it to AnimeNation for credit towards getting two much superior titles, Battle Angel and Voices of a Distant Star.
Description of Witchblade: The Complete Series
WITCHBLADE BOX SET - DVD MovieThe fan-service adventure Witchblade (2006) is another trans-Pacific hybrid: a Japanese TV series based on an American comic. Masane Amaha and her obnoxiously precocious daughter Rihoko were discovered amid the ruins after an earthquake devastated 22nd century Japan. During the disaster, she somehow acquired the sentient ultimate weapon, the Witchblade. When Masane comes near an X-Con, a prototype cyborg made by Douji Industries from human cadavers, the Witchblade causes her to morph into a fighting fiend--in an outfit Pamela Anderson might wear in a sequel to The Dark Knight. The Witchblade supposedly endows the wielder with "insatiable lust and unthinkable power," but Masane gets her exposed derrière kicked by women using Cloneblades, imitation Witchblades the Douji Group also created. Maria, the most powerful Cloneblader, emerges as a potential rival to Masane. When she decides to seize control of Douji Industries, the audience is left to wonder how and why she went from an undisciplined, infantile killer to a disciplined, mature killer. The inevitable duel between Masane and Maria atop Tokyo Tower suggests High Noon with implants. Masane triumphs over Maria and the power of the Witchblade in a finale that's simultaneously gory and mawkish. Although the convoluted plot stumbles along like Masane after a binge, Witchblade will delight adolescent boys who want to watch fights between overendowed, under-dressed babes. In an accompanying interview, character designer/executive animation director Makoto Uno says, "We added a devilish element to the physical beauty of women and animated them with particular attention to the breasts and butt." No kidding. (Rated TV MA, suitable for ages 16 and older: violence, violence against women, grotesque imagery, risqué humor, alcohol and tobacco use) --Charles Solomon
(1. The Beginning, 2. Bewilderment, 3. Defiance, 4. Movement, 5. Search, 6. Change, 7. Past, 8. Reciprocity, 9. Sadness, 10. Interaction, 11. Danger, 12. Prisoner, 13. Separation, 14. Family, 15. Bonds, 16. Relaxation, 17. Confusion, 18. Turn, 19. Feelings, 20. Request, 21. Vow, 22. Inform, 23. Chaos, 24. Light)
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