Anime: Kemono no Souja Erin

While it may strike as inconsistent to rate a series a 3 when I "finished" 50 episodes of it, there is one essential reason, that is pacing of this series. Not only is the pacing typically slice-of-life slow from the very start, but it has the most self-indulgent use of flashback I have ever seen. By the midpoint of the anime, flashback starts taking up easily perhaps 1/10th of the total time. We already saw these events, and they are already in our heads. Bringing the same events up as much as five or ten times is a horrible abuse of our viewership. Maybe it was for the kids, but it was a horrible mismanagement of structure.

Also, this anime seems to exist in some bizarre world where, despite there being super skilled assassin type figures and two types of invincible beasts, poison ends up being the most worrisome agent of life. I think the plot spends as much time on poisonings by the end as it does touda.

I did enjoy core elements of the plot, and that is the main reason I finished the anime. I liked the focus on Erin, and I could even forgive her being the typical "supergenius, super caring" character who can do absolutely no wrong because of the nice voice acting and the interesting progression of her life. I also liked the touda, though I liked them less once another super invincible creature was introduced. I felt that both touda and beast lords should have been introduced right away, or it should have only been one the whole way. I felt that after Erin&Jone, the anime struggled to ever keep itself at quite the same depth of interaction after moving to focus on beast lords. It especially struggles to make any action feel slightly convincing, and several conversations as it goes on become more and more incredibly tedious, e.g. Erin talking to either queen.

This is absolutely a children's anime, and I do not see why everyone is trying to vehemently deny it. The first OP and ED, the narration (utterly childish storytelling tone, constantly interferes with the quality of interaction with the story), and interaction between characters (Erin and her mom, the Queen and anybody, Erin and Yuuyan, any and all explanations about anything ever from one character to another) all make sure that this cannot progress above being childish. People can try to use the more violent moments to write it away, but the art contradicts that. Also childish are all depictions of Erin imagining anything horrible happening (the last example episode 44, 19:30 or so in, when she pictures what is happening at the academy).

The music is very nice sounding, especially when you have only heard each song once (with the exception of the song that inscrutably rips off one progression from Trigun). Unfortunately, they ram the same songs into your ears relentlessly, and eventually at very wrong moments.

Not much really needs to be said about the art, since the flaws are much more glaring than usual. Sometimes the mistakes are much more glaring (like when the touda are swimming underwater episode 7 and llook like barrel of monkey figures). Also, lots of shots that are the same shot being panned very slowly, or zoomed out from very slowly. Kid Erin is a bit annoying to look a thanks to her eyes (not that any character's wayward pupils are any fun to look at). The Beast-Lords, paraded as a paragon of beauty, are actually ugly beasts in motion, and simplistic when "shining" and flying to save the day.

Overall, I really have to rate this anime a waste of anyone's time. It loses what depth it has as it goes on, it struggles to balance the time and how the time is spent on any action, and everything is far too predictable. It is enjoyable enough, and there are plenty of cute moments, but it cannot be said to be worth anyone's time due to the length - it should have absolutely been a normal anime season, not 50 episodes.

Oh, like a lot anime and manga that lack substance, this series spends a lot of time making up for it pretending that characters going "oishiiiiiii" and talking about food should actually be entertaining. Like always, it definitely is not appropriate outside an anime or manga about food. I did not keep any official count, but surely somewhere around ten times.

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Review
Once in a while they appear. They surprise you by deviating from norm, by showing you it is possible to entrance an audience with things you never thought could do that. These shows, rare as gold, teach us animation can be much more than amazing action sequences, shocking deaths, highschool life, and exquisite superpowers. Kemonono no Souja Erin (Beast Player Erin) is one of those. This is a piece of medieval fantasy that doesn't focus on adventure or warfare, a slice-of-life without cute half-animal girls or school romance, a coming of age tale without the weak-willed stupid protagonist. This, my friend, is a jewel of the japanese industry overlooked by a fanbase whose major demands are ecchiness and superpowers. Pick your best spot on the couch and enjoy this calm and wonderful ride.

Beast Player Erin is the tale of a young genius girl, Erin, and her steps in a world restricted by ancient codes and laws, where beasts are tamed for the sake of men and punishment often goes beyond the boundaries of justice. Her curiosity, her intelligence, and her cunning take her from the remote Ake village, where the dragon-like mounts known as touda are raised for the duke's army, to the highest peaks of the world, where she learns about the majestic beast-lords and breaks ancient codes and conventions.

