Title: Casshern Sins Part 1 Episodes 1 – 12
Alternative Title: キャシャーン SINS
Published By: Siren Visual (Australia), Funimation Entertainment (US)
Based On: Neo Human Casshern by Madhouse
Audio: English and Japanese Dubs
Subtitles: English
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1, Full Frame, Original Ratio
Runtime: 288 Minutes over 3 DVD’s
Cost: $AUD 49.95 from Siren Visual’s Online Store
Trailer: US Trailer.
Classification: This title is rated M due to Animated Violence.
Special Thanks: A copy of this title was kindly provided by the people of Siren Visual.
As you may have noticed, most of the titles I have reviewed over the last few weeks have been well…. modern or have some sort of happiness / warm fuzzy feeling. Taking a different type of anime this time left me with Casshern Sins, which was released last week by Siren Visual in Australia. This series has very little of the happiness element within it, instead uses more of a depressive and “end of the world” storyline to try and tug at the emotion of the viewers, and attempt to deliver a storyline that tries to captivate them through the people Casshern meets, as well as his own issues. Almost every story in the first part does not have a happy ending and you are left questioning more and more as the episodes go on. Personally, this was a big change for me since I have never really watched animes in this genre before, so was it any good? Read on for my review of Casshern Sins!
Set in a post-apocalyptic world of ruin and rubble, populated almost exclusively by robots, we are introduced to Casshern; a cyborg who is mostly human in appearance. Suffering from amnesia, the only thing Casshern knows about himself is that everyone wants to kill him. Having no choice, Casshern is forced to fight. As we follow Casshern through a desolate wasterland on his quest to discover his true identity, we find that he is humble and seemingly invincible and he must confront the fact that he is ultimately responsible for the complete destruction of the world.
This series starts off extremely slow, in fact, the first ten minutes of the series consists of nothing more then shouts of “KILL CASSHERN!” and for the first few episodes, Casshern remains one of the more quiet characters in the series, and he opens up and speaks more as the episodes continue. Every episode generally has a different storyline and an occasional reference to the one before it, however you are almost guaranteed that there will be some element in the storyline that forces Casshern to fight due to a rather repetitive rumor that “Devouring him will save the world from ruin”. Ruin is the main cause of the destruction of the robot race as it is the rapid and sometimes spontaneous deterioration of the parts of the robots so they break apart. As this is set in a world where there are very few humans (Only one is seen in the first part of the series) and it is in a world where spare parts are hard, if not impossible to come by.
Casshern is being targetted as he is linked to the destruction of the Sun named Moon and is constantly referred to as it, however as he has amnesia, this entire thing remains a blur to both him and the readers, with only small 10 second fragments being shown at the start of every second or third episode, just before the opening cinematic. Ignoring the oddity of “The Sun named Moon”, which is confusing until it is actually explained, the storyline I think progresses far too slowly, and their attempts at somehow progressing the storyline are felt to me to be half hearted, and they will usually drop a new plot twist for another four episodes before doing anything about it again.
However, not is all lost in the storyline department. On a case by case basis, a majority of the individual episodes do have a sort of charm which captivates you into watching every episode. The second episode in particular was rather interesting as he enters a community of robots who welcome the Ruin and try to make each day count, however upon realizing that he is Casshern, they suddenly decide to drop their beliefs and try to kill him, instead resulting in them being killed, as Casshern yields a sort of overdrive mode which enables him to massacre everyone in his path. The storyline will usually result in some case, either directly or indirectly related to Casshern, cause a Bad Ending for the people he meets, however there are a few episodes which have a good ending and make you feel all warm and fuzzy knowing that the character won’t keel over and die. Either way, every storyline boosts Casshern’s confidence or teaches him a life lesson, that being said, it would be nice if the episodes were a bit more structured for the main storyline.
