The funny thing about my favorite series, I initially thought all of them were pieces of shit. So I’ll share my first impressions with you:
Suikoden
First Impression: After seeing how gamefan hyped this game back in 96’ or 97’, I COULD NOT WAIT for it to come out. Stopped by Toy’s R’ Us, almost ended up putting the game back because the cover was so damn atrocious it couldn’t possibly be the same game, played through it, beat the game in 10 hours, and was like “THAT’S IT?” So the 108 stars ended up being a cheap gimmick. The thing that really bothered me is how they hinted so much story, yet didn’t give any story at all. They hinted many things that I thought would happen in the game, but the game ended. RIGHT THERE. Before anything could happen. You piece of shit.
What made me a fan: Years later I read a review in gamepro about how much Suikoden 2 sucked because they stated it was no different from the first game. I played Suikoden 2 expecting it to suck. 6 months later I was still playing Suikoden 2. 10 years later I'm still playing Suikoden 2. I since learned to never take another person’s opinion as my own. Good god, this game is the shit.
But what really made me a fan was Suikoden 3. The plot twist, how Luc was the villain of the game (not exactly since Suikoden isn’t one of those normal Japanese RPGs that are about good vs. evil, but he was on the opposing side I should say.) Fucking awesome. I just knew this series was going to go somewhere.
Then Suikoden 4 came out, a complete step back with all the innovations Suikoden 3 introduced. My hope for the series was on thin ice. But thankfully Suikoden was revived with the fifth installment. Surprisingly, it was for the best, S5 actually had the best writing out of the whole series (Odd because normally new writers never write better than the original writers.) The only real drawback to Suikoden 5, is that story wise it paralleled WAY TOO MUCH with Suikoden 2.
So at the moment of writing this: Suikoden 2 is still my fave, the gaidens are shitty linear visual novels, huh, card stories? What’s that?
Rose of Versailles
First Impression: Now back when I was a kid I first heard of Utena through Gamefan. (Well if you noticed, prior to internet, prior to the days I lived in Japan, I got all my nerdy news from Gamefan magazine.) They labeled it as the next best thing since Sailor Moon. Me being a big fan of Sailor Moon, jotted Utena down on my “to see” list. I didn’t watch Utena till some years later when Kid’s Station, a Japanese cable anime channel showed it. I was obsessed with Utena. I thought Utena was one of the most kick ass female leads ever. I looked up to that cross dressing she-man. (Except that you’d have to be blind to mistake her for a man.) I remember venturing through Utena fan sites, they’d all lead back to this old ass ugly 70’s cartoon claiming that Utena was a knock off of Oscar of Rose of Versailles. Eww. Oscar is ugly.
But prior to me getting into Utena, I was into a Japanese rock band named Lareine. I really liked this one song from the CD that came with their Lillie Charlotte book, “Bara wa Utsukushiku Chiru.” I wondered why the composer and lyricist was different, but I still thought it was a song by Lareine. It wasn’t until 2000 that they revived the song again, this time as a single AND they had the original artist of that old ugly Japanese 70’s cartoon “Rose of Versailles.” I then found out it was the opening theme of said cartoon. I still thought nothing of the series, but I thought the manga-ka had pretty cool art. At that time I wondered why they randomly added sopranos to this new version of their cover.
Then fast-forward to 2005. I think my anime fanatic days ended long ago, probably back in 1999. But there was one title to make me want to dig through torrents so I could download me some anime. Peach Girl. Well one night I noticed that my Peach Girl torrent was almost done downloading but I didn’t want to turn off my computer. So I decided that I’d randomly download another cartoon I could wake up to in the morning. That ended up being Rose of Versailles. I just thought to myself “Hmm, well I guess I’ll see how the original version of that song sounded like, watch through some bad animation, and then delete it off my computer.”
By the next month or so, I owned the DVD sets, OST, and the complete manga sets (even the gaidens.) Utena? Who the fuck is that? Oh that shitty Oscar knockoff, that’s who. And wow, that soprano in the Lareine cover was the artist of the manga? That’s fucking impressive.
What made me a Fan? Well I ended up watching RoV backwards. I started watching it when Live Evil started ripping and subbing the series. At that time their latest release was episode 25. Yes, of all episodes I see first, I saw the one where Oscar puts on a dress for Fersen. At that time I thought “Hey this is pretty interesting…oddly enough the main characters aren’t teenagers, they’re adults. That’s rare in anime.” Of course when I went backwards in time I found out that when the series started the main characters were teenagers, 14-15 year old kids to be exact. Wow, that’s really fucking rare. A story where the characters ACTUALLY AGE? Holy shit, that’s the kind of story I always wanted to see. Stories like that, you get into much more character development, rather than trying to smash year’s worth of experience into one short crass story. *cough*majority of Japanese RPGs out there *cough*
Now while I wouldn’t recommend watching RoV backwards like I did, it sure made everything more interesting. Since I watched it backwards I was wondering why Jeanne and Rosalie seemed to know each other. When I went back in time I found out that they were actually sisters. Poor sisters living in the slums with their mom. But at the point I started at, Jeanne was living as a noble, scheming, for fuck’s sake she started the whole Affair of the Necklace incident! And Andre, possibly the reason why so many girls like this series, (Sorry, I’m no different, he’s my fave too) it’s amazing to see how his personality changes drastically throughout the whole series, as well as Marie Antoinette and Oscar. (Sorry Fersen, you were stale!)
Prior to me getting into this series all I did was play Japanese RPGs hoping for a story like this. Little did I know the story that I was looking for all my life was that anime title I kept avoiding. RoV managed to mix in political drama, romance, war, all into one bitchin’ series.
