I’ve started watching Casshern: Sins, a new series from the Fall 2008 line-up. It’s a bleak rewrite of the original Casshern story that started out as a serial Kodansha’s “Terebi Magazine” and Akita Shoten’s “Boken Oh” and was given the animation treatment in 1973 wTwNjzVFVU
Taking a page out of the “Gundam Guide to Writing for Animation”, “Casshern: Sins” completely discards the established continuity. In the original story, Casshern (aka Tetsuya Azuma) is a human-turned-cyborg superhero who teams up with a beautiful girl named Luna and a robot dog named Friender to rid the world of rampaging robots lead by the villainous Braiking Boss.
These robots were originally created for the betterment of the world and humankind by Casshern’s late father, Dr. Azama. But the robots came to the conclusion that in order to restore the Earth’s ecosystems and to make the world a better place, humankind must be destroyed. (Hard to argue with that logical conclusion. ;-) Together with Luna and Friender, Casshern defends humanity against the robots and fights to stop Braiking Boss once and fo rall.
However, in Casshern: Sins, things aren’t so rosy. The world has been destroyed. Humankind is on the very brink of extinction thanks to the robots. But Robotkind itself is dying due to an “affliction” called “The Ruin” which rapidly breaks down their components.
And it’s all Casshern’s fault… or so he’s been told. But Casshern has absolutely no memory of his identity, let alone what had happened to the world. All he knows is that everyone, everywhere is out to kill him (partly due to a rumour that his body will stop “The Ruin” in any robot or android that ‘devours’ him) and that he may have been responsible for the murder of a young woman who might have been able to stop the cataclysm.
So how the hell did things go so wrong?
If the first few episodes are any indication, the producers of Casshern: Sins are going to take their own sweet time answering that question, with each episode revealing a few meagre pieces of the puzzle a little at a time.
One thing that should be pointed out is that despite the post apocalyptic setting populated with killer robots, Casshern: Sins isn’t really action-oriented. The pacing is slower than what most people would expect and each episode tends to focus more on exploring certain ideas about the human condition. However, the writers do appear to try include at least some action in every episode.
As a result, Casshern: Sins is generally very bleak and often tragic, hence the “Grab your Prozac” line. With its somewhat depressing atmosphere and slower, cerebral approach, this series isn’t going to appeal to the masses.
But Casshern can pique one’s curiosity by revealing clues here and there that sheds some light on how things came to be. It also explores themes of the human condition by way of introducing interesting characters and settings. Some of these characters leave you with the distinct impression that they’ll figure very prominently as the story progresses. Others, you hope to see again, like Sophita, the android who only feels most alive and passionate only when she’s killing something.
The visual design of Casshern: Sins is very much in keeping with that retro “Tatsunoko 1970’s” animation style look, but the animation can have a more contemporary abstract approach at times. Casshern: Sins generally utilizies a very subdued, monochromatic palette and the line work is given this slightly diffused appearance, as if they ran each frame through a Gaussian blur filter before adding colour.
On the whole, the production values of Casshern: Sins is relatively good, although I expect the animation quality to differ from episode to episode. For example, episode 4’s animation certainly wasn’t as polished as the previous episodes.
If you’re checking it out, I’d suggest watching at least the first 4 or 5 episodes before passing judgment on whether to drop the series or follow it because the first episode doesn’t give you much to go on and feels somewhat unfocused.
Casshern: Sins isn’t light fare so it’s not a series I could easily recommend to everyone but I would say it’s worth checking out!
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