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1. A charming visual presentation
   The very first thing to notice in Beast Player Erin is how it looks like a children’s book. You are gifted here with pencil-worked background images of beautiful landscapes and weird-looking houses, offering scenes with flowers, green fields, and bright blue skies. It is a rough work, made to look more like hand-drawn pieces of a book than computer-generated images. It doesn’t try to be realistic, it only tries to be sweet and simple. The character design goes at similar lengths, providing expressive characters with cartoonish styles, simple shadow effects, yet with sharpness and bright colors.
   
   Simplicity Overdone and Overused
   Although it has amazing artistic choices and a superb consistency, there is an abuse of simplicity for the sake of art. The background images have low resolutions that don’t match the character artwork, animation is basic at most, and the special effects used are so old-school inspired it makes Beast Player Erin look like an 80’s show from time to time. It also doesn’t help when so many scenes are recycled through the tale, reused to exhaustion. All of that fortunately never truly harms the overall experience but, considering this is a work done by Production I.G, they could've put a little more effort to transmit their artistic view.
   
   It makes up for those faults somewhere else
   If the animation lacked courage to perfect the artistic work, the sound direction covered it. Beast Player Erin creates a powerful audio experience, starting with a wide array of voice-actors, going from comical voices of clumsy thieves and the treacherous speech of a suspicious noble to the sweetness of Erin's childish voice. It goes beyond that, promoting a majestic soundtrack with classic eastern rhythms capable of delivering epicness, fear, sadness, and happiness whenever they are needed. This soundtrack, in fact, is a major player in turning the slow-paced tale and recycled scenes into a continuous experience of discovery, wonder, and shivering. This is a marvelous work, mixing originality, quality, and execution with perfection.
   Slow and Steady Wins The Race
   Beast Player Erin offers a slow pace. This is by no means a thrilling experience of rush and action. Everything in the show is calm, quiet, and subtle. The climax of episodes lies not in deaths, fights, or dramatic twists, but in events where Erin discovers something new, when she reaches a conclusion to keep her moving forward. This is a quiet ride for most of the time, starting with the charming young girl learning about the world and ending up as myths and ancient history come to play in a dance of betrayals and scheming.
   
   The Three Phases
   Although the heart of Beast Player Erin lies in its middle arc, where a teenage Erin meets Lilan and starts to break the conventions of her people, the show offers a starting arc of young Erin and closes with a final arc when she is a young-adult directly clashing against the important figures of the kingdom and unveiling long lost mysteries. These three phases can offer very different experiences, with its middle part bordering an unconventional high-school slice-of-life and the last one becoming much more intricate in terms of schemes, politics, and even action.
   
   Maybe too much memories
   Beast Player Erin’s slow rhythm is a choice more than a flaw, but it becomes annoying when there are so many remembrance scenes coming and going. If those scenes were new, if they had a narrative different than just simply going again over the scene, perhaps the very pace of the show would feel quickier and the entrancement would be even greater. A pity, but for everything else done in this tale, it is a passable issue.
   
   Glorious Erin
   Erin. She alone can carry the show on her shoulders. She is one of the most interesting, awe-inspiring, and charming protagonists of japanese animation. As young she is a vibrant girl in search of knowledge, a caring child who loves her mother, who keeps walking in the wilderness observing life and learning from it. She is sweet, calm, intelligent, and yet a child nonetheless, innocent and naive. As she grows you get to see her evolving in all aspects. The codes of the world clash against her beliefs, her lust for knowledge and her curiosity conflict with each other, the people around her become key players to help her overcome the barriers she faces. She cries, she loses hope, yet she is a brave girl who manages to find strength to keep on going. She doesn’t fight, she knows no magic, she is never linked to ecchiness or perversion, she is a girl as it fits being a girl in a medieval world, yet she is a rebel, a revolutionist of her own. Damn Erin. She makes every other protagonist a dumb wooden plate if not for a few exceptions.
   
   And we also get Lilan and everyone else
   If having such an amazing protagonist is not enough, Beast Player Erin brings to the table a vast array of support characters. Most of them exist to aid Erin in her trials, to give her a push when her own strength fails. You first get her mother, Soyon, a strong woman in all regards, one Erin looks up to, but who yet lacks the strength to face the ancient codes and is tied by them. Jone, the wiseman with his carefree attitude and urge to teach is the next important person. Then comes Esal and the people of Kazalm, all of them becoming entranced as Erin shows them her potential and makes her rebel spirit a beacon of light in the middle of these ancient conventions. However, it is Lilan who gets the most important support role of all. The beast-lord and Erin form a pair of friends, of animal and woman, of mother and her child. Seeing as Lilan and Erin grow together is a wonder, awe-inspiring. If you have a pet you are likely to see how deep is their link, how strong is their friendship, and how hard it is for them to not truly understand each other. If you don’t have a pet, well... Find yourself one!
   
