Anime: Gilgamesh

I will sound like a broken record but this anime is yet another good idea with a bad presentation. It tries to do things differently in a tired premise but only ends up making things worse than it already is.

What is the premise? Some kids with superpowers are divided into two groups. One doesn’t like the world and wants to purify it, the other likes it and fights to leave it as it is. And if that doesn’t give you vibes from a dozen other anime such as Neon Genesis or X-tv, then you are a total newb. So yes, the main objective of the anime is damn generic yet the way it unfolds not so much. You see, the characters are not the usual good hearted shounen heroes and the mistreated/misguided evil ones. They are all pretty much this bunch of cynical, amoral bunch of uncaring youths, with little concern about what the world is going through. At this point we have an interesting twist to the formula, as this way the characters seem to behave more realistic. Not everything is about the fate of the world and not every day should be hard training and guts so to become THE BEST SOMETHING-SOMETHING IN THE WORLD!!! So it pretty much centers on what each character feels and believes about the world in a very apathetic way.

… Which is also what makes the cast really hard to like. If the characters don’t care much, why would the viewer do? In any show the main characters are supposed to make you sympathize with them, cheer or boo them, make you part of their struggle and efforts. Well not in this case, since everybody doesn’t give a rat’s ass; meaning if they affect you, you will also not give a rat’s ass about them. And anyway, how can people fight for the fate of the world if they are not highly motivated and idealistic to begin with? It’s as if they take sides at random and fight just because they are bored or have nothing better to do.

Effectively the viewer is given a series where he is supposed to tolerate uncaring people just because they are supposed to be more realistic this way. Well they ain’t and on top of that they are boring and even hateful. And it’s not like a story about apathy or boredom can’t possibly be good. I am no fan of Suzumiya Haruhi, yet its simplistic stereotypical characters were a hundred times more likable and worthy to follow through, just because they were MOTIVATING you. It was all like “I am bored so I am doing crazy stuff to fill my life with excitement.” Sure, it can work; especially if this comes from the mouth of a perky moe girl. What motivation is given by this bunch of bored people? Absolutely none. In fact, the show gets finished and you are still left blanked out to why they chose their side to begin with.

The problem with this show doesn’t stop to the cast; the action part is also dull. There is very little choreography, lots of still images, random people appearing and disappearing, teleporting exactly where the scriptwriter wants and dying when their purpose is over. The visual effects are poor, there is way too much darkness to tell what is going on half the time, and in general I was yawning half the times, waiting for this sleeping pill to end. Don’t make the mistake of expecting good action in this, just because everybody has superpowers. You will hate it right away.

And it’s not just the action; the animation of the whole show simply feels poor. The characters are mostly standing still or teleporting with superpowers or something, while the 3D monsters move in a crude way and feel totally fake. I guess the goth artwork, the soundtrack, and the lighting effects were done in a great way since everything is mostly dark and gloomy, just like what you are supposed to be feeling about the whole thing. What a lovely way to begin your day…

And it ain’t just the animation only; the whole plot is slow and mostly uneventful. It is made up mostly of dull sounding dialogues, people standing still and looking all emo, and the whole area being depressing. As it usually happens with poorly written series, towards the end the plot goes on turbo mode and people start dying just because it is the last episode. Yeah, cheap last impressions about a story that never motivates you to care and ends with barely explaining itself. The actual story is not bad as a storyboard; there are lots of twists that look great on paper yet look shit when presented in such a dull or rushed way. People are cloned, siblings go incestuous, the world ends, and I am not made to care. Thanks but you fail.

I will end as I began. Good idea but bad presentation. Thus nothing new to see here.

I have to say this show looked like it would be something amazing. After watching the first episode one can judge if they are willing to continue on with the rest of the series and this one had perked my interest. "Kids with psychic powers fighting each other for some unknown reason in a world where the sky is a giant mirror?" I took the bait. This series only had one disappointment for me and I will discuss that later with the appropriate spoiler warning.

Animation:
I have to say I really don't like this animation style. I found it distracting but I will admit it was very well done, and the style matched the story rather well. The motions were rather fluid and the dark, dull colors matched the theme of the story. I will say though the smiles on character's faces looked forced even when they were legitimate and looked awkward. But other then this the show had some talented artists working for them.

