Reviews for Speed Grapher (7.03)
harrize
Sugishima Kunihisa
Prologue Speed Grapher takes everlasting problems of humanity and brings them to the new level. After the end of a so-called "bubble war" the poor became more poor, and wealthy even m...
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- Unrated
07.08.2006 17:12 - direct link
(rs4137)
Prologue
Speed Grapher takes everlasting problems of humanity and brings them to the new level. After the end of a so-called "bubble war" the poor became more poor, and wealthy even more wealthy. Money equals to power, power equals to the ability to do what you want, or whatever you think that you want. Regular money-power-women triangle isn't satisfying anymore, and wealthy are trying to search pleasure elsewhere: laugh at the poor, humilliate, rape, kill and even try and gamble their life for a chance to be granted one and only deepest desire. A secret club can offer any of that for a very "reasonable" price offcourse. Once overdue with a debt that person will pay for it with own life.
Story
The main plot focuses on a veteran war journalist, or rather a veteran war photographer Saiga Tatsumi. He doesn't believe in money or power - for him those things are meaningless. His only obsession is photography. Being held against his will in Japan by a detective woman Ginza Hibari, whom he shares an intimate relationship with, one night he sneaks into the "club" intrigued by the rumors. In a very intersting fashion he meets a "goddess" called Kagura, who is actually a daughter of the most wealthy and influential woman in Japan, Shinsen Tennouzu. Often abused by her own mother, Kagura doesn't believe in money either, and seeks only freedom which she never had. Saiga, fascinated by Kagura's spectacular sudden appearance, directly snaps a photograph of her, and that nearly costs him his head, but kissed by Kagura, receives a power to blow anything and anyone up he shoots his camera with.
There you have it. Speed grapher is all about the injustice of the world's blood and flesh that is money, which is very actual in the world we live in, and Speed Grapher gives us the extreme version of what the money is actually capable of. Why a photographer? That's very symbolic - the only way to fight the injustice is with public opinions, which honest journalists serve for.
Characters
The protagonists are pretty well done in Speed Grapher, they don't really develop all that much, but in the end are left complete, with no blank spots at all. And the "villain" Suitengu is simply amazing. All I can say is that you will be very surprised by him in the end. I liked his personal bodyguards very much as well, they are very well developed for the side-kick characters, which is nice. One other character I fell in love with was
Ginza, sometimes you really begin to doubt whether she's one of the good guys or not. I love her hot-temper and very vulnirable feminine-side, which is a fantastic combination.
Boss characters are mostly driven by their animalistic desires, and often take a form which suits that desire the most. For example there is a woman that loves diamonds more than anything and can make every part of her body diamond. Or there is priest that believes more in electricity than he does in god, being able to manipulate it at will. As you can see - Speed Grapher is being ironic even here.
Adaptation To all the action fans out there.
Saiga's powers aren't boring as you may think at the first sight. "Blow up anything with a camera? Big deal!" you may say. But it's actually much deeper and more complicated than that. Offcourse - with Saiga it's a one-hit kill or no kill at all, so the battles don't last very long most of the time. BUT. Not a single boss character gets killed in the same way, which is very cool to try and figure out how Saiga will act next. And that thing only, makes Speed Grapher very well action-packed in almost every episode.
Artistic appearance
The series does introduce a very nice voice-acting and a decent soundtrack, which I must say suits it the most. Animation is a little weaker than that, but still pretty decent none the less. Action sequences are very well done and look better than non-action sequences in every aspect.
Overall Impression
I'm very glad I watched it. That's a very original story and I won't hesitate to watch it once more, and I almost never do that. It's not hard to catch a moral of Speed Grapher, which is pretty obvious: some things like real love and wisdom can't be bought with money. And another one: don't be ruled by your desires - they will ruin you.
One more thing: don't trust public opinion on this one - it's a REALLY great series with a lot of depth and a twisted story-line that won't stop amazing you untill the very end.
Speed Grapher takes everlasting problems of humanity and brings them to the new level. After the end of a so-called "bubble war" the poor became more poor, and wealthy even more wealthy. Money equals to power, power equals to the ability to do what you want, or whatever you think that you want. Regular money-power-women triangle isn't satisfying anymore, and wealthy are trying to search pleasure elsewhere: laugh at the poor, humilliate, rape, kill and even try and gamble their life for a chance to be granted one and only deepest desire. A secret club can offer any of that for a very "reasonable" price offcourse. Once overdue with a debt that person will pay for it with own life.
Story
The main plot focuses on a veteran war journalist, or rather a veteran war photographer Saiga Tatsumi. He doesn't believe in money or power - for him those things are meaningless. His only obsession is photography. Being held against his will in Japan by a detective woman Ginza Hibari, whom he shares an intimate relationship with, one night he sneaks into the "club" intrigued by the rumors. In a very intersting fashion he meets a "goddess" called Kagura, who is actually a daughter of the most wealthy and influential woman in Japan, Shinsen Tennouzu. Often abused by her own mother, Kagura doesn't believe in money either, and seeks only freedom which she never had. Saiga, fascinated by Kagura's spectacular sudden appearance, directly snaps a photograph of her, and that nearly costs him his head, but kissed by Kagura, receives a power to blow anything and anyone up he shoots his camera with.
There you have it. Speed grapher is all about the injustice of the world's blood and flesh that is money, which is very actual in the world we live in, and Speed Grapher gives us the extreme version of what the money is actually capable of. Why a photographer? That's very symbolic - the only way to fight the injustice is with public opinions, which honest journalists serve for.
Characters
The protagonists are pretty well done in Speed Grapher, they don't really develop all that much, but in the end are left complete, with no blank spots at all. And the "villain" Suitengu is simply amazing. All I can say is that you will be very surprised by him in the end. I liked his personal bodyguards very much as well, they are very well developed for the side-kick characters, which is nice. One other character I fell in love with was
Ginza, sometimes you really begin to doubt whether she's one of the good guys or not. I love her hot-temper and very vulnirable feminine-side, which is a fantastic combination.
Boss characters are mostly driven by their animalistic desires, and often take a form which suits that desire the most. For example there is a woman that loves diamonds more than anything and can make every part of her body diamond. Or there is priest that believes more in electricity than he does in god, being able to manipulate it at will. As you can see - Speed Grapher is being ironic even here.
Adaptation To all the action fans out there.
Saiga's powers aren't boring as you may think at the first sight. "Blow up anything with a camera? Big deal!" you may say. But it's actually much deeper and more complicated than that. Offcourse - with Saiga it's a one-hit kill or no kill at all, so the battles don't last very long most of the time. BUT. Not a single boss character gets killed in the same way, which is very cool to try and figure out how Saiga will act next. And that thing only, makes Speed Grapher very well action-packed in almost every episode.
Artistic appearance
The series does introduce a very nice voice-acting and a decent soundtrack, which I must say suits it the most. Animation is a little weaker than that, but still pretty decent none the less. Action sequences are very well done and look better than non-action sequences in every aspect.
Overall Impression
I'm very glad I watched it. That's a very original story and I won't hesitate to watch it once more, and I almost never do that. It's not hard to catch a moral of Speed Grapher, which is pretty obvious: some things like real love and wisdom can't be bought with money. And another one: don't be ruled by your desires - they will ruin you.
One more thing: don't trust public opinion on this one - it's a REALLY great series with a lot of depth and a twisted story-line that won't stop amazing you untill the very end.
