Casshern Sins Review - 90/100
One of the most unique series to start airing in the past Fall Season was Casshern Sins: a remake of a super robot series that aired in the seventies, but one that went into a completely different direction with just about everything. The result is a highly stylish series with lots and lots of things to like about it.
If there ever was an award for “Best Character-Designs”, then this series would be one of the top contenders. The art style in this series is really unique, and in fact it’s one of the most outstanding ones I’ve seen in the past few years. Just about everything in this series is a visual feast, ranging from the wonderfully drawn characters to the astonishingly beautiful background art. The animation quality itself isn’t anything special for most of the time, but it doesn’t need to be: this series is beautiful enough, even without a huge budget.
This series also stands out in its style of storytelling. The dialogue flows very naturally, and yet it’s deep, meaningful and very inspired without trying to sound pretentious. The pacing is deliberately kept slow in order to squeeze all of the potential out of the characters. It really was my favourite part of this series, because the dialogue flows in this series unlike any other series I’ve seen.
Casshern sins is a series about destruction and immortality, and a quite thought-provoking one as well. while mystery isn’t its main focus, it asks lots of interesting questions throughout its airtime that keep the viewer busy. As the lot unravels more and more, it really is the type of plot that requires the user to think in order to understand it all, because not everything is spoon-fed on a silver platter.
However, do note that this isn’t a series that only gets better and better. It’s divided into two halves: the first half is basically a travelling series, where the main character meets lots of different people. The quality is pretty inconsistent: some of the best and worst episodes of the series can be found here. In the second half, the main story kicks in, and the series becomes much more consistent: it pretty much continues at a steady pace, it never hits any lows, but also any heights are absent. This can become disappointing if you were hyped by some of the truly outstanding episodes in the first half. It’s the sign that the charcter-development never really came together in the end, although it definitely tried.
The only other flaw of this series is a rushed ending, though. The creators just didn’t take enough time for that final episodes, and the twists just come too fast to make the impact they could have had. But still we have ourselves an excellent series here. It’s fresh, original and imaginative despite based on a 1970s series. It doesn’t quite have the material to become an outstanding series, but it nevertheless has been a delightful watch for me for the past six months.
| Storytelling: | 9/10 |
| Characters: | 8/10 |
| Production-Values: | 10/10 |
| Setting: | 9/10 |
Finally a 10/10 on Production Values there. :D
Comment by Howling-kun — March 16, 2009 @ 18:27
definitely the most visually pleasing show in a long time.
Comment by IK — March 16, 2009 @ 19:22
Lol, I’m going to have a long review as well…but I agree with you on many parts, if not all things you’ve pointed out. :D
I totally agree with fact that the ending was seriously rushed. If they had just gotten one or two more episodes..!!! But for so many crammed things in so little time, it did well. There are just so many loose ends that bother me. Like, the whole “I’ll be back yo” thing. They didn’t need to introduce that! And what happened to the Angel of Ruin? Weren’t they supposed to meet one day? (Ahem: like the end of the series perhaps?) And Luna still remains a mystery: both a positive and negative thing. The whole show is thought provoking, and very subtle- a quality that sadly most animes don’t have these days. The show really makes you think and connect the characters, their small but impactful dialogue, and such a deep development amongst such chaos. It’s a pretty and poetic portrayal of harsh magnitudes, and that’s what Casshern Sins excels in: exalted unity.
I really did love seeing Ringo grow up though. That was a great concept. But like you said, they should have done that when they tied up all the loose ends. If given more time, i’m pretty sure CS would have been a jawdropping, morbid, OMGNOWAI kind of ending. I’m just sad that they didn’t give it one more episode/20 more minutes….
In terms of art, Casshern Sins is like…delicious. I’ve never seen such a more daring style than this show, and the colors among with the harsh, crude lines just balance each other out. CS has one of the best arts I’ve seen in an anime, regardless of its reused cycles and low budget. Truly, CS deserves some merit for stretching the boundaries of what defines a classic and amazing anime. :D I’d give it a 93-95 because the second part was just so slow and expected. It was good, decent, but it lacked any awesome surprises that the first half had. And also taking points of such a slow start. The first time I watched CS it seemed like the worst thing created, but I bent my argument and watched it anyways. I’m glad now that I’ve made that choice.
Comment by Snowolf — March 16, 2009 @ 19:46
The 10/10 in production values was highly deserved.
Comment by Windspirit — March 16, 2009 @ 22:40
id gve it about u gave, pretty much wat u said was true xDD. anyways, great series. i totally enejoyed watching your reviews den watching the actual episode xdd except for the SPOILER one x] ! great job the reviewing the series, was great !
Comment by midenz — March 17, 2009 @ 1:03
Definitely the most stylish series of the season. Excellent visuals and music. Too bad about the story pacing though.
Comment by TJ — March 17, 2009 @ 2:59
It ended already? Spring truly is around the corner.
Thanks for your dedication in blogging this series! I enjoyed every moment.
Comment by Chris — March 17, 2009 @ 6:35
I pretty much agree with everything you said, except for one thing, the 90 points. Maybe it’s just me but I was always thinking in the direction of 6 = ok, 7 = entertaining, 8 = good, 9 = outstanding and 10 = impossible.
I’d put casshern sins somewhere in the high 7’s or low 8’s. Enjoyable to watch, sometimes even really good, but the overall series didn’t ever reach a certain height when it comes to quality.
Comment by TCoFA — March 17, 2009 @ 9:37
Hi i’m back after a while and i’m here to give kudos to CxL. He was right: this serie absolutely doesn’t compare to the old one. There’s no connection, it’s all another setting and situations depicted.
This Casshern is more similar to the live movie with its long and tedious rants against war and human myseries. Meaningless visual feast end cheap morals. To boring.
It yet seemed to me another failed attempt to bust an average bad show with an old winner char.
I didn’t watch to te last episode but yet i don’t expect too much. Everything was wrapped up in the last couple of episodes after 20 empty episodes, and given the too many chars left behind, i doubt they’ll wrap up something good.
The issue with Dio is finished. Leda is still alive, Luna is still there and Braiking Boss decides to join the fight the last 10 seconds of the forelast episode. Omg!
They did NOTHING for 20 episode and they burned down everithing in the grand finale. Wow, how clever!
The chars seemed to wander around helplessly for the entire serie. Braiking, Flender, The old Bosses were just cameos from th very old serie more than active characters.
Luna turned out an amazingly bad char. Her being alive ruined all the expectations of the first half serie. And yet it didn’t explain anithing, neither the changes in Kasshern and Luna herself, nor the great ruin thing. Ah yeah: “when you killed me all of my death flew out of me in the world” says she. That was cheap.
About the visuals quality. At first the weird chara and stunning decayed environment shocked me, but that become boring soon after a while. Think about it: what backgrounds did you watch for the entire serie? Rusty deserts and beds of flowers. Was that enough? And about the animation? Casshern repeated always the same movements. The fights were always confused and bad animated. The graphics wasn’t really that great if you think about it!
“Best” episode: #18 When Lyuze is dreaming and realizes she loves Casshern.
Man! i want something of the stuff they smoke when the made it. Really! The whole episodes was mad nonsense.
There we reached the climax of Casshern: a nonsense showoff of absurd characters.
I really expected much of this serie, but that was one big disappointment.
People, if you can really go watch the first serie. It’s graphics was old and outdated but it’s plot is lightyears ahead of this one. Its topics ae still actual nowadays, bearing with pollution, racism, war, science, love and much other.
Comment by Solaris — March 18, 2009 @ 16:51
I think for the last part what did fall short for me was the whole Braiking Boss and Luna union. Seeing as I thought Braiking Boss was well more or less regretful of the kingdom he once had and was pretty much resigned to death, I mean he was digging graves. Then suddenly you have a sort of 180 and he is the one to approach Luna asking for life, and a new kingdom. I think the conclusion would have been better with episode 23 rather than 24. Or perhaps 24 would be good minus the whole Braiking Boss Luna union, they could just lengthen the death of Oji and Lyuze along with Ringo growing up.
Leda really was more built up to be final boss material but then they just scrapped that in favor of Braiking Boss. I think the finale could indeed have been pulled off better had they just opted with Leda, she didn’t need to die perhaps just go somewhat berserk till she regains her senses. In any case its really a shame what they did by making the Braiking Boss finale. Still I did thoroughly enjoy the series, even with the weakness of 24 (23 really was a good enough conclusion) the dialogue and characters for me still allowed the series to shine.
Comment by Machi — March 22, 2009 @ 2:46
I finally watched CS till the end and I will give this anime an 7/10. This is indeed an very stylish yet depressing anime which deals with the end of the world/humanity and imortality. The story is easy to follow but gets kinda complicated at the end and actually I am left with alot of questions unanswered.
1. Why is everyone ruined ?!? I mean Luna isn,t dead. And what is “being ruined” they never explain why this is happening, only explaination is because of Lunas death ehm ?!?
2. Why is Luna actually alive and everyone says she died.
3. How did Luna survive Casshern ? They never explaine that.
4. Why is Friender the dog immortal, did he chew a bit on Luna, lol ?
5. Why is Ringo still alive ? I mean Oji and Lyzue are ruined, and the only way to avoid ruin is getting healed by Luna but Ringo refused, so…
6. What exactly happened to the humans, there are only few humans appearing in CS.
7. Where hides Casshern his helmet ?!? We always see him with or without helmet.
8. If Casshern is an immortal regenerator how comes he cant fully regenerate his helmet in the end epsiodes just like Dio couldn’t but Dio ISNT immortal like Casshern.
