Ahhhhh… for better or worse, one thing I appreciate about anime is the frequent absence of exposition - - that is, the information usually woven into a narrative to clue you in to the characters and their world. Such is the case with the first episode of Blassreiter, titled “Prelude to Despair.” Now, I’m all for starting a story in media res. It’s a quality I especially enjoy in Frank Miller’s work. It’s a lot more exciting to hit the ground running and get filled in as the story goes along, rather than slow things down for some long-winded title scroll. Butttttt…
The episode starts off at pro motorcycle race with some lively cell-shaded 3D animation. I figure I’m going to be watching a Ridge Racer-style show about the perils of life in the fast lane, about the dangers of living at 100mph. Then, randomly, there’s a nude girl in an ambulance parked next to the track who happens to be a shape-shifting, machine absorbing amalgam Demoniac (at least I think so). She/it flips out and starts killing bikers until another Demoniac and before I know it, we’re speeding into story about a secret organization that tracks down these amalgams. Only the beginning wasn’t just a red herring teaser, because one of the surviving bikers, Gerd, remains in the story. He’s adjusting to life as a paraplegic and the remedy to his paralysis seems to lie in a single prescription pill that will turn him into a bio-mechanoid as well. And then there’s his old protégé, who’s wrapped in this intelligence group and…
In short, like a jump from zero to sixty on an engine filled with octane, this toon gets really complex, really fast. I’ll own up to the fact that it did, indeed, leave my head spinning. I got the gist it before the episode was done, but the integration of the two plots at this point really seem like trying to squeeze jagged glass shards together. I do feel it necessary to remark that I got a chuckle out of the scene where that tough guy loner Gerd starts shedding some man tears after he just scolded his protégé about how he isn’t “ruthless” enough to be a pro biker. I suppose you’d call him a paper tiger, not the Pale Rider the title of this series translates to in German.
Anyway, I’m glad this is different and unpredictable and, now, I’m going to open up the floor, so to speak, to you, the Anime Vice community. What other anime shows online (preferably Hulu) should I check out? Seriously - - I’ll watch whatever you recommend. You have suggestive carte blanche!
-- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Comics and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia Comics. Watch out for the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover collection this March - - available for pre-order now on Amazon.com .