   The other points of view
   Of course, you will be focused on Erin most of the time, but for a few episodes new points of view are presented, such as Ial and his work as a protector of the queen, Shunan and his imminent ascension to grand duke, Damiya and his secret plot, and so on. These additional eyes showing us the world get only an episode or two in the first half, but later become more and more frequent, ultimately merging their paths with Erin’s by the end. It’s a satisfying change of pace from Erin’s rise to scheming and political crisis, and the way they are presented is quite interesting because their seemingly different paths intertwine at many points.
   
   Perhaps too naive
   Sadly though, Beast Player Erin’s cast is not all glory. It can get annoying with the amount of screentime Mukku and Nukku, the two comic relief figures of the show, have and it also fails in the villain department where you can point the evil guy and his plot right at moment number zero. This is most likely to be a consequence of the calmness of the show, where turning villains into complex entities would demand far more work and perhaps more episodes considering the pace, yet it saddens to see all the amazing cast being so obviously good or bad most of the time.
   
   Boldly Different
   Beast Player Erin is nearly unique. Its calm medieval atmosphere, its drift towards rebellion and the chains of conventions, its outstanding protagonist challenging the world with courage and determination. Whereas most shows would lose to a weak-willed hero, whereas warfare with blood and fights would rob the scenes, Beast Player Erin achieves mastery with just the simple discoveries, with crafting relationships between Erin and her tutors, and by shifting Erin from a child to an adult and making her wiser and stronger in all regards. Whereas shows would break their characters to ridiculous amounts in a vain attempt to hasten their ephemeral progression, here Erin gathers her strength, relies on help, and overcomes problems in a slow and steady rhythm. For a show to be so phenomenal without the flashiness, action, and drama that are typically intrinsic to great works is an amazing feat, and one very few can claim to have achieved.
   

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Comments
So it was my second time watching Erin before writing this review. When I watched it back in 2009 I was absurdly surprised. The first episodes weren’t enough to truly catch me, but I was in a good mood for a slow paced show such as Beast Player Erin. The art style, the more childish look, everything worked in favor of the calm and steady story, making me drift for the first sequence of episodes and slowly luring me to watch the rest. Then came the changes, first with a dramatic event and a plot twist that made me "wow" for the first time, from there I couldn’t know what to expect of the show. It looked kinda ordinary and slice-of-life thing, but then new points of view showed something else. Erin started to prove to be a genius girl but I still couldn’t see how she would fit the big picture that was presented.

These unexpected events and the take on Erin's daily life moments, from learning from her mother to soaring through the skies, make this show something unique. I could say Twelve Kingdoms is similar, but that’s only in the fact that both picture a low-fantasy setting. Seirei no Moribito (which is from Uehashi Nahoko as well) would also not be a good comparison because it’s very action-based. There’s simply nothing that truly mimics Beast Player Erin that I’ve watched, and managing such a feat and delivering it with great quality was something that caught me totally by surprise. Shows like this proves that flashy action and impactful stuff are not the only way to grab the attention in the visual media, a solid setting and a good storytelling can amaze in the same degree.

Even someone like me, who prefers more action, warfare, heavy intrigues and stuff, am unable to deny Beast Player Erin’s successful use of ordinary elements to create such a deep story and great moments. Some may argue about the slow pace, some may argue about a simple setting, etc. These issues, even though small, are there, but the fact is the show manages to deliver what it intends to and do so with great quality and in a time that 99% of others rely on flashiness and fanservice. A rare feat and because of that it became one of my favorite shows.

By the looks of comments and reviews, Erin looks to be an anime that will not appeal to everyone. And all the better for it. Shows that try to please everyone will inevitably end up ok, to most, but never excellent. A lot of what is considered popular, is really just crap on a stick. It's true, and you know it. There has to be a creative focus and a will to tell a good story. If you are only out to make a product, to make money, then you end up with run of the mill entertainment that when it comes down to it, is hardly more then a waste of time.
If you want a quick fix, some mindless action to go with your popcorn. Then Erin the beast player is not for you. But if you are aching for a good, engaging story, with true character development, then give Erin a chance. You may find yourself well rewarded.

