Many years ago, an ancient civilizations technical
achievements grew beyond their control and they found themselves destroyed by
it. Millenia later, various artifacts
from this long lost culture have begun to resurface with a cryptic warning, “If
you cannot wield the power of our creations, they must be destroyed.” Shadowy organizations, government black ops
group and private mercenaries all vie for control of this powerful technology. Standing in their way is ARCAM, dedicated to
fulfilling that cryptic message and keeping the dark technology out of evil
hands no matter the cost. Leading the
charge in this fight are ARCAM’s elite warriors, outfitted with the latest and
most deadly weapons of war ever built, making them one man armies in the
field. They are…the Spriggans.
Ever since I saw the original Spriggan Feature Film back
in…2001 or 2002, I’d always wanted to see a sequel or some kind of follow
up.
Sure it wasn’t perfect (I said as
much in my review a couple of years back: ).
But the first half is a ridiculously fun action flick blending equal
parts Metal Gear Solid with Indiana Jones and it’s a premise that could lend
itself nicely to a series of films or a TV Adaptation.
So when I heard that a new Anime was coming
to Netflix, I was intrigued by what it might offer.
And then I remembered…Netflix.
When it comes to that streaming service, 90%
of the titles they slap a “Netflix Original Anime” card on are usually a less than
stellar and even more painful to look at 3DCG hybrid that they’ve been trying
to push for years.
I cant even think of
one I’ve actually liked…and Spriggan isn’t ending that string of
disappointments anytime soon.
To be fair, Spriggan might be a mostly 3DCG sight but it
is trying to employ a similar visual approach as Godzilla: Singular Point,
trying to blend that artstyle with traditional 2D handdrawn elements.
But when that pesky 3DCG style rears its
head, its so hard to look at because it feels so unnecessary.
The most unfortunate receiver of this
treatment is out hero, Yu Omane, who already has his fair share of character
issues from the start.
While the movie
presented him as a competent soldier of fortune with a nice guy side, the new
series presents him as super cocky and he loves to hear himself talk to the
point where you almost want him to get punched by the bad guys.
When Yu jumps into battle, he goes full on
3DCG, especially when his bulky super suit is put through its paces.
I’ve looked at a lot of Anime in this style
on FIF and everytime I see one, my opinion has never improved.
It just looks silly and its hard to take Yu
seriously when his Movie Counterpart could rip him a new one easily if they
were put in the same room together.
Based on the animation quality and the not so great
presentation of Yu, that would be enough to make me write this off as a major
disappointment.
But there’s also the
fact that these 6 episodes are like 45mins each and that first episode
definitely didn’t need to be.
I did peak
ahead and see that the second episode is a rehash of the Noah’s Ark story
featured in the movie, even featuring shotgun toting French Bad Ass Jean
Jacquemonde.
Honestly though, based on
what I’ve seen from the first episode, I don’t even want to look at the
first.
The original Spriggan movie holds
a special place in my Anime viewing history, one of the first mature bloody
action romps I got to see on my own when I was very young.
It deserves better than some shoddy
adaptation in an artstyle Netflix keeps trying to push onto people believing
it’ll be cool…cause it’ll never been cool and Spriggan deserves better than
this.
No comments:
Post a Comment