Buso Renkin

This anime is quite curious. It starts with a really interesting opening scene which made me immediately look forward to the episode (it's not often that the main character dies within the first 5 minutes of an anime), and the whole episode was just very well planned out. They inserted plenty of humour and just the right amount of cheesy-ness to complement well drawn scenes of monsters and fighting.
It's based around the concept of Alchemy and Homunculus (insert full metal alchemist reference her), in this particular plot Homunculus are the result of attempts at artificial life resulting in a man-eating beast and Alchemy is a special power used to fight of the Homunculus.
When Kazuki tries to save the seemingly defenceless girl, Tokiko, from one of theses deadly Homunculus he very quickly ends up dead. But, Tokiko decides to revive her saviour by giving him the power of alchemy.

Episode 1 is very well done! The scene transitions are perfect,  the action shots are impressive and the humour isn't over-done. They hold a lot of information back to keep you on your toes but tell you enough to stop you being confused. The use of flash-backs and illusions make it very enjoyable. Unfortunately, it does not stay like this.
By episode 2 they got bored of fight scenes and decided to entertain you with detective work and deductions instead. Great. The whole episode did not progress the story at all, to put it bluntly it was dull. So in episode 3 they decided to spice things up a bit by changing scenes every seconds and making it appear very choppy and amateur. There was no build up, just a dryness. Don't even get me started on the rival character.... A complete failure at being scary, threatening or anything except silly!
The character design is very nice!! Tokiko's blue bob suits her boy-ish personality and complements her occasional smile. The scar across her nose was especially effective in the first few scenes and her sailor suit is so cute!! And Kazuki looks like such a bad-man with his personal take on the school uniform, and he has such a n epic smile that suits him perfectly! Oh, and the weapons! So pretty and creative. I just love the way they move about and shine in the sun. It's fantastic! So in case you hadn't guessed, I like all the characters! I like the art to! It's very pleasing to look at!
But in the end pretty characters and a good first episode aren't really enough! This anime has nowhere to go! They just killed off the most pathetic enemy ever and I've only watched 5 episodes, the battle tactics may become more ingenious but the humour is slowly collapsing. They haven't tried developing anyy of the characters except Kazuki and when they activate their alchemy it looks like a transformation scene from some magical girl anime.
If the whole anime was as good as episode one we might have another 5 pie, but no. I can see this anime sinking like the titanic.

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