9. Whats up with Braiking boss is he some wandering poet all of a sudden ?!?
10. And the biggest mistery, why isn,t Casshern using his two pistols ?!?
Anyway there are more unanswered questions but these are the ones I can think of right now. I recommend rather watching Trigun than this because it kinda reminded me a lil bit of Trigun on the depressing level. Cheers ^_^
Comment by Printul Noptii — March 23, 2009 @ 13:15
Can’t say I fully understood everything in CS but I’ll give you my take on those questions:
1. My guess is that Braiking Boss wanted Luna’s death because she could “give death” to otherwise immortal robots (how? I have no idea). That backfired when Casshern “killed” her and her “death” flowed into the whole world, now known as “ruin”.
2. As she is possibly of the same - if not higher - generation of robots like Casshern, Leda and Dio (probably Ringo, but that’s a special case anyway as she is the first? robot who grows older), killing her isn’t that easy (or even impossible) due the immense regenerative powers they possess.
The bigger mystery is, why did Casshern not start to ruin, he was the person who was nearest when “death” spread. Possible explanation: Luna’s blood mixed into Casshern’s, key being here that Luna was immune to her own “death”.
3. see 2
4. Probably got the same regenerative powers as the others, he didn’t fight that much so that didn’t take a toll on him. However I think he maybe will ruin too, just slower.
5. Seeing how she grows older, there must be cell division involved. That probably cancels out the degeneration of ruin (Braiking Boss’ experiment to create robots that are immune to Luna’s “death”?).
6. That I really don’t know. They’re rarely shown throughout the series. The one we see is ill and dies, so there’s a possibility that ruin has a disease-like effect on them.
7. Hammerspace! :P Depends of taste if you like mass shifting or not - anyway, Casshern and Dio seem to be capable of it. Probably he uses material of his own body to form the helm (or store it there), should be no problem with his regenerative powers.
8. Casshern, Dio and Leda were all the same what terms of power and immortality concern before ruin started. They’re highly resistant to damage in general, but I believe if one of them would’ve gotten their arm ripped off they wouldn’t be able to regenerate the whole arm as if nothing happened. Tearing them apart requires immense brute force, “normal” robots couldn’t accomplish this feat as you saw when Casshern tried to get himself killed. When Dio commented “Casshern is breaking” I got the impression he meant a psychological level (his mind/soul), not on a physical level (his body).
So Dio was the only one able to tear something of Casshern’s body apart, due to his unbelievable strengh, which is on par with Casshern’s or even higher. I believe Casshern wasn’t able to regenerate it OR didn’t want to and left the broken part of his helm to remind him of Dio.
9. Don’t know what you mean, but I found it strange that Braiking Boss said he’s not going to make any more graves/put someone in a grave any more (can’t remember and already deleted the file so I can’t rewatch it) - yet, one episode later he charges at Casshern ;)
Well, he probably knew he can’t put a dent in Casshern anyway so that statement might as well true in foresight :D
10. Are those even pistols? I know Leda got her cool sword thingies, but Casshern and Dio did only use their fists and legs afair. To me those things seemed to be like some sort of jets to create thrust. This would explain their fighting style and their ability to partially fly/charge mid-air.
Comment by Aryo — March 24, 2009 @ 17:00
i don’t understand how you thought this show was good..
it definitely had potential but around half way through the show everything falls apart. terrible dialogue, half the show consist of characters calling each others name out -_-. terrible story, they don’t really solve any of the mysteries. this show was definitely NOT thought provoking by the way, i dont see how you could’ve thought this show as at all thought provoking. seeing casshern angst like a little girl half the time is not thought provoking. we get it, he doesn’t like to kill, we get it. him saying things like oh i dont really feel like im alive because i cant die or i want to die blah blah is not thought provoking..well unless you’re a monkey or something maybe. i seriously dont understand how you think that the ONLY flaw in this show is the rushed ending..the whole show was a pile of shit. the only thing that you could consider good about this show is the visuals and that’s about it. the music wasn’t that great, the action was TERRIBLE, the story was retarded and full of plot holes. by the way, the whole lyzue fantasy/dream/lololololwhat episodes were dumb too, we kinda got the picture of how she felt over the course of the previous episodes i dont see why they had to waste an episode showing the obvious. just thinking about me wasting time watching this show makes me angry. seriously though were you high whenever you watched this show? if you were that would explain a lot cause i could see myself enjoying this show a lot more and maybe even considering this show thought provoking or whatever, but seriously, this show is terrible. i dont know how your rating system works but if by 90 you mean like a 50 then id agree with you. terrible, absolutely TERRIBLE show.
