Customer Reviews

Spriggan

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Spriggan is a fast-paced action story with beautiful animation. However, that's ALL it is. If you're looking for an entertaining story filled with lively and well drawn fight scenes, then this is for you. However, characterization is limited, and in some cases non-existent. The plot is simple and leaves areas outside the main plotline almost completely unexplored. There is also no romantic angle to it.

In other words, this movie is good at what it is, which is a pure shoot 'em up adventure film complete with everything from car chases to gun battles to knife fights. It doesn't pretend to be anything other than that.

This anime is exactly like your typical action movie, only animated. It's got your stereotypical characters - super soldier, psychic kid, evil government branch, old scientist dude and some French guy. There are many explosions! It is very well animated and fun to watch, but the plot will leave you a little confused on the details and has a high corniness quotient. The ending especially was like a string of cliches, while at the same time not making a lot of sense.

The one feature that makes it stand out is the dub sounds great! I hardly ever watch dubs because they usually do not begin to compare to the Japanese version, but all the actors in the Spriggan dub did a wonderful job!! The voices fit the characters (perhaps better than the originals), and the acting was on the mark.

I do have a complaint about the DVD menus, which is the text is so small I had a difficult time reading it. My tv is of a decent size, so I have no idea why they chose to make the writing so tiny. Besides that, the extras were ok, but there wasn't much of them.

This was fun to watch once, but I doubt I will watch it again. It's a nice rental. If you enjoy action movies even if they are a little cliched, you will probably have fun watching this.

Spriggan is an excellent work in the super soldier anime genre. Based off the manga by Takashige and Minagawa (who are now making the best selling manga "Arms"), Spriggan has some subtle themes but by no means is challenging. The story is pretty fast paced with a fight scene punctuating every 5-8 minutes of plot development. A nice touch is that the good guys aren't really all that good ^_^

The ending is a little hokey but the combat scenes are unparralleled! Highly detailed, incredibly articulated and dynamic animation. As some one who's worked at some US animation shops I can say this is some of the best stuff I've seen in the past few years (in terms of the motion)...think Cowboy Bebop level of quality.

The non-action stuff is also beautiful compositionally. Kawasaki, the director, keeps his pallette very desaturated so it has a slighlty melencholoy feel to it. The soundtrack is also worth mentioning as it is very, very good. Maybe one of the best action movie soundtracks I have ever heard. I saw this on the big screen in Japan when it came out and saw it a few times since at various festivals (subtitled). I have enjoyed every screening.

Back in 1998, "SPRIGGAN" was an anime hyped for it's beautiful animation, based on a very successful manga series and of course, the people behind it.

"SPRIGGAN" was directed by first-time director Hirotsugu Kawasaki and supervised by Katsuhiro Otomo (the creator of "Akira") and is based on a manga "Striker" by by Chu Takasige and Ryoji Minagawa which appeared on the publication "Shonen Sunday".

Suffice to say, the anime made headlines when there was a major bidding war over the rights to make the movie.

With Otomo and Kawasaki at the helm together with the animators of Studio 4°C, "SPRIGGAN" was a film to utilize traditional cel animation with computer animation which was very significant at the time.
As for the story behind "SPRIGGAN", athe top of the world, the ancient artifact known as Noah's Ark has been uncovered.

It is said that the artifact elevates its keeper to the status of a god or it can be used to eliminate mankind from the Earth in seconds.
The race is on as two secret organizations go to battle in their efforts to recover the lost artifact - one seeks to destroy it, and the other wants enslave the human race!


It is a battle between the half-human cyborgs versus the secret organization known as ARCAM and their elite agents, the Spriggan in an epic duel for the future of humanity.

The original DVD release of "SPRIGGAN" from ADV Films was back in 2001. In 2005, a special edition has been released which features a new DTS soundtrack, the original CD soundtrack and two audio commentaries. One by the ADR director and engineer, the other by two of the English voice actors (Chris Patton and Kelly Manison).

Without spoiling the anime for the curious, I will say that "SPRIGGAN" is definitely action oriented.

The animation is very well done, the voice acting is very well done and the DTS soundtrack for the English version is awesome! The video is 1:1:85 aspect ratio and anamorphic widescreen.

As much as I love "SPRIGGAN", I feel that there are problems with this special edition release.

The inclusion of the CD soundtrack for "SPRIGGAN" is great because the music for the film is awesome. But there is a problem.

Although the back of the CD soundtrack lists 20 tracks, there are actually 27 tracks and unfortunately the 7 remaining tracks are not listed. No worry, if you were to put your CD in your computer, you can get the remaining track titles via CDDB.
And for a major release, there's a typo on the DVD features listing.
But the one thing that made me knock the rating down to a B+ from an A was that the original 2001 DVD release of "SPRIGGAN" featured really cool animated interactive menus, video portfolios of the character designs, vehicles and equipment, key backgrounds which are now all gone in this special edition release.
Granted, for those who never purchased the 2001 release would probably never know but for those of us "SPRIGGAN" fans who do know, those special features from the original release was a major addition that really made the DVD a complete package and if included with the special edition, would have made it the ultimate.

