﻿ Labyrinth of Blue

January 27th, 2012

Brave 10 (1st Look)

With EVOL in the trash can, I decided to view another shounen/seinen anime.

Brave 10, so called that because there will be ten people with magical powers too… save Japan or something. I’ve heard it’s based on a specific historical event, but forgot which one. You can be assured that history didn’t play out exactly like this.

This anime feels like one of those anime they are making that’s targeted at men, but women are supposed to secretly like it. However this just feels… boring. The character designs are more like what you’d see in an otome game or a shoujo anime, which makes this feel like a ‘for women’ but targeting men anime.

The whole point of the anime is to show how awesome these men are and how sexy and awesome and… yeah. I don’t mind if characters get that crowning moment of awesome, or even if there’s a fight. Here’s the but, when the whole anime is crowning moments of awesome, it kinda dulls the feeling and makes me go “Yes yes he’s awesome, get on with it!”. More than “Squee, he just awesomed those ninja to death!”.

Another drawback is of course the maiden in distress. Izanami doesn’t really do much UNTIL she’s put into extreme danger, then she faints out and this hair ornament does some explodey zappy thing and everything is withered and decayed instantly. Yay passivism. While she seems to be a more active hero in that she knows she needs help and seeks it out, she’s probably never going to be given her moment to shine like the other heroes will.

I’m going to watch a few more episodes to see if they get better, get horrible, or stay the course. Right now I would give it a 5 on a 1-10 scale. Average as average can get.