I decided to get rid of my 9 older Drafts in these next months, Sunabouzu is the first to be published. I found it as I was searching for a “new” finished anime to watch, then a certain cover caught my interest, it was the one from Sunabouzu (Desert Punk). It is an 24 episode long post–apocalyptic sci fi anime, which was produced by Gonzo and aired from 2004 to 2005.

This anime takes place in a distant future where most of Japan turned into a desert, the story is set in the great Kantou desert. The previous civilization with all it’s high technology and social advances perished due to an unknown event, the current civilization uses and copy the things they find through excavations, like weapons and other mainly martial equipment. It’s a simple and tough life, yet It is not the stone age, but a big step backwards from the life we know.

There is a government in the Kantou desert who keeps a basic order in the area, but they can’t and don’t intend to give much support for their citizens who are spread all around the desert. The government forces are mainly present in the several oasis in the Kantou area where the people have a better life. The life of the people is quite tough, they have to make a living somehow to survive in the hostile environment of an empty desert. While many inhabitants of the desert lead an more or less honest life, there are many who make a living as criminals.

httpvh://youtu.be/6v5Ap3suQCI

These difficult circumstances and shortages on water, food and money fuel the bad characteristics of the human nature, everybody is interested in his own advantage without considering the needs of others, there is no place for the famous Japanese politeness or much kindness, the people who are living there are portrayed in a believable way, the tough living turned them into selfish persons, even though there are times where a spark of kindness is ignited. You have to know that these people aren’t evil monsters by default, it are the extreme circumstances that forces them to selfish, greedy and sometimes violent behavior.

One the most remarkable aspects of  Sunabouzu is it’s main character with all these wimpy and soft main characters of today’s anime, the contrast couldn’t be much greater. The name of the lead character is Kanta, a young man of short height who works as handymen, someone who does everything for money. bounty hunter, bodyguard and other tasks are parts of his work.

He has several gadgets and underhanded tricks to fulfill his jobs, he’s nearly as good as Batman. Kanta became quite popular and has a legendary fame as the Sunabouzu. Kanta is very smart and loyal to his paying customers, but aside from that he is a real ass, greedy, short tempered and perverted are the nicest words to describe his character. Woman with big boobs are one of his weaknesses and he is often tricked with the female charm and bouncy physical attributes.

In the first quarter the viewer is introduced to the world Kanta lives in, while following him on his mainly amusing, yet crass adventures in the desert. He randomly meets old acquaintances when doing his jobs, be it as competition or partners for a certain job. The reappearing side characters are quite likable even when they sometimes act morally questionable and get in the way of the main character. Especially Amagumo is a hilarious guy, he’s the arch rival of Kanta.

Later Kanta meets the second main character, Taiko. She’s a small girl who admires the skills of Sunabouzu, after she followed him around Kanta unwillingly agrees to her wish of becoming his students. Well, she actually tricked him by making use of his only weakness. Kanta treats her quite poorly at first, cause she really isn’t very skilled and more of a burden than anything else.

A great job was done with the creation of the setting the hot, empty desert is very convincing.
The anime is a bit like the older adventure animes of the 200x years, it is slightly compareable with Trigun, aside from the more advanced technology level, western theme and the pacifistic main character.

The anime has a number of nice comedy moments that consist of slapstic and dark humor, that made me laugh very hard. The chemistry between the characters is directed very well and brings this anime to life. What I actually liked about this anime was that they didn’t changed Kanta’s personality during these 24 episodes, he alway stayed the greedy bastard who didn’t give a damn about being a good guy. He is an exceptionally well portrayed antihero.

It’s not that easy to tell who is evil and who is not in such an post – apocalyptic setting.

Sunabouzu is a very interesting slice of life, action adventure, that shows us a fictional, but possible change in human society. The wasteland setting is great and the story is full of interesting ideas and surprises. It’s really hilarious to see how the characters trick eachother.

This show has no black and white categories and with this ambivalent characters, Sunabouzu manages to give some more believeable depth to the personalities of it’s characters.

If you want to watch an refreshing old school style adventure  anime Sunabouzu would be the right anime for you. The exceptional main character and the portrayal of the crude and selfish sides of human nature is a nice change from the always so polite and fluffy anime.

Characters   _____________   8/10

Setting   ________________    8/10     

Story   __________________   8/10

Animation   _____________   6/10

Music  __________________  7/10

Enjoyment  _____________  8/10

Overall Score – 7,5 / 10

I had this title on my “going to watch list” for a long time. Recently I found the time to watch it.
I actually knew nothing about the story of Witchblade before I started watching it. I just knew the cover of the anime which showed a sexy redhead demon lady in an quite revealing armor suit.

