Postby Rocketshipper » Tue Jun 28, 2005 7:57 pm
Topic ressurection!!! Today I just finished watching all 12 episodes of Xenosaga the animation, and i must say...I'm impressed!!!!! WOW! ^_^ I havn't enjoyed a new anime series this much in a long time. Every episode left me on the edge of my seat waiting for the next one, It was like reading a really good book, I could't stop watching! I'm a huge fan of Xenosaga and I was kind of worried about how this would turn out. Books and video games rarely seem to be that impressive when translated into movies or TV series, but this was different. YAY! Breakdown!
Voice Acting: Awesome! Almost all the VA's from the japanese version of the game were there. Unfortinetly, Tomakazu Seki didn't come back as Virgil, and some other people got new actors too, but the main cast was all the same. Willhelm got replaced, but he was replaced by Hikaru Midorikawa, so that's ok ^^. Ai Maeda (Shion) did a great job, as did everyone else from the main cast. If only Chaos had more lines, his voice is cool.
Animation: This show has the best Animation I've seen on TV in a long time. The backgrounds tend to be a little bland and un-detailed, but the computer animation for the space ships and the battle animation looks awesome!! Some scenes actully look better in the anime than they did in the video game. The character designs aren' the most attractive in the world (some characters look darn ugly at times. Like Margulis and Albedo) but I got used to them, and they stay true to the game designs. Some of the animation sequences in the last two episodes had my eyes popping out of my head ^^.
Music: The background music is very good, I think they borrowed a few tracks from the games. I actully didn't like the opening or ending music much, although the ending did grow on me towards the end. The instrumental version of it is very good.
Story: I loved the Xenosaga games storyline, so I loved this anime as well. The anime does a good job of conveying character relationships and explaining things, which could have been a problem, considering the very complicated nature of the storyline. Things still get a little confusing at times, and viewers would probably get more out of it if they'd already played both episode 1 and 2.
Presentation and transition: The anime is extremely fast paced and zipped through all it's events. The first few episodes flew by so fast it felt like they were only 15 minutes long. The translation from the game to the anime was excellent. The anime hits all the major events that the game covered, but deviates enough from the original material that people who've already played the game won't be bored. Some big changes include Virgil playing a bigger role than in the game, and a different final "boss fight" for the characters at the end of the series. There are some things from the game that I missed, but other additions actully improved on the game. For example, the death of a particular character came too early in the game, making Shion's reaction to the death not as realistic as it is in the anime, when it occurs much later. Besides some of the event changes, the anime also included many refrences to things that aren't even revealed in the games until episode 2.
So overall, this was an awesome series!!! 5 stars!! The anime people better make anime seris out of the rest of the games too, because if they don't all the people who watched the show but don't play the games will be left out.