Anime: Guin Saga

So we have Guin Saga as one of those animes released immediatly after such a wonderful time back in 2007 and 2008. Those years were overwhelming with quality shows, many of them bordering epicness and only a rare few being truly mediocre or with low quality. As a show, Guin Saga promised much with Nobuo Uematsu leading the music department, Satelight as the animation studio, etc. What it delivers is certainly classic and powerful, but it has a few typical issues that makes it fall short of becoming an instant classic.

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Art & Animation
Guin Saga has a retro-feeling through all the show, but perhaps the art and animation are were it's least evident. The art style is very bright and colorful, contrasting a bit with the serious mood and epic feel of the adventure. You'll see knights in bright red, royal blue, shiny white, etc, but not much of the more dark brown and sand you'd expect from a show that occurs in a medieval setting and with constant war. This does not mean the art style is bad, in fact it's gorgeous comparing to most shows we see even today, but it doesn't fit perfectly with the story's atmosphere. Animation, however, is never an issue, with good deal of combats and a pretty consistent presentation, perhaps lacking a bit in a few static scenes and taking a bit of the seriousness by not showing blood regardless of many fights and cuts. The background and the world presentation is epic and very detailed, but most of the time you'll be watching deserts and baren landscapes.

Sound
Those who know Final Fantasy are certainly aware of Nobuo Uematsu's superb soundtracks. His job in Guin Saga is superb as well, with a set of epic-style music that creates an atmosphere of a legendary tale that reminds of the great games and table-top RPGs played back in the 90's. Voice-acting is also good, but can annoy a little with the bad (or perhaps intentionally weird) lipsynch of Guin's voice and his animal head. The rest of the human cast shows a more solid and great job though. The real problem here, the one that makes Guin Saga unable to reach a truly epic sound direction is the repetitiveness. While the musics are epic and superb, they are overly used, and by the second half of the show they've already lost much of their initial impact, failing to bring the same atmosphere for the whole show.

Story
Guin doesn't know who he is exactly, what's his purpose, why his head is that of a leopard, and why he's so damn strong. He wakes in a forest and immediately aid the fleeing twins of the kingdom of Parros: Rinda and Remus. This is the series starting point, and from there Guin and the twins meet new allies, flee from the terrible Mongaul (they could at least create a random name...) army, and bring together the people of the monster land named Nospherus.

1. Epic Warfare Start
   The tale is superb although with a generic start, with a Lord of the Rings approach but with bits more of political intrigue. The first twelve episodes or so will show the rise of Guin and introduce you to the land of Nospherus, delivering some of the greatest medieval warfare shows since Berserk. You have lots of nice combat, bits of a strategic feeling, some nice entrances, cliffhanger endings, and many other things boosted by the powerful epic music.
   
   Boring Sequence and... Surprise!
   The rest of the anime goes more to political intrigues and an expansion of the whole setting, changing the epic atmosphere full of large scale fights to a more grounded and mature show. If Guin Saga followed that mixed path till the end we could have one of the greatest shows of all time perhaps, but that doesn't happen. The show abruptly ends and leaves you wanting for more... we see this happen quite often with medieval fantasy shows in Japan. The pace is good, the storyline is solid, everything was ready for a superb story, but the "typical" unexpected end that concludes nothing can make anyone angered.
   

Character
Guin's initial memory loss is really stupid considering that it's overused in anime industry. The fleeing twins are not anything new, but that is passable and a good starting point to any story. The personalities of the twins are like ying and yang, with a rebel and more mature girl and a more coward and childish boy. Guin himself slowly grows to be a good character, with a mysterious touch, a uber-powerful physical strength, some very good remarks and an overall development that makes the first series of episodes very enjoyable. The rest of the cast is what you would expect from a medieval show. It's not a party-based stuff like Lodoss or Berserk, but has the usual evil king, veteran general, young soldier in love, etc. The issue with the support cast is that they never grow out of their stereotypes, but are well used nevertheless.

