mengelscott

This show is ripe with innuendos and suggestive material inappropriate for children, but the animation is pretty entertaining and the variation between the how episodes choose to be raunchy and lewd is enough to make this a show worth watching with some friends - if you're not laughing with the show, you're laughing at the show. If their show turns into a formula for presenting their sex jokes I can see it growing stale, but for the time being the show manages to do something different with every 15 minute short... except the sex and swearing is consistent, that's the heart of the animation.

Don't watch this if you're watching for a story though...

This game's most important feature is its impressive character creation abilities. As a tool in every RPG game, this has seen constant development and interesting new looks in most every game that it is used in. Arcanum, in my opinion, has yet to be beaten by another game in its superb consideration of nearly all types of players and catering to them all without a specific class system.

Also, an interesting and genuinely intriguing tool that the game's developers inserted into the game was the rising conflict between Magics of the past and the rising Technologies in the world of Arcanum. Escelating into a miniature Cold War, Magic wielders would sabotage the trains in cities while the followers of technology would use these conflicts as an excuse to limit all magic users' freedoms with their powers. This, I found, led into an intriguing study of what "magic" means to people, even in the world outside of the game, and what technology meant to people, likewise in and out of the game.

Being a plot driven game with extreme freedoms, Arcanum might have been a little before its time and now has been mostly forgotten with its parent company declaring its bankruptcy and closure. A classic, nearly perfect example of the ideal for RPG games of the late 90's, the style in which Arcanum was made was both practical and brilliantly presented; a true classic of its time.

To establish myself in the review, I'm a student of art and I generally distance myself from anime because of the confusing intentions of the artwork. My first animation teacher once asked me, "If you wanted realism, then why would you draw it?" Anime's tend to draw their characters' anatomies in simplistic manners and then draw the backgrounds as a completely different entity that deeply contrast the characters.

It's like seeing a colored Micky Mouse drawing in the middle of "Sin City" to me. This is something that I hold against all anime and it's a strong reason I tend to avoid watching them.

And my point is that the artwork in this anime is staggeringly beautiful; they do not try to "mask" the fact that they're in an anime as other animes do and instead utilize the advantages that an animated character has over an acted character. (like sudden and radical changes in expressions, not to mention having the main character doing all of his own stunts...) Along with the superb visuals, the voice acting is perfect; the voices cast to their characters perfectly express their personalities and attributes. Also accompanying the voice acting is an original soundtrack that, I think, perfectly captures the setting that they are all in.

So, long story short, it's a treat for the eyes and ears. But what about plot, you say..? All I'll say for the plot is that it is very well told. I really don't know what more I can say without giving away major points of the series.

Besides the plot (which I don't want to explain for fear of spoiling it) there is a constant discussion going on between the main character and the society and, in a more hostile light, the antagonist as well.

The argument is the justification of killing; the protagonist is deeply against all forms of killing and bears an almost childish opinion of it. The irony is that he is not by any means a vegetarian but he refuses to kill any animal as well... The society bears the opinion that survival is the ultimate motivator. While they won't harbor murderers, they tolerate murders of self defense and themselves try to kill the protagonist in order to obtain the bounty on his head. The antagonist takes on the furthest possible opinion from the protagonist's. He is intent on killing all of the humans he encounters with the ultimate intention of "killing the spider to save the butterfly".

As the excellent story unfolds, more and more of this argument is explored and the audience, as well as the protagonist, grows from the constant reflection on one's own morality. As a viewer, I repeatedly asked myself, "Would that be justified," or "What could you do to help a killing from happening in this situation?" All things considered, this anime is, bar none, the best anime I have ever seen, movies and series alike. If you enjoy science fiction, "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" (a strong influence on this series's development; the main character in both is a "Blondie", and the similarities don't stop there), and don't mind reading subtitles with the original Japanese in the background (which I suggest over listening to the American-dubbed one) then see this series.