Customer Reviews

Guin Saga Collection 1

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Great series till the 2nd half. Caught it while it was airing in Japan. It has some great opening and closing themes with good action and a Conan style world. However, the 2nd half of the series just gets confusing as to what all is going on. The first follows a set storyline till completion but the 2nd picks things up after some time has passed. Likely you'd have to see the manga to figure out what is really all happening but in the anime it just ends up looking like they tried to stuff a huge chunk of the story into the 2nd half. Really Guin Saga should have been done in multiple series to get the full effect. Characters that were developed well in the start seem to suffer later as their personalities shift without much lead up. In the end it leaves you with a mildly good feeling but wishing they hadn't rushed it. Hopefully the English dub will be respectable. But I for one cannot picture anyone's voice doing Guin justice as the original Japanese.

Be honest,I never imagined that this Guin Saga became animation.Because Kaoru Kurimoto's original story is 130 books.In this Guin Saga Collection 1 and 2(26 episode) covered first 16 books.The screen writer organize this long story into compact story without cutting important story line.Since the script was clean,my 7 years old daughter can watch DVD together.She do not understand Japanese,but she prefers to hear Japanese voice actor's voice.At Special Features on Disc 3,I heard that Japanese voice actors tried to get deeper understanding of each character and they tried to being a part of whole story.I did not know that Kaoru Kurimoto passed away on 2009.
Guin Saga is not a story about mighty hero.It is a story of world to let you imagine untold stories beyond the screen.Those stories extend vertically and horizontally.Not only main characters and supporting characters,but also extra characters have their own stories.All those stories grow into Guin Saga.It contain Fantasy,Science Fiction,adventure,human drama,politic and many kinds of love stories.
This animation was much better than expected.Directors,Artists,Screen writer,music directer,and voice actors are all passionate about their work.Natsuki Sumeragi's Character Design helps to identify tons of characters.And Art works in this animation are beautiful and neat.It is much better than Guin Saga Collection 1's cover picture.It is too early to judge by cover.

As for the anime, I would have to say it's so so. The characters are likable enough on their own. But the English acting in this anime is really bad and I mean really bad. At times I started to think the voice actors just made up the dialog. The changes in their emotion was completely unbelievable. One second this big emotional stage was set, then the character would just go back to normal, as if nothing happened. At one point I almost stopped to smack my head.(real line of the English Dub.) "In my powerful man arms, I'm going to find my super awesome destiny!" If I was watching this on a kid's cartoon channel, as a child. I might find this to be entertaining. All in all, the anime was fine. The English Dub was a travesty.