But all-in-all, aside from that, you still get a spankin' new look at "SPRIGGAN" with that DTS soundtrack. It sounded great via digital 5.1 several years ago but sounds so awesome now.

I highly recommend checking "SPRIGGAN" out! The experience is definitely worth it!

This movie was lacking a couple of things. It was a great concept and story, but really need some filling to make it a worthy anime. I liked the "ark theory," that was a rather creative concept. The English dub over for the weird bubble boy did a nice job. However, there was just too much jumping around in the story. One minute you were viewing the main character leaving a room and the next minute he was on a plane with no indication when, where and why. It almost got to a point where you did not care. And leave it to anime writers to come up with some sort of cheesy method to make a young teenager have super human strength. But I guess that is pretty typical anime.
Regardless of all the negatives, I would casually recommend this anime. Watch it to experience it. The big explosions may make up for the small story.

The packaging touts this movie as a blend of Indiana Jones and James Bond, but there's a little too much Dragonball Z in the mix for my liking. All the tired old anime cliches and tropes are trotted out- cyborgs, super-agent schoolboy with myterious past and numbered tattoo, doomsday devices, floating fortresses, genius child villain psychic; and are thrown together with a bunch of tired old live action movie cliches- chases through alley way markets, mysterious ancient ruins, jungle fights, benign mad professor with gadgets and beautiful bespectacled assistant, loose cannon agent and older more earthed offsider. The sum is magically somewhat less than the parts. The animation and action sequences are superlative, but for me it's a case of all style and little substance, or attempt at innovation.

This had to be one of the most useless effort that people pretended to put their time into. Basically it was an excuse to show some killing, special effects, etc which are not even remotely impressive. The story line is laugable. Believe me many elementary kids could and have written better things than this. It's not even worth pointing out the lowpoints. Believe me you will be kicking yourself if you buy this. Not to mention the America bashing that goes on in this film. Yeah Japan has a great moral record going for it to stand on that pulpit doesn't it? You can tell the [people] who put this worthless [movie] that they should get in return what they put into this - Nothing.

I purchased the much anticipated Spriggan yesterday. I must say I wasn't this excited about a anime since the release of Ghost In The Shell. I first got a taste of the Spriggan film as a preview on an Arc The Lad DVD. After that I did some net research and became even more excited. This looked to be the holy grail of action animes. If felt like they where finally gonna make a Metal Gear Solid like anime without it being a total rip off. 10 minutes into the film I realized three things. This is nonsense, I'm too old, and I'm too old for this nonsense.

The anime is about a 17 year old, do all, end all super op/soldier that goes by the name Yu and is as about as deep as shag carpet. His voice acting is so stupid Keanu Reeves would catch an upset stomach from Yu speaking a single sentence. Yu suffers the same problem most anime and live action film heros suffer in today's action cinema. You don't ever fear for his life. And neither does he. He holds a cavalier attitude about everything, even the death of his schoolmates. Whatever happened to the underdog? Whatever happened to going into a battle with no chance of winning and pulling it off at the end? This guy is already a superhuman soldier with reflexes that would make a ninja flinch. Does he need a suit to boost his strength 30%?

The plot is garbage. They intoduce the Arc at the begining abandon it's importance until the end and then make it so ridiculous you don't even wanna hear about it anymore. People attack Yu for no apparent reason. Obviously they know he's a Spriggan. So they send their worst henchman first. I guess just to test him or something. Then they introduce the French Spriggan Jean. I guess there is a Spriggan for every major country, since they don't even bother to explain what "Spriggan" is you just don't know. They seem to be protectors. Why they are protecting this, I don't know. Why they even include Yu and Jean makes no sense. It seems if they would have just left Yu alone the operation would have went on without a hitch.

That brings me to the Machine Corps, the group of antagonists supported by the Pentagon. Why, I don't know. They want the Arc to take over the world. But it seems that the Machine Corp could do it by themsleves. They all are unoriginal, and uninspired. The main bad guy is Colonel MacDougall a small child with incredible telekenetic powers. He's ripped straight from Akira which real hurts Spriggan's identity as it's own film. They other baddie, the General looks stupid and serves no purpose in the story except for Yu's back story. I still don't believe a gattling gun as an arm is that effective. The last little guy uses wires to cut people into ribbons. Which is cool, but since you know he's never going to catch Jean and Yu in it it's really just their to look cool. He's fast when he wants to be, I guess he's so shook by a Spriggan he forgets all his superhuman powers.

