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Anime review
10 May 2010 11:37 pmYes, another one. Not the last either, I'm really on a roll of finishing a lot of series I've started in the last few months :)
Takau Shishou : the Book of Bantorra aka Armed Librarians of Bantorra
In a diesel punk world, people leave a "book" (a stone tablet that can be read by touch) of their life behind them when they die. The Armed Librarians of Bantorra collect those books in a labyrinthine library guarded by monstrous creatures for the use of people and the great good, and fight against the Church of Drowning in God's Grace, a mysterious cult which believes "True Humans" must be protected, loved and lavished with every privilege in order to create the most perfect happiness in their "book" when they get to Heaven; but which treats other people, which they call "Meat", with the most abject and dehumanising servitude.
The adaptation of a series of seinen light novels, Book of Bantorra has a large, multiple cast of characters, which it focusses in turns in short story arcs, as it progressively reveals an intricate and complex overarching plot. This plot is pretty good, and is brought to a satisfying epic climax which explains most of the mysteries it successively raised and especially tying every characters and ever story arc together in a pretty brilliant way. Sadly, despite this structural quality, it was very much lacking in its texture (characterisation, setting, animation etc.) which ended making it much less entertaining and intriguing than it could have been with such qualities of plot and storytelling.
One big weakness is the characters. There are several of them that are just this close to interesting and that I could have been pretty fond of (Noloty, Mattalast, Enlike and of course Hamyuts Meseta, the acting director of Bantorra who is certainly a very unique female character) however it never developed them enough to truly make them come alive and distinguish themselves from their stereotypes.
Another big weakness is the art and animation, which is remarkably graceless. Many of the character designs were frankly ugly (don't get me started on Hamyuts' ridiculously big cleavage which is animated as if it was a mass of concrete), the background art really fails to render the world with any life or originality, and while the animation is obviously not all that cheap, it very seldom seems to have any fluidity.
However the storytelling really is frequently brilliant, building up to excellent dramatic scenes during each story arcs. Some of them are more rushed or cheesy than others, but overall they made me keep watching despite the other flaws. While its themes, the worth of living, idealism vs cynicism, dehumanisation vs one's inner sense of self and wills, conflicting loyalties and love/friendship, etc. are not anything new or entrancing they are well and coherently woven into the stories in a way that make them resonate successfully. Actions scenes are also frequently pretty good, with intelligent strategic uses of people's powers and interesting direction.
Book of Bantorra sometimes reminded me of the fantasy epic Malazan Book of Fallen; both for the "Book" (teehee) and the "Fallen" (don't be surprised to see lots of characters dying), and for the ridiculous names that kind of sound cool and epic anyway part ^_^ It remains however much more flawed.
In the end, I guess it was an okay enough series, but I won't keep a stellar memories of it.
Takau Shishou : the Book of Bantorra aka Armed Librarians of Bantorra
In a diesel punk world, people leave a "book" (a stone tablet that can be read by touch) of their life behind them when they die. The Armed Librarians of Bantorra collect those books in a labyrinthine library guarded by monstrous creatures for the use of people and the great good, and fight against the Church of Drowning in God's Grace, a mysterious cult which believes "True Humans" must be protected, loved and lavished with every privilege in order to create the most perfect happiness in their "book" when they get to Heaven; but which treats other people, which they call "Meat", with the most abject and dehumanising servitude.
The adaptation of a series of seinen light novels, Book of Bantorra has a large, multiple cast of characters, which it focusses in turns in short story arcs, as it progressively reveals an intricate and complex overarching plot. This plot is pretty good, and is brought to a satisfying epic climax which explains most of the mysteries it successively raised and especially tying every characters and ever story arc together in a pretty brilliant way. Sadly, despite this structural quality, it was very much lacking in its texture (characterisation, setting, animation etc.) which ended making it much less entertaining and intriguing than it could have been with such qualities of plot and storytelling.
One big weakness is the characters. There are several of them that are just this close to interesting and that I could have been pretty fond of (Noloty, Mattalast, Enlike and of course Hamyuts Meseta, the acting director of Bantorra who is certainly a very unique female character) however it never developed them enough to truly make them come alive and distinguish themselves from their stereotypes.
Another big weakness is the art and animation, which is remarkably graceless. Many of the character designs were frankly ugly (don't get me started on Hamyuts' ridiculously big cleavage which is animated as if it was a mass of concrete), the background art really fails to render the world with any life or originality, and while the animation is obviously not all that cheap, it very seldom seems to have any fluidity.
However the storytelling really is frequently brilliant, building up to excellent dramatic scenes during each story arcs. Some of them are more rushed or cheesy than others, but overall they made me keep watching despite the other flaws. While its themes, the worth of living, idealism vs cynicism, dehumanisation vs one's inner sense of self and wills, conflicting loyalties and love/friendship, etc. are not anything new or entrancing they are well and coherently woven into the stories in a way that make them resonate successfully. Actions scenes are also frequently pretty good, with intelligent strategic uses of people's powers and interesting direction.
Book of Bantorra sometimes reminded me of the fantasy epic Malazan Book of Fallen; both for the "Book" (teehee) and the "Fallen" (don't be surprised to see lots of characters dying), and for the ridiculous names that kind of sound cool and epic anyway part ^_^ It remains however much more flawed.
In the end, I guess it was an okay enough series, but I won't keep a stellar memories of it.