Many anime fail to grab my attention until perhaps the third episode, thereabouts I can usually decide if a series is worth sitting through or if I should just drop it and go look for something worth while. But this time I knew right from the start that this was something special, something different.
And yes, it may not look like much at a glance, the animation and artwork, even the music, is simple. But simple does not necessarily mean bad. It can also be effective. The series has a style of it's own, it immediately reminded me of a children's book. And before you say bah, for kids! Hear me out... In this case it is a good thing, because it works. I found it charming. If you let go of any pretension and just go along with the fact, get into the mindset of a child. Because that's exactly what the series sets out to do. This is a long coming of age story and you get to follow the main character from her childhood, through the hardships and wonders of life and into the world of an adult.

The series has a deliberate slow and steady pacing, revealing more and more about Erins world, as she discovers it, just as you do as a viewer. The story becomes quite complex and deals with matters that are not black or white. But it is never hard to follow. As it develops the pieces fall into place neatly, without becoming confusing. A lot of series, while having great depth, can leave you thinking, "what the F just happened?" This is a series that does not require you to re-watch it several times to really appreciate it. It hits home the first time around. And hits you it does, emotionally. The childish tone of the beginning sets you up for some really heart wrenching scenes later on. But I will not spoil anything for you. You will just have to watch for yourself to experience this journey together with Erin.

In any case, whether you like the art and sound or not, is actually not that important. This series is all about story, not eye candy. Even if as already mentioned, the series is effective where it needs to be, with fluid animation, striking visuals and clear themes at the right moments. While the backgrounds can be very simple, the heart of it is there.
Another common gripe it seems is the pacing and the use of flashbacks. This is true, the series relies heavily on reused material and can not be accused of being fast paced. personally I didn't mind this. The story being told rang true and felt important, so I was willing to excuse the series for these apparent flaws. But when it comes down to it, I only found 2 episodes out of 50 that where completely unnecessary to the plot. One recap episode and one ep focused solely on the annoying side kicks. Yes the series has a pair of annoying comic relief characters. But they are actually tolerable. Many, and I mean many anime have introduced fluffy, annoying, stupid, pointless characters that I just wanted to strangle to death. But these two are actually ok. They are not really needed, but I don't mind them either, and they have a few moments.

If I am willing to forgive Wolfs Rain of 4, consecutive, entirely pointless recap episodes, then I can forgive Erin. Budget problems and harsh deadlines are constant struggles for all anime production companies. It is something you have to accept for what it is. You can always skip it on subsequent viewings.
And as for the show being slow, I'd rather have that then the story being rushed. This series is an epic, it needs time to develop into something that will stay with you, make you think and feel.
I couldn't let this series go, I finished all 50 episodes (on Crunchyroll, support legal anime sites. If what you want is there, then why not watch it?) in 4 days. It was so gripping I could not wait to see what happened next. It was not predictable in the way a lot of stories are, but at the same time the plot and twists did not seem forced. An episode leaves you wanting to see more and at the same time leave you content with what you just saw. However the pacing is intended to be viewed as a TV weekly episode, with recaps at the beginning of each episode, so it does not lend itself that well to a marathon in that regard. But I was willing to see beyond that, after all, I had no one but myself to blame for eagerly eating the show up 5-6 episodes in a row. (yes, it was really sleep work, Erin, sleep, work, Erin...)

So, hope that rambling helps you somewhat if you have not seen the show yet. All I can say is I'm really glad I gave it a chance, it was a long time since I saw something this fulfilling.

And For those of you who have seen it, and for some reason is till reading this...
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!!!!! *SPOILERS* !!!!!
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Seriously, If you haven't seen Erin, stop here and go do so.
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I'd like to mention a few things about how I perceived the series. I noticed someone complaining about the show ending badly, with Erin surviving...
Ok, so I can see where this is coming from, a series is "bad" if it has a happy ending because it is "indie" to have a sad ending. While it is true endings can be forced and happy endings can get boring because they are predictable. But in this case, ARE YOU KIDDING? Erin has to live. Death is a strong theme throughout the series and several important characters do die, and not very predictably at that. Up until the last minute I was actually not sure Erin would survive, but I honestly deeply wanted her to live. I've seen lots of shows where I couldn't care less if the main character lives or dies. And indeed for the story to work she has to. A central theme is the cycles of history, mankind repeating the same mistakes. With Erins mothers death firmly established, Erins role was to break the cycle and while coming to understand her mother, not to repeat her story. The child needs to find her own path, to build upon the past and find a new way. Which is also what happens for the entire country and it's rulers. They are not sure how, no great magical answer was found. But the point is they are willing to try. To work together for the sake of the future, not short lived personal gain. Where the main villain fails and the other characters win is they find respect. For themselves, for each other and for all living beings.
Erin is a great show because it has a story to tell, something you can learn and grow by. Death and tragedy do not by themselves make great art. If you want death for the sake of death, go see a slasher horror movie. With lots of blood and gore, but no point...