Witchblade is a 24 episode long anime which was aired from April 6, 2006 to September 21, 2006. Surprisingly It was based on the American comic by the same name, but instead of a mere adaptation, it was decided to create an entire new setup, with all new characters.

The cover of Witchblade is a little misleading, to be honest I was slightly disappointed by the lack of fanservice, I mean Masane (Masa-mune) has a great pair of boobs XD. Aside from one beach episode where she was wearing a revealing bikini, there wasn’t much that would deserve the term fanservice at all and she often wore the same set of clothes. One ecchi part might be the heavy breathing from Masane in Witchblade mode, or the perverted enemy’s in the first episodes.

Setting

In the 22th Century a catastrophe unknown origin occurred that destroyed a big part of the area around Tokyo. The 17 year old Masane Amaha, wakes up in these ruins she lost most of her memories and has a strange mark around her wrist. Next to her lies a baby, who appears to be her daughter Rihoko. Six years later she and her daughter Rihoko are on the run from the government child welfare agency that wants to take Rihoko away from Masane.

One day Rihoko is taken away by the child welfare agency and Masane is taken into custody by the police. During the night of the custody Masane is attacked by a mysterious creature.
A light emits from the mark around her wrist and Masane transforms into the new wielder of the Witchblade. In the further progress Masane comes in contact with Doji Industries, a big fish in the weapon industry and her boss the charismatic Takayama. He hires her to get more data about the Witchblade and uses her for other secret tasks, the job is very well paid, but it is a quite demanding one, not only that she has to deal with the tasks from Doji, she also has to deal with members of the competing organisation NSWF who is also interested in the Witchblade.

The events in and between these two different companies are an interesting part of this anime, different parties aspire for power and a lot of intrigues between them occurs.

Impressions

Masane was raised in an orphanage and never really had the chance to become an adult mentally. She isn’t the smartest one, also a little mannerless, but she’s a very likeable person with her honest words and caring attitude torwards Rihoko. Rihoko is the center of her life, she can give her the cozy feeling of the family she never had. Masane doesn’t know it any better and isn’t the best when it comes to daily chore, but she loves her daughter and would do anything for her.

Rihoko has adapted to her not so perfect mother and is also quite attached to her, of course. Regarding her age she  is a very independent child and the one who always does the chore, she cooks and does the laundry without fail. The mother child roles are reverted quite often, these scenes are actually quite funny.

With a job Masane is officially allowed to take care of her daughter, she and Rihoko move into an appartment, their neighbors are nice people with unique and interesting personalities. They support Masane in taking care of Rihoko when she can’t be around because of her job.

This anime shows that the love from a mother is more important for a child than providing it with lots of toys, money and a big house. Ok, that might sound cheesy, but this anime manages to portray this mother – daughter relationship in a down to earth way, without being exaggerated.

The tragic part of this anime starts as it was revealed that the Witchblade is actually a curse, Masane desperately tries to get rid of the device around her wrist, but it seems to be impossible and her destiny slowly starts to affect her life…

The atmosphere of Witchblade can be quite funny, but most of the time it has a faint melancholic touch which suits the setting very well. A very good detail of this anime were the letters, at the end of each episode a personal letter from either Masane or Rihoko is read out loud, it is never shown if the letter reached the person it was adressed to, but at least the viewer gets a deeper image of the characters.

Final Words

Witchblade has a multi layered setting with a lot of twists, it is very well directed and tells an very riveting story about tough business, ruthless science and the love between a mother and a child.

There are many sidestories that enriches the overall plot. During the 24 episodes the anime puts the viewer through different moods from lighthearted comedy to tragedy, everything is done in a believable, non cheesy way. Surprisingly the main focus of this anime aren’t half nude and curvy women fighting each other, it’s more focused on the bond between the two main characters.

Production values are good and solid for an anime of 2006, the style is quite appealing. Also the OST is well done and supports the plot in a very good way.

I enjoyed this anime a lot, the story can be considererd as thrilling and addicting. The characters are also very well created, you’ll end up caring for them on an emotional level at least for Masane and Rihoko. Even though I would have been happier with a different kind of ending. The anime had a great story overall, and with this end I would still rate this anime with 8,5 out of 10 points.

Thx for reading my humble review, Im on vacation starting next Tuesday and there probably won’t be any new post until the 07.06.2012.