Ragnarok The Animation

Ohhh… it’s been a while since I wrote my last review. Yeah, I kind of had to interrupt my Shit Marathon due to some annoying distant relatives coming over (you probably know how that’s like) but now I’m ready and willing, and what better way to celebrate their leave than with a review of a good steaming pile of astronomical shit. Now from the start know that I didn’t watch this completely. Like I watched it for 4 episodes, understood it was no point, got annoyed, saw it for the retarded rat crap it was, just skipped a whole lot of episodes, saw some more useless stuff, then went into a 2 day meditation to cleanse myself. Of course that didn’t work so all I had left to do was… yeah you guessed it… a review. 

When I think about Ragnarok I think that there is no better description than the tag. Just look at it. RPG? What the fuck? So that would make Ghost in the Shell a 3rd person tactical shooter? And does that mean Code Geass is an RTS? Well as it turns out Ragnarok is based on an online game. Well, now the title makes sense, I know why it is ,,The animation”, but… why? With all the shitty video-game based anime, why in the name of fuck would you bother with this one? One might say that since it is online it can do its own story, own characters… and yeah, they could and they did, but… to bad it all reeks of SKUNK ASS. Yeah, is it a surprise?

I can’t say much about the plot cause I didn’t see much like any normal reviewer should do, but with what I saw I can already predict everything: someone want to unleash evil, there is a brother who was supposed to be dead, but he isn’t so he sided with the evil, his ex-best friend will fight him and kill each other, and the 2 main heroes will kill the main antagonist, happy-ending, whoop-de-fucking-doo. I know that maybe for some the plot is what it killed this one, and my complaints would be considered knit-picking, but I think it’s shit-picking. 

What ruined it for me is this… at first I didn’t know it was based on an online game, but by the end of episode 4 I started seeing red life bars and blue magic power bars over the characters. And after some research my theory proved correct. There IS an online game. WOW… this sucks… At first it seemed like small stuff, but as it progressed it got more and more retarded. So, you wanna hear it? I bet you do. So at first what struck me as weird is that many said the word ,,party”. Not party in a ,,Hey where’s the booze” way. Like ,,wanna join our adventure party” kind of way. Who says that? Doesn’t it sound weird? They should say ,,group” or like ,,want to tag along”. Also you can expel members from your party. Guess you might as well delete the facebook contact. Well anyway, the second thing was when someone mentioned ,,adventurers rules”. Ok… so are there rules? I guess the administrator keeps everything in check, so no cheating on the server. But what was even weirder was when one guy said ,,I’m adventurer level 1”. Ok… like who knows that? Is there a magical number over your head which indicates that? And why say this… ,,What skill are you” ,,I’m support”. Ok… so you have stuff like that?  No one (no sane person that is), says ,,I’m support skill, I can heal you and power you up”. Yeah, cause that’s what you hear from healers (who by the way evolve into the priestess class). All the time they say ,,Heal” and ,,Blessing” (to increase luck) and ,,Increase agility” (self explanatory). Did you ever see stuff like that before? Also they have potions. Yeah, to restore hit point or magic point. And guess what they’re called… Seriously, I want you to take a wild fucking guess… Red potion and Blue potion. And I guess I don’t need to explain what does what. Also there are characters with ,,item bags” which have an unlimited amount of storage capacity. Also you see the main character going through town, searching for quests and getting ,,permission”, so in episode 2 they have the quest to kill a golden roach, and there are other online character walking around, but it’s the main heroes that kill it, gain a level up, and all the other characters are praising them. So as the main guy grasps the fact that he actually killed that bastard a card with the roach appears in his hand. That’s it, it appears there, nobody came and gave it to him like ,,Congratulations, here’s your fucking card. Go choke on it”. No, it just appears. And all the other characters start throwing shit at them. At first I though they were angry, but then I realized that they are actually giving them loot, like a reward. And guess what they do? Yeah like in any other MMORPG, they sell the loot. And they say that. They say ,,We sold the loot, let’s go after more on our next adventure”. So there are other things, but you get the idea.

The characters are dumb and uninspiring. The cast is big, but the fact that most of them, by skill are warriors, support or magician, you can probably guess many look the same and, well… are the same. Both the heroes and the villains suck. But it’s the main antagonist that pops up in my mind. His name is The Dark Lord. Uuuuuu… so is Sauron in this anime? What about Frodo and the One Ring? I mean come on… the fact that Dark Lord is cliché enough doesn’t cut, noooo, why not give him a name at all. Even Bambi would be good, like ,,Dark Lord Bambi”, but no… it’s Dark Lord. It’s like his parents fucked in a car and had him, and they never gave a shit about him for the rest of their lives. If you have such an uncreative antagonist, then you might as well blow the DVD you made up in your ass, and not sale it to the unsuspecting public who might actually like the game or the concept. And if you dream about comedy here, then you might as well dream of a giant ant snorting cocaine of an elephant’s snout.

Presentation – bad. Graphics look outdated, character models look like they were recycled from other anime, voice cast is annoying and the music is lame.

In conclusion, this is… the greatest offence to the world of online gaming, and if you think of watching it, then do yourself a favor and just don’t. I beg you. It will kill a lot of brain cells, I assure you. To put it differently... you might as well watch the actuall game and not play it, cause that's how this anime makes me feel.