Value
Guin Saga's epic feeling is almost unique. It's one of those very rare shows with a darker medieval fantasy approach, and one of the few of them that succeed in creating something that is not cheesy or completely chaotic. The landscape shots, the music, the more serious approach, everything at its start is outstanding. We have political intrigue of a good quality, nice fights, above-average protagonists and a support cast that is at least useful. What makes Guin Saga a lacking anime is simply the fact that it never truly builds up something unexpected. It's short of twists and alternative plotlines, it overly uses its soundtrack, and especially, it lacks an ending... exactly like Berserk, Twelve Kingdom, Legend of Legendary Heroes, etc. It seems japanese animation studios don't want to create medieval fantasy shows with an end...

Enjoyment
So, after the end you'll be disappointed surely. The show lacks an ending and that is a huge issue. But overall Guin Saga is a enjoyable watch. The first ten to twelve episodes are simply awesome, full of large scale combats, constant fleeing, a sense that anything can happen at anytime, etc. The outcome is not unexepected, but is good. The last part, however, shows you that the story lacks twists and turns, even with good political intrigue at play. The difference between both halves can be overwhelming, but both parts are better than most shows out there in terms of intrigues and epicness. Those wanting medieval shows, especially one without cheesy comedy or ecchiness, will certainly find it in Guin Saga. However, if you want a complete experience (with start, middle and end), or if you want a completely mature show, Guin Saga will leave you unsatisfied by the end.

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Comments
Ah, Guin Saga is a weird show for me. It's absurdly epic at the start, with a soundtrack that can make one shiver. The first episodes promise a superb series, and for the first half it succeeds in doing so. The twins fleeing, the presentation of the setting, Guin's sudden sparks of his memory, everything is nicely done despite lacking a bit more of intrigue and twists. The second half brings the political intrigue you would expect, but not any great twist to give more fire to the plot. All of these issues are fairly small, and even superb shows like Berserk and Twelve Kingdoms suffer a little from them, but the lack of ending is somehow more tragic here than in those both.

I really liked Guin Saga. It's hard to see medieval shows with a great quality in japanese animation. We can count in one hand the ones that are at least mediocre, and Guin Saga is certainly one of those that is above the middle range. Berserk, Twelve Kingdoms and Beast Player Erin perhaps lead the medieval stuff we have in Japan, but Guin Saga is not far behind them. A superb show for fantasy fans, even if it's not exactly in the molds of a D&D adventure or as much powerful in political intrigue like Berserk.

My first review. Note my reviews are probably quick and dirty. Hopefully I eventually do a proper review but I doubt it. Just finished marathoning this series. I watched them at a decent pace cause I found the series interesting. Animation and sound aren't particular important to me. It is all about the story and whether or not the series ends. So the series doesn't really end. More like a season 1 of 2. This series is more about political manuvering and about a hidden mystery about their world which wasn't fully developed then about action.
My memory tends to be a little foggy but here is what was covered in "season 1". The mongrel army invades Parros. The twins prince/princess escape through a magical device where they happen to land by a mysterious leopard man named guin. They also eventually meet a mercenary by the name of Istovan. The mongrel army happened to be in the area beacuse they were searching for some artifact that can possibly be used to conquer the world. Guin and company eventually are able to get the citzens of Nospheros to unite to defeat them.
The second half was more about Aldos (the 2nd in line for the throne) His scheming to take back Parros from the mongrels and what he wants from the world. It was a little simplistic but I tend to like this type of thing.
There was a mysterious group that wanted to assinate guin. Probably responsible for instigating the mongrel attack on parros. They probably have a good idea of what's going on in the world but this wasn't fully developed this season.
There were too many coincendences for my taste. How Guin was able to get the help of the Lagos army was laughable. At least with the Sem army it was plausible. They had the uncanny ability of finding each other which was also annoying. Also the character in this series tend to fall in love pretty easily.
If there is no second season I'll give the series an Avg ranking. For me, the bulk of the anime I watch tend to be Avg.
Note Ranking: Drop. Pass. Avg. Want more. Great.