Casshern is the only character that appears in every episode and acts as a depressive android who is aware he caused the apocalypse, however has no idea how or why at the start. In other words, a perfect starting point for a 24 episode set of character development. During his journey he meets many other main characters such as Lyuze, a female who follows him around claiming that she will kill him over what he did, Ringo, a young robot girl who despite the situation with the world, has somehow maintained her innocence and spirit and Friender, a dog who he first met in episode 2 and partnered with in episode 3 and acts at times to stop Casshern from going out of control when no one else can. These characters drop in and out as the episodes go on. As well, each episode has its own unique characters, such as a human who travels with Casshern for a time, a fighting robot who willingly fights anyone she comes across and a robot who looks after flowers in a graveyard and makes friends with the rotting robot bodies. The character development is also slow, however most of the characters have interesting stories that show that there is light in such a dark world.
In terms of background designs, they are what you would expect in a series of this genre…. barren with very little life and showing that no one had occupied that land for hundreds of years. This originally made me think that it was overall boring, however after a few episodes, it was evident that they used the theme very wisely, using a sort of blueish tinge to the sky which worked well with the character deisgns and they often incorporated some detail into it such as an old building or even a few mis-shaped rocks in the landscape. The design quality is also very interesting as well, as they do not look like ones you would see in a normal anime series, instead it is like someone has individually painted each of them and overall, makes them look like something unique. The character designs are very much the same, and with the exception of one human character in the series, gives off the impression that all the characters are infact robots, so they have rather odd shaped heads, eyes that do not have the same complexity as human eyes and so forth. The clothing designs are also nothing fancy and give off the feeling of ruggedness and the impression they were scavenged over being new.
Opening Theme: Aoi Hana by Color Bottle
In terms of the song, it is a nice, moderate paced tune that has a lot of kick in it, alongside some appropriate lyrics for a series like this. However, the opening animation is more of what I would expect in an ending theme then an opening. I will be up front, the artwork incorporated into this segment is beautiful and comes across like it was drawn with a calligraphy brush or something like that. However, the actual animation was just still images… nothing interesting or exciting at all.
Ending Theme: Reason by K∧N∧
The song was…. not of much interest and the animation was…. less then interesting.
The music in the series is dark, gloomy however has a few moments where it really kicks in and does a good job at maintaining the mood. However, it is nothing special and is not something memorable. However, in episode 8, Casshern comes across a singer who sings two musical pieces during the course of the episode. These are sung in english, both by the english dubber and the Japanese dubber, and these would be either loved or hated by the individual viewer, personally I found them very enjoyable.
Voice acting was good, although half the characters I am sure half the voice actors spent their entire role in the series screaming “KILL CASSHERN!!” Eric Vale does a pretty good job at voicing Casshern however due to the storyline, does not get as much voice time as he deserves. Monica Rial, who I had a slight issue with voicing Hazuki in Moon Phase, seems to have slightly improved on the child-like accent and voices Ringo very well. There is no real terrible voice actor, and they all carry off the “Robot” personalities very well.
There are a number of extras on the third disk which include:
- Pre-air Event Video which goes for 12 minutes
- Textless Opening
- Textless Ending
The extras are pretty much standard for most anime series but the Pre-air video was quite interesting.
Personally, I find it hard to place this series. The series has several interesting episodes mixed with boring episodes, the graphics quality isn’t exceptional however is beautiful and the characters don’t have much depth but are easily appreciated. However, after the first two episodes I was more then happy to drop the series and write a review on how boring this series was, however after the first few episodes, it kept me hooked through the entire 12 episodes in the first set. Fortunately, for those who are interested in the series, the second part is being released on the 18th of this month, less then a month after the release date of this set.
Final Score
Storyline: C (5)
Characters: B- (6)
Design: B (7)
Opening and Ending Themes: C- (4)
Music: D+ (3)
Voice Acting: B+ (8)
Extras: C+ (6)
Personal Opinion: B (7)
Overall Score: C+