Claymore

I haven’t posted a review in a while, and I’m sure you’re all waiting for a crappy-ass anime review, but it will have to wait cause the crappy ones are sometimes those you probably haven’t heard of, so at first I figured to write some reviews on some popular anime, or at least those you have heard of. So, I present to you…. Claymore. Claymore is a nice, medieval setting action that keeps your heart pumping and your blood flowing. It is entertaining, and always leaves you begging for more ( if you’re a fan of such things of course ). The story focuses on the adventures of a young Claymore named Clare. whose own parents were murdered by Yoma at a young age. On an assignment in a remote town, Clare meets a young boy named Raki whose parents were murdered by a Yoma. Raki took an interest in Clare and was the only one in town who was not afraid to talk to her. Clare eventually killed the Yoma plaguing the town, who was disguised as Raki’s own brother. The townspeople feared Raki would turn into a Yoma and banished him to the wilderness. Although unusual for a Claymore, Clare sympathized with Raki and allowed him to travel with her. While Clare fights the yoma plaguing the land, can Raki help her in her struggle to retain her humanity? Well… yes, of course he can, otherwise he would have no purpose and this would be a really short anime. In time, these two get close to each other ( to the point she does a French kiss with him ), and they’re relationship plays a good role in the plot.
The opening is a nice song, and it shows a good character rooster. Some of the characters shown in the opening have much less appearances than others, but they all play an important role in the plot. And that is what is important. Sometimes in the opening they show you a cast with many characters that are just there. I mean they don’t play an important role, they are just… there. This is not a bad thing, but sometimes it gets confusing when you see so many characters, but most of them don’t do Jack Shit for the plot ( e.g. Paranoia Agent ).
What I like most about this anime is that it really nail the mood and feel of a medieval world. The characters are all dressed appropriately, and are designed and drawn appropriately. I mean in most anime, when the action takes place, like let’s say 19th century Europe ( D.Gray-man ), you don't get that feel because sometimes they use modern things like robots, computers and roller-skates,and most places feel like they are in the same country, I mean you don’t get the feeling that this is Great Britain, this is Spain and this is Germany, instead you get the feeling that it is the same country. Even worse is when in the same anime, they travel around the world, and the cities and it’s populace all look and feel the same, for example in D.Gray-man they went from Europe to some Otoman city, and if it weren’t for a mosque, I would have thought they never left Europe, cause there was no costume or skin color distinction. In most anime you see the same thing, and the only countries you see CLEARLY the distinctions is Japan ( of course ) and China ( I don’t know why ). It’s like ALL those who are NOT Japanese or Chinese are European. But in Claymore you don’t get the same feeling, even though the anime takes place in the same country, there are some episodes that take place in a different Nordic country, and it sure feels like it. Plus you always get the feel that this is a medieval setting, I mean you don’t see any anachronistic events or objects, and like I said, every character, every peasant, soldier or priest look and feel like they are from a medieval setting. There is only one character that wears sunglasses and kind of looks like Fredy Kruger, but that is the only anachronistic thing you’ll see.
Also there is a lot of sex-appeal in this anime. Remember, the only characters capable of fighting yoma are Claymores witch are exclusively women ( kind of feminist, but why not ). And all the women here are beautiful. They aren’t big breasted but are slender and have angelic faces ( when they don’t unleash they’re power that is ). They all look like the ideal woman by medieval standards. Also you get the desperate feeling that all that stands between you and a gruesome death at the hands of a yoma are the Claymores. Yet they are feared by society. If any of you read the polish stories of Gerard the Witcher or played the game The Witcher, than know it’s the same thing here. Only differences is that in the Withcer, the monster hunters are exclusively male and there are a variety of monsters that can also be defeated by human warriors, while in Claymore the monster hunters are women, there is no variety, just yoma, but they yoma can only be killed by Claymores. So every time you see a Claymore die, or turn into an Awakened ( a very powerful yoma ) the feeling of despair grows because they are limited in numbers, and it is even worse when some of the stronger Claymores die, cause the are a lot of yoma. So the anime really nails this desperate mood of medieval times when the world is plagued by darkness and the only ones who can stop it are half yoma themselves.
Like I said before, the characters are important, but there isn’t much variety, cause the only non-Claymore character that plays and important part is Raki, a human. But even though most of the cast are Claymores, every Claymore has here own personality. One is a calm leader, another is a hot-tempered warrior, another is a sadist, and so on. There are no two of a kind here. Although in term of design, some may look the same, and it can get a bit confusing at first. My favorite character is Raki, cause even though he can’t fight the yoma, he plays an important part in Clare’s life, and helps keep her humanity. So he has more of a support role in the series, but the fact that even if he is so fragile, he always tries to help Clare, even to the point of sword-fighting with another Claymore ( the sadist one ), and that’s what makes him so important. Later he trains with the sword so that he can fight alongside Clare, and not be a burden.
Animation-wise, Claymore has some nice visuals. Character design gives the feel that they are in a medieval setting, and the Claymore designs are all beautiful, background is sharp and detailed and feels interactive, and the color tone is more dark and gray so that it gives you a desperate mood. Sound effects are nice, realistic, and voice-work is good… no complaints here.
Overall this is one medieval action you don’t want to miss, cause it has nice visuals, realistic setting, and some hot action.