Prelude
I waited a few months before I picked this up. My anticipation before watching this series was that it was going to be great, if not, worthy to put in my top 10 anime list… but hold on!!!! This review will shed some light on Guin Saga.

Animation
The animation is boring. For a 2009 anime series, the animation could have been so much better than what it actually was. A few things I disliked with the animation:

A) No blood whatsoever!!
Considering this is a fantasy/adventure genre anime series, one would assume there is a lot of fighting/battles even without watching this series. The general assumption is that there will be fighting. I don’t see how an anime series can be taken seriously with something missing as important as this, especially for the genre that this is. I guess the demographic for this anime series was ages 7-10, because all the elements that give off a real feel for fantasy/adventure, such as blood, passion, comedy, magic were taken away only to give a childish experience and an urge of wanting more, only to be given nothing but these watered down elements.

B) The two twins
Even without watching this series, you can see who I am taking about based on the Guin Saga picture right above the anime description. I’ll be frank, I absolutely hated the appearance of the twins, because they had this fat, dwarf-like, stretched out face apperance. Normally, I would not care if these characters were side-kicks or shown every 5 episodes, but the fact of the matter is that these twins are some of the main characters and were shown in every episode. This could just be me about the appearance of the twins, but the more I saw their faces, the more I hated this series… as lame as that might be, but its true.

By now, for 2009… the animation for every anime series from here on out should be far better than what this was. To summarize the animation… it was very mediocre.

Sound
This is probably the most disappointing category in the whole anime series. In fact, it was because of this category I decided to pick Guin Saga up in the first place, because otherwise, I would have passed on this. I’m pretty sure everyone out there has heard the awesome soundtrack to Final Fantasy, well guess what? Yep… that same music composer did the soundtrack for Guin Saga. Nobuo Uematsu who is famous for his brilliant music in Final Fantasy such as (Clash on the Big Bridge, Jenova, Dancing Mad, Fight with Seymour, Vamo’ Alla Flamenco, Maybe I’m a Lion, One Winged Angle, and lots, lots, I mean lots more). If you couldn’t tell, I am a HUGE fan of this music composer because he makes sensational music.

Anyways, back to the here and now… so when I heard Nobuo Uematsu made the music for this series, I was thinking jackpot. However, the music could not have been anymore average or dull compared to his previous work. I know it might be unfair, but when I heard his name and Guin Saga, I immediately increased my level for expectations in terms of music and sound.

If you are unaware that Nobuo Uematsu composed the music for this anime series, then the music is basic and average to say the least, so in most cases, the average person would give this category a 7/10 rating, yet I will not do such a thing. I believe every big successful actor, director, producer, or whatever the title you want to give, have a less than stellar performance… and in this case, this is a sub par performance by Nobuo Uematsu. A 4/10 rating in my books. All this anticipation only to be let down tremendously.

Story
As mentioned above… sound was the most disappointing category in this series; however, story came in a close 2nd place. In my reviews for the category of story, I tend to break the story down into 2 sections, 1st half and 2nd half. For Guin Saga, such a case could be made because the 1st half is so much different from the 2nd half.

1st Half (Decent and watchable)
Throughout Guin Saga you are left scratching your head thinking “wtf is going on here?”, well, right from the get-go, you are wondering just that, because the series starts off by a castle getting invaded by enemies. Eventually, these events are explained, but for some time no explanation is given. From this point, the twins (Remus and Rinda) are in the forest and they happen to get in trouble and Guin (the leopard headed man) saves them. What I truly disliked about this is that absolutely NO explanation is given about Guin until almost the entire series has ended, so for more than 20 episodes you keep wondering “who the hell Guin is”. This is where the quote-unquote the adventure begins. Suddenly, Guin is gathering an army to fight against Amnelis (princess) and her army, who you think is a good person, but is introduced as the enemy. The next few episodes are fighting to see which army will win. These episodes are somewhat enjoyable to watch because there is decent action and strategic planning that goes along with the battles.

