s-CRY-ed

Scryed is a show which starts out well with an intriguing plot, cleverly interwoven sub plots, and numerous charismatic characters with understandable motivations--(it's unclear at first which side is the "good guys"). Furthermore, I was delighted to find that this show has a silly, sometimes hilarious, spin on it (I was especially amused by the episode in which devil-may-care main character Kazuma pretends to defect to HOLY). The wildly eccentric supporting characters are great (Straight Cougar is my favorite). I read somewhere that one thing that's unusual about this show is that Kazuma is an anti-hero. His uncouth, even vulgar manner of speaking could be hilarious ("Gonna kick some HOLY ass!"). It's easy to select memorable lines from this show's dialogue, whereas sometimes I go through entire series without a single line sticking in my memory. The action scenes manage to be genuinely exciting, with well chosen BGM and well correographed animation. The OP and ED songs ("Reckless Fire" and "Drastic My Soul") are sweet and do a lot to reinforce the exciting, adventurous tone of the series in general. The parts of the early episodes of this show just fit together so perfectly that I frequently found myself grinning from ear to ear as I watched.

It's a bummer when a series is so good early on, but tends to go downhill as it progresses, and nosedives in the critical final episodes (I ignored Forbin's warning and watched them anyhow). Much like Fullmetal Alchemist, I think the series was at it's best around halfway through, when a likeable supporting character buys the farm. Towards the end, the makers of this show seemed to decide "hey, let's make this as Dragonball Z-ish as we can"! Kazuma and Ryuho sprout ridiculous costumes, to indicate just how far their powers have progressed. All sorts of surprising relationships between characters are revealed, though I don't see why. I'm still unclear as to just what Kanemi's alter power was (something about dreaming). The climactic fight with Kyoji Mujo (sp?) was disappointing--scene­s like these need a clever, plausible tactic, which the audience wasn't expecting, to bring down the villain. At this point I got the feeling that the makers of the show realized to their horror that the story had been wrapped up, yet they were obligated to deliver two more episodes. They added a brief battle with "the mainland"--why is that place considered so evil? And then there's the final episode--what sort of lesson are we supposed to draw from this show, when the two main characters' highest priority is ultimately nothing more than to beat the scryed out of each other and see who is toughest? They gouge, pull hair, throw dirt in each others eyes--so much for all the grudging respect and encouraging camaraderie that had been painstakingly built between them! The makers seem to have assumed that viewers would identify more with Kazuma, but personally I liked Ryuho better. It turns out that HOLY, the outfit he was fanatically loyal to, isn't really what he thought it was, but at least he realizes this and makes a turnaround; Kazuma, on the other hand, remains pretty much the same guy he always was.

I was left with a bad taste in my mouth by the series' conclusion, to the extent that I found myself wondering why I had loyally taped each and every episode. As Cartoon Network replays it, I am all the more surprised by the contast with the excellent quality of the first half. I wish it were possible to redo the last four or six episodes; it's a shame that a show as good as this is handicapped by such an inexplicably poor ending!

After watching the dubbed version repeatedly on Adult Swim, I wanted to get a look at the subtitled form, plus the extras on the R1 DVDs, so I rented Volume 2. There's what is known as a "Sound Comic" in which pages from a chapter of the manga are displayed while VAs read along (in Japanese) and English subtitles roll--that was a bit odd, since the plot of the manga differs considerably from that of the anime, but fun nevertheless. A pair of "Character Videos", one about Kazuma and the other about HOLY members, was fun, too. I watched my favorite episode (#8), in subtitled form. I still prefer the dubbed version--I don't know if it's because I've gotten so used to it that any change seems jarring now, or if the English VAs did a great job (or both). Minor dialogue changes, plus information which is missing from the Adult Swim version, were interesting--like the episode title itself, "Mad Sprict" (I think they meant to say "Mad Script"), or the title to Unkei's play "I Didn't Know a World Like This Existed", plus the lyrics to the OP and ED songs which I'd never read before. It was informative, but I don't feel a need to buy my own set of DVDs.

P.S: The lyrics of the last line of the Ed song read "I believe in drastic my soul" (whatever that means)--I had been thinking the words were "I really do trust in myself". Shows you how good I am at interpreting Engrish!

My favorite line: "What's the deal here? These guys can't fight for crap!" --Kazuma

Drama : Med / High
Comedy : Low / Med
Action : HIGH
SciFi : High
Ecchi : Low

Hmm...what a very good show. I just powered through all 6 disks of it over the weekend and I loved it. It looks between a cross between Gundam Seed and Dragonball Z, I would call it Gundam Z except there is a Gundam Z :)

Well it's no suprised that it looks like Seed, because it was the show made by Sunrise right before they did Seed. This lasted 26 eps and Seed went up to 50 so that account for 3 years of animation. The Characters take a bit getting used to as except for Kazuma (The main guy) everyone else has that Angular Seed look. It's a bit rough and overdone (Fixed in Seed). I was laughing when Mimori came on the scene I was like 'LOOK! It's a FEMALE Athrun!' hehe. And the little girl looks like Athrun's GF. I can tell the same crew worked on it.

Storywise is where it falls down. There doesn't really seem to be any point in the whole series. Even the end is a bit of a 'hmm..it's over now?' kind of ending. It didn't resolve much other than getting most of the main characters killed off and not putting a Happy ending on the girls.

Owell Watch it for the action, the drawing , and the drama. Then watch Seed. It's better.

Edit : I watched it again. I forgot just how good this is and how bad episode 25/26 are. My gosh were 25 and 26 some OVA that was made like 2 years later? It doesn't really have the same pace / animation of the first 24 episodes. What a gip. But if you don't watch 25/26 you will love this great show.

BTW Scryed has the hateful clones. But they are so small to the plot I will overlook them.