Kemono no Souja Erin -- Screw the story pacing, I have green hair!... Huh. Now that was weird. This show should probably cut down on the filler.

This review has truly been too long in the making. From the moment I first laid eyes on this show, I got a very positive impact from watching the fairly unique graphics, the sound image and the fact that it was based on a collaboration between Production I.G. and a Nahoko Uehashi story (which was the dream team behind the superb Seirei No Moribito). Thus, I was expecting to review it somewhere down the line. Now it’s been almost six months since the show ended, and I’ve still failed at reviewing it… Until now. Partially this is, I suppose, because the show’s end doesn’t quite carry on the impact gained by the first episodes. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Kemono no Souja Erin ("Beast Player Erin" in english) is a 2009 anime that concerns the story of Erin, a girl living in a medieval setting containing a few biologically implausible animals but is otherwise free of fantastic elements, and how her life develops from happy-go-lucky mum’s girl in a peaceful peasant village into being forced to become an adult. Over 50 episodes, we follow Erin’s character development and coming of age as it intertwines with the politics of the country… Well, ideally, at least. Practically, we get 50 episodes that I can, in a charitable mood, describe as ‘dragging on a bit’. It’s an interesting concept but the execution makes it rather bloody boring at times.

Animation and Visuals: 7/10 -- Looks like a children's book, and plays like one too. A bit too much recycling for my tastes, though.

The graphics of Kemono no Souja Erin are highly stylistic artwork; like I’ve already mentioned, it brings to mind a children’s book. The backgrounds look like they’ve been done in crayons (highly skilled crayon-use, but crayons nonetheless) with their frayed edges and colouring; it’s, to say the least, an interesting touch and I applaud the animation studio for taking it in that direction. The anime also features some interesting art shift moments to represent acts of violence on-screen that wouldn’t look good for the children directly animated. These moments are highly artistic and very noticeable, being introduced so early as two to three minutes into the first episode, and are very good. Character models are also nice and varied for the most part and a wide range of backgrounds, clothing and other details are involved.

It’s just sad that there’s not always so much ‘animation’ to go with it. Kemono no Souja Erin is a massive 50 episodes and I can expect that they have a limited budget, but still, there are a few things you notice over that time, like the reuse of a few scenes, some still frames, and heavy use of flashbacks to fill air time. It’s never quite as noticeable as it was in Evangelion, though on the flip side this show never looks as good as Evangelion did at its best either.

Ultimately, Kemono no Souja Erin’s graphical impression reminds me very much of that of Detroit Metal City – objectively it’s above average at best, but they suit the ‘tone’ of the anime extremely well and I’m wrapping my head around how the *style* could have been done differently. I just wish they could have used a little less freeze-frames and recycling old graphics.

Sound: 7/10 -- A very good soundtrack and well-chosen voices. Just wish they wouldn’t sing so much.

The sound picture consists of an eastern/medieval-inspired instrumental soundtrack composed by one Sakamoto Masayuki, which I must say acquits himself fairly well. It’s not up to snuff with Kawai Kenji’s work on Seirei no Moribito, but it works. Going along with this is the voice acting, which contain roles for some twenty-odd recurring characters, almost all of whom are solid, decent jobs to go with the music, giving a bit of a low-cast tone to go with the setting. Erin’s voice may take some time to get used to, but it’s interesting how she’s able to adapt her voice to fit all three main stages of Erin’s life – even though I feel it gets a little ill-fitting near the end. Rounding up the good parts is the first OP, “Shizuku”, which is impressively catchy.

So, what’s bad about this sound? Nothing really in particular. The second OP is a bit odd, being a resigning of the first by a lady who is a bit… Atonal (I’m going to assume the studio intentionally picked a tone-deaf person to sing it to underline the wrongness in the story at that point). The singing sort of gets on my nerves a bit too –- Seirei no Moribito had one sequence where an in-universe children’s planting song was used for a backdrop once in a late episode, but Erin has practically every other episode contain a sequence with singing to a backdrop of nothing much happening onscreen and it gets tiresome after a while.