Sadly the characterizations of the manga (the original) are almost completely different from the anime. If Osamu Dezaki didn’t bastardize this series, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as good as it is. After getting into RoV, I decided to go back and give all those anime titles I avoided a watch. Well as usual, I found out I wasn’t missing out on much. I only found two series that were as great as RoV. (Basara would count too if it were actually more than just 13 episodes.)
Berserk
First Impression: Berserk was pretty much that manly manga title I’d pass by in the manga stores. I remember picking it up once and looked at it like “Berserk? The fuck kind of name is that for a manga? Ugh. This is so Fist of the North Star. BLECH.” The anime got licensed and released in the US in 2002. After that I’d hear people repeatedly tell me how great the series was. Though the thing they’d always mention is that its way too bloody and girls definitely wouldn’t enjoy it. With that description that just left me thinking it was random bullshit like Fist of the North Star and Bastard. Each time someone would try telling me how great Berserk is I’d just look at that gary stu of a main character. That deus ex machina with the robot arm, cross bow, knives, long big ass sword, and horrendous spiky hair, this guy was solely created so men could imagine they were him. Of course, with his “badass name” – GUTS.
When I graduated high school I had some spare cash left over of my graduation money. I noticed that there was a shitload of Berserk DVDs in the aisle with the live action stuff and separate from the anime section as if it were cool and worthy enough to be there like Ghost in the Shell. They didn’t have volume 1 so I grabbed volume 2. I told myself “If I see any fucking demons and said demons tell the main character they haven’t fought someone like him in THOUSANDS of years I’m throwing this in the burner.” Popped the DVD in and episode 6 played.
There was a beast in castle, some lackey (Gaston) told Guts not to go in, but him being “MAN” he did anyway. The beast was some demon of some sort and guess what he told Guts? “I HAVEN’T FOUGHT SOMEONE LIKE YOU IN THREE HUNDRED YEEAARRRSSS!” I turned the DVD player off and threw volume 2 in my closet. I knew I couldn’t listen to guys and that Berserk was just some stupid guy roid rage killing spree bullshit. Not to mention that the opening theme was by my most hated band, “Penpals.”
What Made Me a Fan? I didn’t dig that DVD out of my closet till two years later after being blown away by how amazing Rose of Versailles was. This time I got through episode 6 and watched through episodes 7-9. It reminded me A LOT of RoV. Especially Griffith, he’s like a womanly version of Oscar’s manga counterpart. And Griffith. HE’S the one that got me interested in Berserk. I’m not into pretty boys, but it’s a wonder why someone as pretty as him, someone prettier than every single girl in the show combined, would be on a battlefield. Of course I had the end spoiled to me years ago thanks to the men who kept advertising this series to me. But even though I knew how the anime was going to end I still wanted to know more about Griffith and what caused him to betray the Hawks.
I then regretted not watching this series earlier. Damn, I started off with the worst episode ever, for a great deal of the series, there aren’t any demons. There’s actual character development in Berserk, much like my favorite Rose of Versailles. What really surprised me is that Berserk is pretty dramatic (at times laughable as well because of the unintentional sexual innuendos, but still fucking amazing.) Damn, it was like a shojo title with all the angst going on. But before any male Berserk fans kill me, NOT ALL shojo is bad. Like Rose of Versailles. (And Basara which many would say is the female version of Berserk in terms of excellent story telling and fucked up plot twists) And by the time I got to the end, oh I’ll always remember my first reaction after episode 25 ended. I was scared shitless. I then got up and washed dishes. I never wash dishes.
I then dug into the manga which I wasn’t expecting much of. Now unlike me getting into the anime, I just had to buy the best volume of the manga series first (to me at least), volume 9. There was SO MUCH SHIT snipped out of the anime. It’s really no lie when people tell you that the anime is better, there were so many fucked up plot twists left out (ones mainly regarding the King of Midland.)
But of course this is always a newbie’s reaction to Berserk. Once you dig through all 30+ volumes you’ll notice – nothing really happened in Berserk yet. There’s tons of lollygagging. And with volumes 24+? They’re nowhere near as action packed and exciting as say – volume 9 was. Sure the ultimate fanboy would get up my ass and tell me “YOU DUN UNDERSTANDZ THE STORIEZ” but c’mon, 20 plus fucking years in the making and we’re still not on the halfway mark? Ugh.
Berserk may be the slowest series ever, but of course I’ll always follow it. Mainly because Berserk has one of the best male leads ever, Guts. Just to think before this I was a big Arngrim (Valkyrie Profile) fan not knowing who he was a knock off of (Much like my experience with Utena.)
Gungrave
First Impression: I was expecting mindless Hellsing action with Gungrave. Y’know, something with a shitty story but awesome fight scenes. The first episode lived up to my expectations. But episode 2 and after? What the hell is this? Drama. Drama. Drama. Not only that, but a mute main character who doesn’t say jack shit who also happens to be in love with an amazingly plain and unattractive woman. I stopped watching after episode 5, I wasn’t watching through this bullshit.
What Made Me a Fan? While flipping channels I came across Gungrave (when G4TechTV aired it) as usual. But this time…it was the scene where Brandon rejects Maria. Maria was all prettied up…but the thing that really surprised me was Brandon. He was in a suit, had slick back hair, glasses, AND JUST TOLD OFF MARIA. What the hell happened here? I then went back and watched all the episodes and wow – completely blew me away. One of the best anime series out there. The only faults about Gungrave are the episodes that revolve around Mika (god she just had to be an original character from the game.) Episodes 18-22 are a complete drag to get through. But other than that, when it picks up again at episode 23, Gungrave ends with a bang, and by far had one of the best endings ever. Not to mention that GG is pretty much one of those rare series where practically everything gets tied up and explained by the end. Gungrave is definitely on my top 3 favorite anime list. Â