Music::
The opening and ending were rather good. The music in the actual show was also very well done. The voice actors were placed nicely (cant say this for the English version) and the sound effects fit the happenings on screen really well.

Story: --Spoiler-
I will say this story was interesting. At first it had me a little lost on what the hell was going on but that's part of the hook in a series. The battle between the Gilgamesh and Orga-Superior was what really held my attention, as well as hinting at the main characters' father still being alive. These elements kept me watching at first but the whole story unfolding made it really interesting and worth the watch. After a few episodes in I will have to say though that Kiyoko was rather random until the end of the show. I wasn't sure what her purpose was. When the anime came to a close however this was my main qualm with it. The ending was, in my personal opinion, Stupid. I didn't like the ending at all but that's just me bitching. Over all the story was well written but leaves many questions unanswered.

Character development:
The characters grow up a lot during this series. There was a lot of mental change especially in the main character Tatsuya. This has to be one of the main things that makes an anime good. Not only the story but how the characters cope and develop with this story. Seeing all these characters find out who/what they are and how they deal with that is what makes the final showdown interesting.

Value:
This show is worth a watch if you're looking for a nice little anime. Don't expect a happy ending seeing as the dark nature of the show, but the show is still a good watch. I wouldn't recommend this show in the English dub however. (the acting is terrible) Bottom line, If you're looking for a show with a complex story that keeps you in the dark till the end then this is it.

A bit of history a bit of future and ALOT of I don't know WTF is going on. In all honesty the anime wasn't too confusing till the end when it got out of hand. For most of the series it made sense in a bad way. I don't really know what they were aiming for in this anime but it wasn't exactly anything exceptional. The anime starts off in an after apocolyspe sort of setting where the "world" is rebuilding itself. It also talks about how some kids received special powers shortly after the disaster. In this case you slowly find out that there are a few sides fighting for power. For most of the series it's the main character's vs Giglamesh.

Animation
overall this is definitely the best part of the series. The fight scenes were mainly psychic power fights but they had nice SFX. The character designs were different as well but nothing you can't get used to. I really liked the overall use of darker shades to emphasive the situation our characters are in. Although some of the things do look a bit ridiculous i.e Giglameshs?

Sound
The music and ost is also fairly good. Although I didn't put much notice into this part it still stood out over other things.

Story
The story is very messy and poorly planned. If you do happen to finish the entire series you'll udnerstand what I mean when I say the ending is VERY rushed and not exactly great. The whole thing also tries to revolve around the mesopotamian legend but is loosely based off this. They do use enkidu and the actual homeland of giglamesh in some cases but in reality the bonds aren't strong at all. Personally I don't know why they choose to use "giglamesh" but I guess they didn't have any better ideas. The actual plot goes around in circles too. You also find yourself unable to root for either side of the good and bad. As you watch it, it seems everyone is bad besides the main characters. Thus it lacks a proper structure all together.

Character
Some are decent some are bad. They had a great deal of expendable characters. They also failed to create enough bound for most of the characters between the audience and the character itself. I only seriously cared about 2 characters that were the sister and one of the giglamesh. I didn't even care about the main male lead. He was a big cry baby and that annoyed me. I think the large cast of side characters didn't help as well. I constently found myself forgetting who many of the people were. In the end though it didn't matter because most of them dissappear anyway. So all in all this wasn't too succesful either.

Value and Enjoyment
I don't think I could rewatch this in any form or way. While watching I wanted to give up around the end of the series as well. Although it did try to tie in some sort of moral and virtue nothing is gained as you will see in the end. However I enjoyed the series a bit. I espially liked the beginning few episoides that confused the hell out of me because nothing was explained yet. Confusion is a good thing in some cases. Anyways I recommend this to sci fi fans. However I warn you all that this won't be anything worth mentioning. Have fun if you decide to give it a shot! :)

Introduction:
From the first episode, I was very intrigued by the premise of the anime and the overall mood. I thought that the animation was okay, it wasn't terribly good, but it did its job of providing a container for the mystery, darkness, and melancholy that the theme seemed to hold. After a few episodes, around 3 or 4, I started to lose interest. I thought that it was probably just about some psychic kids battling other psychic kids.