Story: 5/10 -- There's something like *too* much minute detail sometimes.

The story of Kemono no Souja Erin is a massive, 50-episode epic about the coming-of-age of Erin, the only child of a village beastinarian (like a veterinarian, except the animals are intended for eating people) called Soyon. The story starts out with the two living peacefully in a village in a oriental-medieval fantasy world, and how events conspire to force Erin to grow up from this complacent lifestyle. Without spoiling too much, Erin’s story has three main parts to signify the three most significant steps in her character growth and her relationship with two particular beasts of the wild, which runs side-by-side with a side story that concerns the growing social divide and unrest in the kingdom they live in. While the two story threads only interweave until part three, this secondary plot gets quite a lot of time devoted to it – as does quite a lot of other things that do what I’d call “building the universe”, which is a nice way of saying “spending a lot of time on things that have little to do with the actual story” – in other words, filler material.

Building the universe can actually be a good thing, in moderation, as it provides context to the events of the actual story and helps make sense of things that might otherwise become plot holes. Gemini of the Meteor is a warning example of what happens when this doesn’t happen in sufficient amounts, and even then I’m not mentioning the true bottom-feeders in doing it. Seirei no Moribito (and you just *knew* I was going to keep beating that particular comparison horse) was very good in that regards, although to listen to some it had a bit too much of it for comfort. Kemono no Souja Erin, however, is not like Gemini of the Meteor. It isn’t like Seirei no Moribito either. Oh, no, this show goes way over in the other end and overcompensates, in many was spending more time building universe than telling the actual story. The result is that not only does the show creep along way too slowly and has a pacing that could be somewhat generously compared to the movements of your average glacier, but way too many unimportant details get thrown into the mix for comfort at times. It especially becomes noticeable later on in the series as you start to think that the time for exposition and background should be over and it's time for a little pay-off... Only to get even more filler.

Yet, when the end of the story comes, it seems to me like it’s still all wrapped up a little too quickly and conveniently. A paradox, I know; but nonetheless it is contrariness that I feel sticks out and annoys me. The show spends 45 episodes being *too* detailed and that somehow leaves it with too little time to properly pace the ending: Something they may have been able to solve by cutting out a few song numbers and compressing a few episodes.

It’s also a bit of a shame since the core concept of the story is fairly decent, especially considering the target demographic. It’s not exactly world-class: The solutions to some of the problems are a bit too simple and the whole villain and his evil plan is a bit too ham-handled, but it works as a concept. It’s just a shame that the execution leaves a good bit to be desired – and that I really don’t have the time, space, memory or spoiler-insensitivity to lay out about in detail. If you haven’t seen the show you’ll just have to take it on faith that Kemono no Souja Erin’s story ends up more boring than it has any right being.

Characters: 6/10 -- A general impression of decent and believable characters, with a couple of holes that ends up ruining the overall picture.

Kemono no Souja Erin is, naturally, a character-driven story, centered on Erin. As a character, the anime certainly takes its time developing Erin’s character: With 50 episodes to take from, we can hardly call her character development anything but ‘geologic’ (like ‘organic’ character growth, but a longer scale). Like with the story, it’s really something that could have had a few episodes shaved off of it. Erin as a character is pretty interesting if a little tiresome in large doses (and this show is nothing *but* a large dose of Erin) and watching her grow is not, in itself, a bad thing. The series has a number of supporting cast too; most of them are memorable enough and get enough screen time for you not to scratch your head every time they show up, but they’re not exactly the end-all be-all of an interesting character cast. For a kid’s show cast they act generally believably and mature, however… Most of the time, and I will praise it for a general realism in their characterisation even if it robs some of them of their "joie de vivre", so to speak. There are a few non-good exceptions to this that keeps me from being too generous with this score, however.

One of the problems is the villain. I know this is supposed to be a kid’s show, but the villain is *so* obvious from the get-go that I ended up getting mildly affronted by the show’s continuing attempts at saving the suspense of the ‘hidden villain’ until the last fifteen episodes or so and refusing to state it outright. We also don’t really get much characterisation of him until the last three or so episodes, which is really a shame given that he remains the quasi-hidden obstacle for most of the show and it takes so bloody long for us to figure out *why*. Another is the side-story of a pair of bickering siblings, whose payoff of that particular character arc eventually comes off as one big “huh?!”. I mean, seriously, huh? Did they ever get to resolve their conflict in any meaningful way? No? Then what was the point?

