Sunday, December 28, 2008

Shikabane Hime Aka (Ended): Not Bad


Early on I commented about the voice acting and action scene are below normal standards. Towards the end, as things have gotten busy, the action scenes got better. But the voice acting, in my opinion, is still as terrible, though I do sense a slight improvement. After a little digging, I found out the voice of both Ouri and Makina are done by new and inexperienced voice actor/actress. That explains a lot, because those two are by far the most problematic voices in the anime, which triggered me to tag it as a "B" anime at first place.

Anyway, back to the story itself, it actually ended in a way that was a slight surprise to me. I guess I'm just not used to stories end the way they should end any more because most of them tends to end in an "everything will be ok" way. I am indeed quite satisfied with its ending. But of course, it is an open ending, because the next series is coming right around the new year.

Final scoreboard (out of 5):

Drama: 4 (Not bad)
Comedy: N/A
Action: 3.9 (Gotten better towards the end)
Art/Animation: 4 (Decent)
Sound/Music: 3 (The two main character's voice actings are terrible)
Character: 4 (Good depth)
Plot: 4 (Also has pretty good depth)
Ending: 4 (Somewhat surprising)

Re-watch value: 2 (Don't really need to)

Overall (not average): 3.85 ~ Only if there's better voice acting for the two main characters...

Recommendation: If you can overcome inferior voice acting, the story itself is not bad. On top of that, you'll need to see this one before you start the new one, which starts airing in January 2009.

No comments: