Monday, October 21, 2013

First Impressions: BlazBlue Alter Memories

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BlazBlue is an anime fighting game developed by Arc System Works.  A fighting game developed by a company that didn't just want to make a good fighting game but also a fighting game with a decent story.  Thanks to the well received sci-fi anime story of BlazBlue, the fighting game attracted a ton of attention from anime fans.  One would think that a fighting game story that made sure to give the players a decent amount of time with each character, explain why the player should care about the characters they play, and give the player a satisfying conclusion to to each character's story would be awesome?

Unfortunately the anime plays like someone recorded the game's story mode, cut out a lot of parts, and threw parts of the story out of order.  The anime spends no time explaining who the characters are, what are the characters' motivations, and why the viewer should care about these characters.  If I did not play BlazBlue's story mode, I have a very good feeling that I would be lost.

I'll Explain the Story Since the Anime Does Not Want to...

Set far off in the future when a majority of the world has been destroyed and only a small portion of humanity is left.  Ragna the Bloodedge has the biggest bounty placed on him by the NOL (the government of the small world) after  destroying one of their branches.  With a powerful Ars Magus (magic technology) in his mechanical arm known as the "Azure Grimoire", fighters come from all over the place to fight him for his Azure Grimoire and his bounty.  Unknown to Ragna and a majority of the cast, the same events that resulted in destruction of the now small world keeps repeating itself.  

Just maybe I'm judging this anime too soon.  Maybe the anime creators might explain the characters' motives or SLOW down the paste that the anime is going with.  I hope the animation gets better because the video game's cut scenes were better than this:

Anime

 BlazBlue Story Mode Anime Cut scene


This has just been a first impressions.  I will give a full review after a few more episodes are released.  BlazBlue Alter Memories will only have twelve episodes and one episode is released each week.    Watch the episodes here.

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