 The Seed or Die ROSSMANEver since
the greatest anime series ever made wrapped up (that would be
Giant Robo back in 1998), the entire world and I have
been waiting for a successor to the throne of "Earth's
Coolest Animation" to arrive. Then, in early 2001, Read
Or Die stepped forward. And we're still waiting.
Not to bash
it or anything, but ROD tried way too hard to be as cut-ass
rugged as Robo. The animation is beyond cool and some
of the characters are really engaging, but overall it just leaves
you flat.
Well, I think
that's too critical of me. I really enjoyed this three episode
OAV, but it simply needed a lot more time to mix everything
together. Everything felt rushed. The story felt like it could
have easily fit into a 6-13 episode series and filled it out
very satisfyingly.
The whole
thing goes something like this: The Royal British Library Division
of Special Operations has a bunch of super-powered ESPers working
for it who's main job at the moment includes collecting a bunch
of old books with special notes written in the margins that
the bad guys are after in order to make their nefarious plans
work. Lots of things blow up (including the White House), and
lots of fast paced and well choreographed fights (between good
and evil super-humans) errupt through out the story's hour and
a half runtime. It's these fights that make this show worth
a purchase. The ingenuity of the characters and the use of their
powers has to be seen to be believed.
First we
have the main player, Yomiko Readman (aka The Paper). Her special
power, other than being able to read old literature without
falling asleep, is the manipulation of paper. She can use sheets
of parchment to stop bullets, and make giant paper airplanes
and razor-sharp swords. Then we have her partner for this mission,
Ms. Deep (affectionately known to Yomiko by her first name,
Nancy). Ms. Deep can move through solid matter as if it were
melted butter. Melted butter that was like air. She can survive
40 story falls by phasing her way through the ground,
and she can reach into a person's body to knock him out or crush
a major organ. Bullets and fists pass right through her too,
when she doesn't want to be bothered with dying.
Then we have
the secondary characters and the bad guys.... Who are boring
as fuck. Read Or Die moves so fast and furiously that
we don't get to know anybody else. The entire point of why
the
bad guys are doing what they're doing and how they go about
it (the best way I can put it without spoilers) was barely
brushed
over. The overall horror of their plan was kind of just chalked
up to "Eh, that's pretty heinous... but what ya gunna
do?"
Despite ROD's
attempt to be like Giant Robo, the only thing they stole
from Imagawa's masterpiece was the use of super-powered humans
fighting eachother in blast-tastic battles. They missed the
drama and the monstrous scope of the GR production. Maybe
they'll get it right for the TV series.
What did
I think of ROD? After all is said and done I
find that I must give The Paper and company a 55 out of 67
Pages
of Progress. It was a fun ride with hep-tacular visuals
(including the best Statue of Liberty fight scene ever), but
there just wasn't enough to it that warranted a better rating.
Also, the animators who made it must really hate America.
What
with blowing up a good part of D.C., as previously stated,
and making the President a big pussy who wets his pants (literally)
several times when the bad guys look like they are going to
succeed with their plan. Fucking foreigners! I bet that George
W. could kick their Emperor's ass in a match of fisticuffs
with one leg tied behind his back and a rabid duck in his
shorts!
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