Zetman – 02

From the start I was a bit apprehensive about blogging Zetman, because I knew right away that it would be rushed. Why? Because of the guy behind the series composition: Atsuhiro Tomioka. It’s not like he is bad or anything: I really liked his adaptation of Samurai 7, and all of his other adaptations do have a number of really good parts. However, he always takes huge liberties when it comes to source material and he always rushes through with incomplete stories. And then you give him a huge manga to adapt with only 13 episodes. Yeah.

So Zetman will be incomplete. I don’t really care about whether it’s faithful to the manga or not, but it is not fun to start watching a series knowing that that it’s not going to end well. But really: after that first episode I just have to cover this. It had so much detail there, and the creators put so much emotion in this episode. the graphics were also amazing. In fact, out of all the first episodes to have premiered this season, I liked the graphics of Zetman and Lupin the most. Yes, both are TMS Entertainment series. I really like how they went for something completely different from their usual series, and it works.

Now, the looks of this episode were decidedly less impressive and the animation was much more static, but it still had its parts that looked great. The characters’ faces in this series have depth. they’re not some cardboard-cutouts but they feel like movable objects. It’s not like the animation is perfect, and there were plenty of rushed shots in this episode, but even considering that the amount of the shots with depth was remarkably high. On top of that, I also love the amount of emotion that the characters’ faces portray.

Now, this wasn’t perfect though. I can only imagine that the manga had a better solution for saving the family trapped in the burning building. A bunch of pillows are nowhere enough to break the fall of several stories. Some of the old guys in this series also lack the energy that the young ones have, especially the corporate bastards: they feel like the same corporate bastards you see everywhere.
Rating: *+ (Great)