It was also somewhat amusing to me that the Gilgamesh test subjects looked a bit like those J-rock/goth band wannabes. I'm not sure why the "bad" guys have to look like that - for a moment there, I was thinking "Is Gilgamesh about some evil band trying to take over the world?".

However, I stuck with it because I wanted to find out what happened to the two siblings
(the main characters of the story), and why certain events occurred as such.

Animation:

Although the Gilgamesh look ridiculous (not ridiculous as in stupid or funny...just J-rocky), I didn't mind the character design. Although the animation was rather atrocious from episodes 3-8 (around that), I was hoping that it would improve. I'm not sure whether or not it was the fansub, but for the first few episodes, the character faces seemed to look compressed vertically and thus this kind of annoyed me. The action scenes are not terribly flashy, or exciting, but this is not a major contraction of the anime anyway. The animation definitely seemed to get better, and by the last few episodes, it was pretty good (compare d to the beginning at least). I think that the character design is indeed unique, and every character was very distinguishable from each other, which is a good thing. It compliments any individuality of a character. There isn't very much variety to the background either, there're only three or four general places that the story is set in, but as I've mentioned, the animation is not the major thing it has going for it, which in the end, doesn't matter too much (as long as you're patient).

Sound: The opening song is sort of generic J-pop, somewhat like Namie Amuro (I don't think she sang it, but the singer sounds like her). The ending, I wasn't a fan of but I'm not one of those people who enjoy watching the OP and ED every episode. The soundtrack itself is mostly classical, with your "set" music for set situation. I think it too is unique, and I like the bells that occur in some of the moments. The battle music is orchestral, and reminds me of those epic movies. It's not overly outstanding, but it fits the anime very well.

Story: The story itself isn't that unique, all of the events can somehow be similar to various other anime. But, there're a few details here and there that sort of were very interesting to see. The ending made very little sense, in various ways, and the show didn't do a very good job of tying it up. A lot of anime spend 25 episodes setting up the climax, putting all the characters into place, and spending 22 minutes resolving it isn't enough for this one especially. Although this is the case, I forgive it because of the Countess of Werdenberg. She's definitely an outstanding character, and I'll get to that.

Character: Although I didn't care too much for the two main characters, I did like several of the side characters and especially the Countess. She's a relatively complex character, and the show reveals bits of things slowly throughout which was interesting because a lot of the premises that the show started up is related to her. Character developments doesn't really occur, and if it did, I seemed to miss it. The sister doesn't actually appear that much in the show, and she's pretty much the same throughout it. The brother sort of grows up, etc...but that's pretty standard stuff.

Conclusion: Alone by itself, if you judge each aspect of the anime like animation, sound, etc...it isn't overly outstanding. But when all these are put together in the actual show, it is intriguing, somewhat original, and worth a see.

I agree with everything Eric has said except his opinion of the animation. Having heard many people's opinions of how badly they think the animation was done seems very strange to me when I thought the style was done incredibly well. The grungy, gritty appearance perfectly fitted the desolate world. Also, I've heard people complaining that the character's faces looked weird simply because Gilgamesh is one of the few animes to incorporate lips. Personally, I feel that anime has been suffering lately from a decrease in the diversity of animation styles and Gilgamesh is a vibrant and refreshing break from the mainstream. What constitutes good animation as opposed to poor animation is subject to dissent, but there is no denying that Gilgamesh is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill anime.

Animation: While not impressed by the overall animation (very little movement, lots of slow pans and few cell layers on average), there is a definite style which goes a long way to alowing one to ignore its problems.
Sound: Great sound, always seem approprate to the setting and really brings the plot home.
Story: I have to say I loved the over all plot, and the episodes were all well done, however it was slow to start out, and does not really develope until about ep. 18, by which time I could see some people having already given up on the show, therefore I haveing a 9.
Characters: Were well doen each with the benifts and detractions, they are not the standard flat good/bad characters that you often find. By the end of the series you can actually relate to what some of them are going through, I gave this a 9 because there are a few that could have been futher developed.
Value, Enjoyment: its a good value if you have the chance watch it. I beleive that ADV has bought the rights to the series, so finding bittorrents will become more difficult and it remains to be seen if they can do the series the same justice as the loyal fans who performed the sub version I saw.

ERIC