[Categories: Anime Reviews]
Speed Grapher episodes 13-16
“It’s the perfect day for a white wedding…”
Suitengu sets the wheels of his plan in motion after the assassination of Shinsen: he intends to get a more significant hand in the Tennozu group by marrying Kagura. In a stunt reminiscent of Lupin III’s rescue of Clarisse in The Castle of Cagliostro, Saiga turns up in a cunning disguise and whisks the reluctant bride from the clutches of her scheming fiance.
The whole ‘Saiga rescues Kagura’ thing is getting a bit old now but fortunately there are three more Euphorians to keep things interesting. The first, a man with an interesting spider tattoo (I was almost shouting “Go web, go!” at the TV at this point) stirs up Ginza’s feelings for Saiga, while the second is a priest who has discovered a new God. Shame then that he under-estimates the advantages of old-school SLR…
The third and final Euphorian is a more intriguing individual whose tragic life story makes her more of a victim in her own right instead of the greedy and perverted ‘monsters of the week’ we’ve seen so far; it’s also the point at which Kagura finds the opportunity to help Saiga and ease him out of a bind, instead of the other way around.
The relationship between Saiga and Ginza is odd but relatively straightforward, but I’m wondering just what he makes of Kagura. Is she a source of pity to him, an innocent victim of the sordid society he’s grown to despise? Or does he really feel, as Ginza accuses him and as Bob warns him, some sort of affection for a girl who’s more or less old enough to be his daughter? Maybe we’re not supposed to see deep and meaningful-ness in a show that provides slick thrills and little else but I’ve got into the habit of reading between the lines…
In terms of background, there are some explanations relating to the Euhporian condition in which the writers try to blind the viewer with science; even with a biochemical/genetic education, I had trouble keeping up but grasped enough to understand that Euphorians such as Saiga already possess the potential (in the form of a neat little virus that invades DNA), which gives rise to the symptoms through a chemical trigger from Kagura. We can only guess at this stage as to why she possesses the extra factor, or how people from various backgrounds, from the political elite of the Japanese Diet to travelling newsmen such as Saiga, became infected with the same virus.
In Summary
Speed Grapher suffers from the mid-series slowdown in pace but offers enough new material for me to mull over while I wait for the next volume. Earlier criticisms aside, it’s proving to be an interesting and fun show that just about overcomes its problems to remain as cool as a polar bear’s unmentionables. For heaven’s sake though, sort out the ‘drawn last thing Friday afternoon’ quality of the visuals!
Posted on July 29th, 2007 @ 7:22 pm
I have been playing with the thought of watching Speed Grapher for awhile now… I’ve always thought that the illustrations to the series look great, but I feared that the story would not meet my expectations. And somehow your comments are giving me the feeling that I might be right. After all, I’m really having a hard time getting myself to watch a 26-episodes anime.
Posted on July 29th, 2007 @ 9:28 pm
@Sasa: Yeah, the illustrations look fantastic but sadly the quality of the animated artwork is really poor…it’s down there with Welcome to the NHK in that respect (another good series that suffers from bargain-bin animation). I don’t have a problem with the storyline itself though - it drags on occasion but is intriguing enough. The idea that a virus could insert itself between the DNA strands does seem a bit far-fetched to me but hey, it’s only a TV show!
Posted on July 31st, 2007 @ 7:58 pm
Yeah, the comparison with NHK is actually quite a pushback for me - I was horribly disappointed by the anime, animation- and story-wise. Then again, if the storyline of Speed Grapher is decent, I really might check it out; somehow the current seasons lack these kind of stories, imho.
Posted on August 1st, 2007 @ 2:24 pm
The story of Speed Grapher is not that complex, however, while I loved its OP by Duran Duran (my weakness is the ’80s), the rest of the show was kind of flat by me. Each “monster” of the week is nicely designed, and a couple of the characters like Suitengo and Kagura’s mother are pretty fun to watch. This series is supposed to be dark but I feel it somehow seen contrived. Later it tries to squeeze in a political plot that didn’t quite work for me. However, for pure enjoyment value of seeing the battles it provided enough fun for me.