However, if you end up watching Guin Saga and dislike these events, then prepare for boredom to a whole new level for the 2nd half of Guin Saga, because almost NO fighting takes place. So absorb all the enjoyment you can in the 1st half because the 2nd half is like watching paint dry. 1st half of Guin Saga is a 6/10 rating.

2nd Half (Horrible and unwatchable)
The 2nd Half begins after the battle between the armies of Guin and Amnelis. From here until the end, the 2nd half is about political marriages, corruption, betrayal, and almost zero fighting, so hopefully, you were able to absorb the 1st half fighting up, because that’s basically all the action you will be getting for Guin Saga. Though the focal point of the 2nd half is not focused around fighting, not much plot actually takes places. A few twist and turns are attempted to be inserted into the 2nd half of Guin Saga, but any person could see right through these events. In the end, not much happens and the ending is left wide open, that makes anyone believe that a 2nd season is in the works. 2nd half of Guin Saga is a 3/10 rating.

In the end, Guin Saga begins out confusing, gets somewhat interesting towards the middle, then completely fizzles out towards the end, and by the end you are delighted that this series is over. I fast forwarded some parts in the 1st half; however, in the 2nd half, there was NO way I could have watched all of the 2nd half of Guin Saga without fast forwarding through those episodes, that’s how boring and dull that section of this anime series was.

Characters
This category was pretty bad as well. Not only did I question the rationale of why a character was introduced in a scene or episode, but I also question the voice acting for some of the characters, because the majority of the voices to the characters were completely awful.

Guin – This is the main character of Guin Saga if you could not tell from the name of the anime series. He is a self-righteous leopard headed man that is all of a sudden introduced as such. It felt as if Guin just fell out of the sky because there is no explanation about this person until the very end of this anime series. Overall, Guin was a decent character in this series and his voice was listenable.

Remus – I probably hated this character the most. He starts out as a super spoiled prince that only thinks of himself. At first, I thought he was a girl, because he has the look and personality of a girl, but then when I learned that he was a guy, I just shock my head and said “wow… embarrassing”. In the 2nd half of Guin Saga, instead of Remus being a naïve spoiled prince, he becomes an arrogant spoiled prince. I was hoping at some point in the anime series that someone would bitch slap Remus and say “man-up, you’re a prince… so act like one”. The voice played for this character was completely hideous.

Rinda – She is sister to Remus (twins) and princess. Unlike Remus, she has the qualities to be a ruler. She was just, fair, strong, bold, intelligent, compassionate, and reasonable. She had a fairly important role in Guin Saga. The voice was meh for this character.

Amnelis – Is a princess (for Monogoles). She is a valiant princess that at first, you think that all she cares about is war and power, but Amnelis is a character of valor and courage. This was probably the best voice that matched the character.

Ishtovarn – Is the “red mercenary” and guy that claims that he will become a future king. However, the manner in which he tries to become king is completely laughable… he ends up either working for an important person with the hopes of gaining an important title from that person (which doesn’t end up working out) or begging for help. Another way you can look at this character is the official backstabber of Guin Saga. The voice for this character is decent.
SideNote: Ishtovarn has a thing for Rinda and he tries to get her to fall in love with him. But Ishtovarn is in his early 20s, while Rinda is between the ages of 12-14, which I thought was completely disgusting. I mean… that’s what I really want to watch… a grown adult trying to romantically and passionately attract a little kid. I thought by far, this was the worst part of Guin Saga.

Suni – Is a monkey girl that is introduced at the very beginning of Guin Saga and really serves no purpose in this anime series. I disliked the presence of this character because the voice of Suni was truly bad. It was a high pitch voice; luckily, she had little to no lines in this series because when she spoke, she spoke in her tribe language which no one but Guin could understand.

There are a lot more characters in Guin Saga, but these that I have mentioned are used throughout all of this anime series. I was not impressed with the characters; in fact, I was more disappointed than impressed with the characters.