Erin is a bit too perfect in a way, and seems to have few, if any, character flaws. Not to mention the utter implausibility of her favoured beast-lords, which are basically animalistic Deus Ex Machina – as a peddling zoologist, their biology was a source of much mockery and derisiveness from me. The biggest problem, however, are the comedy sidekicks. After showing up for one episode early on we eventually get straddled with the pair for almost the entirety of the show, which is not a good thing. Predictably and annoying, they are pretty much equivalent to Jar Jar Binks within the context of this show. They have absolutely no relevance to the story for most of it, they get way more screen time than I’m comfortable with, we don’t get rid of them, and their antics only served to frustrate me. They even receive a focus episode of their own, which I have no problem with claiming that I skipped through, anticipating (correctly) that it had no relevance whatsoever.

Ultimately, the rest of the cast just isn’t interesting and well-made to compensate for a few stains like these, and the overall impression gets pulled down a fair bit by it.

Value 6/10 -- I would actually like to see more things made like this... Perhaps a bit more competently, though.

At its core, Kemono no Souja Erin seems very much a children’s show, around the 8-13 group. The pacing, the characters, the story and pretty much everything in it seems to make it intended for children – although it has some elements that endears it to adults, mostly these are of the kind when an adult can appreciate that something new is being made as a kids’ show rather than being aimed at the adults themselves.

Like Dennou Coil, Kemono No Souja Erin is an attempt at a ‘mature’ kid’s show – if something like that can be said to exist – in that it actually has a few elements in it that will give the kids a little shock introduction to the adult world. It may seem a little trite to cynical old me at times, but it’s still a lot less trite than what most of those damn high school nostalgia series and moe panty series actually intended for the older demographic contain. So yeah, I don’t mind recommending this show, advising people to at least take a look, hoping that more of a similar sort will be made, and storing it (mentally) for the posterity, even though I have no interest in watching it again.

If you liked this show, I already mentioned Dennou Coil and will keep mentioning it till it draws a bigger crowd. And if you haven’t already seen Seirei no Moribito, I adwise you go do so too.

Enjoyment 5/10 -- ...Are we done yet? No? How many episodes left? 15?... Good grief.

As I already touched upon in the story and characters part, Kemono no Souja Erin got rather boring to me at length. I managed so far as to around 35 or so episodes before the slump really hit, but then it hit hard, as the lacking and somewhat trite story elements and the lukewarm characters weren’t really enough to grip my attention for long. I had to struggle my way through the last part of it, and looking back it was a long time back when this show was any of my high expectancy. Although an interesting story, it was drawn out too long to be truly gripping and it was never really entertaining or funny in large doses -- You can definitively say it outstayed its welcome eventually.

Total: 6/10 -- Ultimately above average, though not because of the aspects I would have *liked* for it to pull up score.

In the end, Kemono no Souja Erin is a decent show. It has good graphics, decent music, an epic story and is something of an unique show that can stand alone from most anime produced nowadays and truly claim to be different, and it will be true. Unfortunately, it is also filler-ridden, long-winded, almost too fiendishly detailed and ultimately rendered somewhat self-defeatingly boring by the very same epic story, and while the character gallery is interesting it isn’t really all that special when it comes to it.

There are no single elements in this show that can really make up for said long-windedness, and in many ways I feel a bit internally ashamed about being ‘only’ able to give this show a 6 out of 10, given its origins and what it represents when I see much of the monotony that seems to dominate much of the anime of its time. That said, that still doesn’t change the truth that this show got fairly dull with time and there were better original shows in 2009. And that’s the short of it – something Kemono no Souja Erin didn’t have the courtesy of giving us when it might have counted.

If this series was a movie, it would be Ghibli. :mymaster:

Kemono no Souja Erin tells us about the life of one girl, Erin, as she grows up in a medieval world that's filled with ugly rules and politics. She lives in a kingdom that was founded by Queen Je, who descended from the heavens on a winged beast. The queen is protected by the duke, who commands lizard like beasts. Instead of guns and cannons, these huge beasts are being used as weapons. Whoever controls the beasts, has power. However Erin, who grows up in a village that raises and tames these beasts, does not think of the animals as weapons... and an epic story where Erin gets entangled in a web of rules, politics, and interests of power unfolds...