Comment by supertauren — March 25, 2009 @ 1:14
I think the one who was high was you, when posting this load of bullshit and insults.
Criticizing the blogger’s views and his ratings in a mannered fashion is one thing, writing crap like that another.
Seriously, if you thought it was soooo terrible, why did you watch it to the end instead of dropping it?
Comment by Aryo — March 25, 2009 @ 2:05
i was hoping for a good ending, a surprise! but nope, disappointed. fair enough though i apologize for my comments, i went too far, sorry you’re right everyone has the right to rate a show however they want so i apologize.
Comment by supertauren — March 25, 2009 @ 7:21
Thx Aryo ^_^ you put alot of thought into this series and your answers are pretty good and explain my question pretty reasonable. Some other cool stuff I found out about Casshern Sins is that this series could be be also named Mega Man X the Anime IMHO XD I mean look at Casshern if we would paint him blue remove his pistol/hover thingies and mount a blaster on his right hand he could be Mega Man X. Braiking Boss also resembles Sigma very much and the whole apocalyptic setting would actually fit in the whole Mega Man X universe and story. This could be soo good if it were Mega Man X because it doesnt resemble the orginal Casshern series at all, only in character setting, the whole story is different and I swear in the orginal series this thingies were actually laser pistols I dunno why they didnt made them as laser pistols in this one.
Comment by Printul Noptii — March 25, 2009 @ 15:18
First of all, let me remind you of the most important and wise rule in the universe: If you don’t like it, don’t watch it! Even the allmighty god respected this rule when he told mankind to fuck off and disappeared in disappear.
Anyway, Casshern SINS had an impressive visual style but it’s a bit of a one-trick pony and the animation isn’t all too fluid, the fights are actually impressively unimpressive and lacking in variation. They also relied on many scenes with close-ups that show little detail. I actually watched Shinsen’s SD version and I can hardly imagine it’s worth watching it in HD. The visual style lives completely by the bold, glowing colours and the softened edges.
I didn’t find the dialogues natural at all, by the way. The voice actors speak as if it was a stage play in a theatre rather than a TV series. They sound slightly wooden, overly dramatic and many of the dialogues are rather dual-monologues. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate this acting style for a change once a while. Though I assume this style could imply more depth than there really is. It tried to be very symbolic. Maybe it’s just me but I don’t see much under its pleasing cover. Especially, Casshern himself would have been highly annoying if the acting had been more realistic because he comes off rather dumb-struck and often talks like a broken record. It’s just the way he actually speaks that makes him still look intelligent.
The ideas used for the plot are certainly not innovative but I doubt they wanted them to be. “Life is only meaningful by death”, the differences between robots and humans, those are actually issues that manga and anime discussed decades ago. The art was fresh, the content wasn’t.
I found Casshern SINS very pleasing visually as well as the acting style and I wasn’t bored with it for a minute even though it became a bit of static half-way through. Nonetheless, in my opinion, it has much more style than substance.
Comment by Kurisu — March 25, 2009 @ 17:21
> Printul Noptii
I swear in the orginal series this thingies were actually laser pistols I dunno why they didnt made them as laser pistols in this one
They are and were jet pistols meant to boost or jump high.
Old Casshern had indeed a laser attack, shooting from the helmet’s yellow V. That powerful shot deprived all of his Solar power supply and he became blind and weak.
Yes, Casshern was once a cyborg far more than the his new self.
It’s ironical how little robot are those of Casshern SINS’ ones.
Comment by Solaris — March 26, 2009 @ 15:15
Thanks for clearing that up, Solaris
Didn’t watch the old series yet, can’t anyway atm because most of the time it takes me around 6-9 hours depending on filesize to dl one episode due to my crappy UMTS internet, so I stick to the newer shows (since I won’t let my pc run 24/7 ;) ).
Comment by Aryo — March 29, 2009 @ 22:47
I feel for some reason compelled to point out that this show does start decent completely fails in the second half. I got so bored that I skipped the last 6-7 episodes and just saw the last 15 minutes of the final episode just to see what happenned. Very overrated show! (My 2 cents)
Comment by Hasaan — June 15, 2009 @ 0:29
If only they hired a writer, this show would have been amazing.
SPOILER BELOW!!!!:
I think the ending was retarded. The whole f*cking series everybody’s unhappy ‘cause they’re gonna die, then Luna comes with a cure for everybody and nobody takes it. First everybody’s unhappy cause they’re gonna die, then all the main character’s are unhappy with Luna keeping people alive.
Comment by Moe Sizlack — December 1, 2009 @ 18:32