The action really isn't all that. I'm serious. It's all hype. The action sequences are few and far between. They're nothing new, and granted their animated well, with a fast pace, they somehow become tired after a minute or so. To say that these are the best action sequences in Anime history is just plain ignorance. If you say that you must not have seen a lot of animes. The action sequences in Batman: The animated series are better than Spriggan. Sriggan doesn't even begin to come close to animes like Akira(OH MY GOD, the motorcycle chase at the begining kills the whole Spriggan movie), Ghost In The Shell, Street Fighter Alpha:The Animation, Gun Smith Cats, Outlaw Star, any Gundam series, the DBZ movies and the TV series, Princess Mononoke, and Blue Sub 6 just to name a few.

In conclusion Animes don't have to make sense. You don't throw on your logic and reason cap when making an action anime, it's fanatasy. Few of the best animes make sense really. But you have to meet certain elements of story telling. And being an action movie doesn't mean your excused from that task. Spriggan doesn't even try. They open up so many doors it's overwhelming. Then they don't close not a one, and when their tired of telling the one they've opended they open another one, and this cycle continues until the whole thing is so stupid it's blinding. Don't buy or rent Srpiggan, don't even look at it. It's one of the worst Animes ever made.

I have just finished watching this anime about ten minutes ago, with a variety of mixed feelings. I was bewildered by the stunning effects and wonderful artistic mastery, but the many rhetorical elements left me questioning exactly what it was I had just seen and how exactly it had resolved itself.

First of all, I'll play fair and go through the pros of the movie -- the stuff I liked. Being a person who is avidly interested in cinematography and the sorts, one can really appreciate the fine technique used in bringing such determined and bold realism into this anime. Yes, it has been done before, but Spriggan pulled it off rather successfully, and to an eye-pleasing extent. Careful measures were taken to illustrate countries and their cultural identities, changing character physical features and even background music to give a feeling of the culture of Turkey, which a few scenes take place in. It immediately gives the film a very international feel to it, barely keeping any storyline ties with its Japanese heritage. As mentioned many times before, the fight scenes ARE in every way stunning, and are usually hold-your-breath-suspense type things. Movement is illustrated incredibly well, giving off a fluid and realistic sense, especially in a certain fight scene in the Turkish markets and alleyways. Backgrounds were done with exceptional detail, and the violence wasn't necessarily overdone at all. The amount of blood that spewed about actually seemed plausible in account of the human body, which in most animes tend to be rather exagerrated. The plotline is intense, in-your-face type work which makes you think quickly, either that, or consider rewatching the anime. It's most impressive components lie visually, and in the directing of action sequences.

Now to the cons... that storyline, the anime in itself, doesn't seem to have a clear POINT to it. The BIGGEST problem is a very LARGE LACK in character developement, as pointed out by many. Yu Ominae is such a broad clichéd hero and Jean being his run-of-the-mill sidekick you simply become accustomed to having them succeed in everything! I was hopeful when there was a moment entering into Yu's past, that they would really come to illustrate his emotional value, but it just wasn't there. There was potential that was simply overlooked. One never really gets to KNOW Yu, the main character, at all. He's vague. You just expect him to save the day. As for the other protaganists, you don't even get to KNOW them. The doctor and his crew remain as subordinate as possible, and Jean, trustworthy sidekick, gets himself a few awesome action scenes but no worthy characteristics either than that. The "bad" guys are so incredibly blurred as to their point that you can't really get a feel of just WHAT they want. The colonel kid, the main adversary, seems to be a bit off his rocker and a little too over-confident, and that seems to be all his character is limited to, as if a puppet. As for the men who control him, being the Pentagon and what not, they are even MORE limited as to what their goals are. They just seem to be there because the Ark has power and they want that power. A reasonable explanation, yes, but one that has barely been fleshed out to anything unique or outstanding amongst the others that have gone the very same way. As for the relevance of the Ark and the whole environmental concept, that is BEYOND me. The ending seems to obliterate the whole POINT of the Ark in the first place, and there are a LOT of unresolved issues.. such as, didn't the polar ice caps just melt? Why isn't anyone doing anything about it? It's very unclear on a lot of important issues, which is it's downfall.

Overall, If you're like me and absolutely love watching animation and brilliant techniques, then by far, go rent Spriggan and buy it if need be. But don't expect all too much more than incredible cinematography and captivating fight scenes, which aren't all too high in calibur compared to many other animes out there who's plotlines shine a little brighter than Spriggan's did.

Spriggan was a very well animated, action-packed film. It has a semi-creative plot with noah's ark as being an alien artifact (this aspect may offend some of the more harcore christians out there, but please understand that in Japan christianity is not the dominant religion). The whole high school kid working for a secret organization thing is pretty unorigional especially among anime films. The movie is really nothing more than action with a decent plot which is really more of an excuse for violence. Of course with that said the movie does do it's job for it's 90 min running time it entertains and entertains well. The lack of plot and creativity just makes it hard to come back to (although there are some awesome visuals). Basically good but not great.