Witchblade was a show that grew as it went on. It started out unintentionally hilarious with over top fanservice that was punctuated with the phallic-like monster that attacked in thrusting manner but somewhere the ridiculousness subsided and it concentrated on its strength – its exploration of the relationship of mother and child. The most obvious and powerful (though it did serve to be annoying at times) was the bond between Masane and Rihoko but we (breaking out the second person for some reason) also saw it in different situations with Father and his inability to accept his own mother to Maria wanting a mother to love her to Reina’s awkward but ultimately touching attempts to care for Rihoko. By the end the show managed to reach a poignant conclusion even as the what would happen was revealed episodes before the end. This actually served to make what was to happen seem even more fucked up so much so that I was almost rooting for a Mai-hime like reset ending – that was the strength of Masane and Rihoko’s relationship.
It wasn’t the prettiest show nor the ugliest and the action scenes were fairly forgettable and as I mentioned before the I-weapon character designs were crappy (though it did remind me of GaoGaiGar especially when that ugly fat guy turned into a monster), the cloneblade designs were kinda hit or miss for me and it turns out cup size had nothing to do with power levels as Shiori soon found out. In the end I would recommend this series especially if your expectations are low you’ll likely come away pleasantly surprised. It also helps if you like Uno Makoto’s character designs and huge breasts don’t make you physically ill though I didn’t think there was that much fan service .
I guess I should also mention I know next to nothing about the original American comic but it seems that it shares very little with it other than the name and Witchblade costume.
I picked up Madman’s R4 complete collection of the show new for about $40. It comes in a case the size of a normal single release but they’ve managed to fit 6 discs in it. The only slightly annoying this is that if you are on disc 2,4 and 6 you have to remove the disc above it as they stacked it on top to save space. As expected you miss on out on the original disc art though it does come with all the disc extras in tact.
No comments:
Post a Comment