Before watching this anime, you should understand that it is about the daily life of the girl, Erin, and about animals she works with. It is not about sword fighting. The first episode can be very misleading in that regard, as it shows warriors on horsebacks, fighting with swords, until they get totally overpowered as the huge lizards come in and trample over them. Following that, you'd expect a lot of action happening, which is not coming. Therefore, to action fanatics, the story must seem unbearably slow. The fact that this introductory cool fighting scene is re-used several times throughout the series to re-illustrate that the kingdom is surrounded by war, must piss them off even more.

However, not relying on action is actually the strong point of this series. Instead of showing you awesome sword fights in every episode, you get an in-depth course on how the world Erin lives in, actually works. The characters, animals, the customs of the people, the ecosystem, all of it is explained in such detail, it's breathtaking. If you're into fantasy worlds that are detailed such that they actually feel alive and real, this is the show for you.

Apart from the story, the animation and art is beautiful, although they do rely on computer renderings to display armies of beasts (and unfortunately sometimes even single beasts). Although it's made to blend in well, it still feels very artificial in contrast to the hand drawn crayon like style of some backgrounds. Voices, music, and sound effects are superb. This is obviously a very high quality production.

If you liked this series, you may also like Juuni Kokuki and Seirei no Moribito, which both offer similar detailed fantasy worlds, although a little more action focused.

Overall, this show has an excellent premise: a girl raised in a hostile world to be a beast-handler by her mother, surrounded by challenges and dilemmas at every turn. It really should have been an exciting adventure with lots of drama, even if there wasn't much chance it would be a thrilling action/adventure like I'm sure most people were hoping for. I really cannot recommend this show to anyone who enjoys thoroughly well-written story lines (like the kind produced by Ghibli). This would make a fun Saturday morning cartoon for kids from say 13 to 18. It's a little too violent for the younger crowd, in my opinion. Anyone older will likely find the various subplots that become more and more dominant toward the end to be disappointing.

Animation: In the closeups and medium shots, you see some very high quality rendering. Everything is sharp and expertly drawn. In the action sequences and wide shots, you see a lot of crayon-ish type rendering. To some viewers, this inconsistency will become distracting, but to me it works great. It really hammers home the fact that this is a story about youth and rebellion, but posed in setting and a style that is charming. I think it's meant to convey the beauty and the occasional raging insanity of nature. There are times when the effects go a little overboard, like some of those snow effects in one of the later episodes, but otherwise the animation is great.

Sound: I have no complaints about the music or the voice actors, who did an excellent job on this show. I suppose the warbling remix of the OP (introduced in later episodes) was a little off the mark to my mind since that vocal style doesn't really gel with the style of the music. There were also some awkward attempts to blend a lot of harp sounds with crudely animated harp playing, but the rest of the show's audio is top-notch.

Story: This is a sprawling, epic story, which attempts to convey the highlights of one girl's entire life. As such, a few bumps and twists should be expected, but to my mind the turns in the story are far too wide and nauseating. The writing of the characters and their episodic adventures lulls you into a false sense of security until the crude and amateurish subplots grab the main plots by the throat and beat it senseless. By the time you get halfway through the show, if you are paying attention, you start to expect bad things to happen merely because you see a pleasant scene which the writer has decided for the sake of shock value to make a preface to some horrific atrocity. At one point, I was laughing at how predictable the violent events were at following their cliched omens and foreshadowing. The story isn't a complete failure, however. It does follow the basic conventions of story-telling: a nice mix of description, dialogue, and action. For some people, it might seem like it was paced too slow, but to my mind it was paced about right. There is a kind of grim consistency, as well, once you reach the end of the story. They did make an attempt to bookend the whole series right at the end, but to my mind, that attempt is overshadowed by the failures to convey strong characters in the subplots.

Character Development: Speaking of characters, I was delighted by how enjoyable most of the characters were, including the boorish and bumbling thieves (who seemed to me like an homage to Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress). I could almost excuse the mindless villainy of certain key characters, at least until their mindlessness became key points of contention for the story. The villains are so paper-thin and one dimensional that the main villain is not even given a stage on which to present his own motivations. It seemed as though the author despised the characters, and therefore felt them to be unworthy of exposition.

Value: Would I watch this again? I don't think so. Much as I enjoyed the animal husbandry, I would not look forward to the violent twists and turns of the story again.

Enjoyment: For what it's worth, I did enjoy this show. It's a step above soap opera, but not by much. The protagonists are interesting, and their dialogue is pretty close to what I would consider ideal, but the antagonists are shallow and disappointing. It is thought-provoking, but my thoughts tend to turn toward how petty and ridiculous certain characters prove themselves to be.