Romeo x Juliet Review - 56/100
Gonzo… on one hand they search the borders of anime and storytelling, and work with greatly original premises…
… and on the other hand, we have this; generic premises that only stand out in their mediocrity. While others may have loved it, all I saw was a dull, predictable story and annoying characters. For this series, the people from Gonzo decided to bring their own version of the classic by Shakespeare, but this series might also just as well be called “Pete X Catherine”, because the only similarities are the names of the characters. Oh, and the Capulets and the Montagues are still mortal enemies.
This is another anime that suffers from the “bad main-character-syndrome”, as I’d like to call it. Both Romeo and Juliet are incredibly whiny teenagers who prevent the storyline from progressing smoothly, and instead they force the series to delve in cheesy and naive morals. Their relationship starts out nicely, but once they’re in love, their relationship starts behaving like that of a bad soap-opera, with excessive amounts of “I love you but I can’t stay with you”. Predictably, the ending for the series is a horrible one, where characters have convenient increases of powers for the sake of storytelling, complete with some screwed-up physics.
In terms of storytelling, this series also leaves much to be desired. It took me twenty-four freaking episodes to realize that the characters are supposed to be living on an island, floating in the sky. If that wasn’t bad enough, the characters themselves didn’t even know this. I mean, why was there nobody who would have thought at one point: “gee, I hate it here; why don’t I just travel to a very distant place and see what happens?” It doesn’t make any sense.
I’ve said this before; the best people from Gonzo were definitely working on Bokura no during the spring-season. The writers failed completely to make me care about the characters and setting, due to poor writing. These guys need to learn that lots of angst and drama don’t necessarily make a great anime; well fleshed-out characters are much more important.
I don’t want to be too biased but this is GONZO. Generally they either make classics (Gankutsuou) or crap (Kaze no Stigma, Dragonaut etc.). However, I found Romeo x Juliet to be flat in the middle because while it wasn’t anything wonderful it was tolerable and somewhat enjoyable to me. Well most of the time anyways.
Comment by kiseki gurl — December 7, 2007 @ 0:41
Oh I loved this show. I’m just glad they tried to do something a little new, I mean it avoided being completely predictable we gotta give them that right? I’m talking about the tree side-plot lol (it might seem silly and tacked on but I rather liked it) OH and I thought the ending was extremely beautiful especially since Gonzo love ending their shows explosively. All in all I loved it, no matter how chessy it got it’ll always have a special place in my heart, as the show that Gonzo finally was able to deliver in and then some hee. (I thought Bokurano was horrid for the most part really, sorry)
Comment by Ivy — December 7, 2007 @ 1:06
Sure, there were some boring and unnecessary parts through middle and some of the characters were wasted, but I think things went pretty well in the end. And some beginning parts were definitely enjoyable to watch.
And though I never liked Juliet, but Romeo was quite cute comparing with the original Romeo…..so I thought overall it was a good series.
And no offense, but I personally liked RomeoxJuliet much more than Bokura no.
The biggest problem I had with Bokura no was that simply it wasn’t entertaining to watch. Every episode just made me feel miserable and depressing (although that was what creators??intended to) and at some point, I felt that the plot just went too far to an extension that I don’t care any more.
Comment by L.A — December 7, 2007 @ 1:10
I found this series started out quite well, it was enjoyable to watch the first 10 episodes maybe, but I completely lost interest afterwards. The tree sideplot was absolutely awful, I think if they chopped out that whole concept and knocked it down to 20 episodes it could’ve been great.
The quality of the animation throughout the series is definately not stable, some of it was awful around the middle.
I’m not sure I agree about Bokurano, I only watched up to around episode 8 of that and found it awfully slow, it bored me. I might consider reading it sometime though.
Comment by Doughnut — December 7, 2007 @ 1:37
Wow.
I never thought I’d say this…
But I completely agree with you on this review! To me, Romeo X Juliet was the biggest disappointment of last season. All the characters were one-dimensional and much more interesting in the play. The producers basically took the premise of Romeo and Juliet, and literally screwed up everything. The anime could of been done in 13 episodes, all the middle episodes were mindless filler. The character designs were bland, as well as the animation. I honestly didn’t believe the romance and it all felt fake to me. Not one single character in the anime was better then it’s play counterpart.
The story never went anywhere…I was expecting a lot more out of this anime, but it didn’t live up to these expectations.
Comment by charlie — December 7, 2007 @ 7:26
charlie:
Same opinion here. The original play is better than this 24 episode wannabe (thankfully I stopped watching after episode 14).
Whoever decided on the plot should have been smacked from the beginning.
Overall GONZO created what was not supposed to be a supreme cliche of a anime adaption of a 17th century play.
Comment by Avisch — December 7, 2007 @ 7:37
I third the agreement in this one failing for me.
Just to back up what Charlie said, I DID in fact skip all the middle of this series. I watched maybe the first 4 episodes of this series and the last three, and I have to say if I can get every character and the entirety of went on with just that much its kinda sad how much of the show was filler. Given, I’d say knowing the original story helped me understand the end, but considering how far-off and obscure it went from the original, I’d say it made no difference.
I can’t even imagine what it must’ve been like to have to watch everything else in between. I’m only sorry you had to waste your time getting through the rest of it where I only got the beginning and end. And what the heck WAS that ending about?… Oi, very frustrating to watch.
Comment by Issu — December 22, 2007 @ 20:30
i just accept everything… if u think like that everything is good. so overall it didn’t really disapoint me..
so what.. did they both become the two parts of the “tree” or some shit?
Comment by crintodesu — December 23, 2007 @ 14:58
don’t get me wrong… i love cheese, but this show is just too cheesy. i stoped watching after 9 episodes… too painful. eye-catching though… beautiful animation, great action, but it’s just too cheesy.
Comment by nahrub — January 2, 2008 @ 5:30
In some way I DO agree with you… I thought the anime started off pretty well… But after a while it does get boring and dull. No to mention, characters such as Juliet gets on my nerves. Same here, couldn’t take too much angst and drama, around 3-4 episodes is enough, but not… half of the anime series… But anyway, I admit, I DO like the ending, but sadly, it didn’t end up ‘matching’ the anime.
Comment by Noelle — February 8, 2008 @ 3:27
wow
Comment by yelim — April 16, 2008 @ 4:26
I hear this anime even forsakes the classic “both commit suicide” ending. How can you ruin the most important part?
Comment by Denizen — May 18, 2008 @ 15:24
bastard.
it was this wonderful story showed into a japanese fantasies light
Comment by janae — July 2, 2008 @ 20:32
Both Romeo and Juliet are incredibly whiny teenagers who prevent the storyline from progressing smoothly
I burst out laughing when I read that. That’s what the original story’s about.
I agree that the character are archetypal, but it’s very difficult to break the mold when using the general plot line of a Shakespeare play. No, it’s DEFINITELY NOT Shakespeare’s original story, but it certainly stays true to the insane love-at-first-sight and swordplay-crazy spirit of the play.
It took me twenty-four freaking episodes to realize that the characters are supposed to be living on an island, floating in the sky.
What.
How many times did you watch the opening credits? It’s right there.
Comment by GidgetDigit — November 7, 2008 @ 9:16
this is a pathetic review.
you obviously don’t know anything about anime.
sure, there were some boring parts, but i’d like to see you do better.
Comment by . — November 23, 2008 @ 10:42
#15 YOU are fucking pathetic
romeo and juliet had potential, and I thought juliet wasn’t that much of a damsel in distress…or maybe she is. whatever. it could have progressed well, but the tree shit ending was totally weird. I’d rather have something that tied to the beginning and the tree was stupid and out of the blue. Melodramatic sometimes too. Romeo was laughable and boring.
Comment by 16 — January 2, 2009 @ 4:37
Okay. Personally I love this anime. You made some good points….but still I found no parts of this boring. The tree part was beautiful and put a new spin on a Romeo and Juliet story. I think the whole thing was well thought out. No disrespect to your opinion though. We all like what we like. As for predictable….well not to me. I was shocked at each episode. The whole red whirlwind thing was nice, and added another new spin on things. It had humor, romance, action, tragedy, everything really. No disappointment here.
Comment by Jenny — January 11, 2009 @ 3:00
This anime is bullshit!!! I was hoping he killed juliet, get the seed from her and offer himself to the lady that can fly whats her name again operia??? that way he’d be the one enduring eternal torment I really wish for that shit I never got the tragic I wanted!!! crap crap crap
one more thing I hated all the parts of it because romeo deserved the roll of juliet and vise versa I mean what the hell whats up with japanese anime whenever you talked about forbidden love its always the girl who has something different about her saikano, chobits, ef a tale of memories, ef a tale of melodies main plot yuko and that dude with glasses not the side of course, elflen lied, The ugly yet beautiful world, to Love ru, rosario vampire and a whole lot more not worthy to be mentioned and whats worst is that most of the time this jerks make the lead male characters powerless and thats what pisses me off the most
Comment by DADADAM — January 20, 2009 @ 20:31
Well, I’ve been reading through your reviews and found that our tastes are fairly similar…but I think we greatly differ on just about anything having to do with romance (you know, which isn’t actually surprising, since I’m a die-hard romantic)
This reply is late, but I do have to say some things here that I believe you’ve missed.
First, Romeo and Juliet (the original) is a tragic story about the idiocy of rivalries and how it can impact one’s family and how a young heart can’t understand hatred like that.
In between that, we have some of the stupidest, and yet most heart-felt romantic prose Shakespeare has every written.
Have you ever been in love? Like, that initial crazed infatuation where you seem to be interested in nothing but that other person? If you have, then you’ll get Romeo x Juliet. This is a shoujo, through and through. Every moment is classic, spurred on by sweeping orchestral music and that damn “you raise me up” song (who knew it wasn’t only about Jesus/yourdad/someoneyoudon’tdesperatelywanttobang!)
Basically, what I’m saying is…the show suffered from trying to throw this big fantasy plot into a short time. It wasn’t exactly perfectly constructed and there was a lot of confusing points that made absolutely no sense. Not to mention that some of the relationships were just insane. Largely that Tybalt and Mercutio practically switched places. The more original characters were quite fantastic and pretty well developed.
But my favorite part of the story is that despite how much he’s worked for his country and to become a better man, in the end, Romeo’s obsession with Juliet completely outweighs his desire to save his country. That ending is fantastic, because it shows how stupid and powerful love is. But in the end, things work out and all that, as always.
Also, you seem to have forgotten that this story was largely focused on Juliet herself, who was a strong-willed, very original character. She’s a great shoujo heroine by the end, sacrificing herself for all the people she fought for.
I have noticed a tendency in your reviews to be incredibly harsh towards shoujo, and I understand that it’s just your opinion…but just because you can’t buy the classic moments that build a story that makes a woman’s heart flutter, doesn’t mean that it’s trite and boring.
All in All, RxJ is a classic shoujo tale, with great desire and despair, and a good mix of just squee happy moments. Ultimately endin in a sad, but satisfying moment. One of those “oh, they’ll be together forever” that make you feel better about everything going to hell.
(for the record, there were eps that were SO boring. But damn, I loved Romeo’s mom. What an awesome woman.)
Comment by Miss V — April 24, 2009 @ 18:04