Enjoyment
From episode one to the last episode, I did not enjoy this anime series. I did dislike other episodes more than others, to the point where I had to fast forward the episodes, but in terms of enjoyment, I either had little or had none whatsoever. After every episode, I sighed and grunted because I couldn’t believe that I was watching such a crappy anime series and I knew that I was not going to drop Guin Saga, since I had been waiting and anticipating this series for so long. Looking back, I still can’t believe I finished this anime series because Guin Saga is completely lackluster.

Conclusion
If you couldn’t tell this is a MUST ABSOULTELY PASS!!! Hopefully this review can save a few people from having their time completely and utterly wasted. You are better off watching practically anything else. If you end up watching this anime series, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Guin Saga is not the sort of anime you would expect to see with modern storytelling. And this is no surprise as it is based on a story format of the 70’s epic fantasy way of showing things. This is why it has a retro appeal to it very reminiscent of old epic movies like Conan the Barbarian or Krull. If I could describe this series in game terms, I would say it’s like a standard 2nd edition D&D campaign, with rather stereotypical characters, kingdoms at war, armies of thousands clashing, random encounters with monsters and full of the cheesiest dialogues you can probably think of. Still, it can still be entertaining besides a nostalgic trip to times past as the artwork is good and the flow of the story feels compeling on a basic level.

ART SECTION: 7/10 [Conan the Barbarian pays a visit to the Twelve Kingdoms.]
Analysis: General Artwork 2/2, Character Figures 1/2, Backgrounds 2/2, Animation 1/2, Visual Effects 1/2

Animated by studio Satelight, which has done many anime yet I personally only enjoyed Noein amongst them. It just doesn’t feel like it’s trying too hard most of the time. Aside from that, the artwork is simply superb, detailed as many other well made fantasy series such as The Twelve Kingdoms and Serei no Moribito... but in western style. In fact, it has the best looking pseudo medieval western fantasy of all anime to date. The feeling of epicness is all over the place, fitting a marvelous (albeit generic) fantasy/adventure world. Most landscapes have a magnificent variety of colors and details and most outfits are as extravagant as armors in modern MMORPGs. The characters also look interestingly drawn, although they do feel dry on proper reactions to danger or fear… just like in retro movies, hehe.

- The animation is quite subpar for a 2009 production but still better than your average pathetic ecchi / harem series.
- The action and movement in general suffer, such as the mouth moving funny when Guin the leopard or any other monster talks, or the 3D images not fitting well with the 2D.
- Blood in this series seems to be invisible as… there is none shown despite the really brutal battles and numerous deaths of characters. Obviously censored in order to make the series accessible to a younger audience and make more money. Well, too bad because more money means less coolness. Give us Berserk violence you moneyhoarders!
- The battles look a bit more realistic than the average fantasy anime out there, in the sense there actually is swordsmanship and battle choreography, instead of random slashes and energy beams. They also never last more than a few minutes at the most and the fighters use close-combat techniques that have a semi-realistic regard to physics. Everything is straightforward and simple, yet feels better that what you would expect from a series with lots of battles. A character will not do a triple flip, pose, have his face covered in shadow while shouting “super dual slash rock breaking sword” and a huge aura coming out of his body. No magic missiles, impossible recoils and injuries miraculously vanishing in this series. Much better than a Naruto battle.
- But don’t imagine it’s so real it will jump out of your screen. The characters wear armors and hold huge weapons no man could ever hope to use properly. And they break walls with their fists. And when they run it feels like they are scrolling with no regards to the terrain. I culd also question the aesthetics on most uniforms. They look so gay with all the vivid colors and the short skirts FOR MALES.

SOUND SECTION: 7/10 [You will not get away with this evil count Goris!]
Analysis: Voice Acting 1/3, Music Themes 4/4, Sound Effects 2/3

- The music themes are great and fitting to the whole epicness of the series, being a blend of epic rock and Latin chorus.
- Voice acting is also good for everyone, full of emotion and… yes, epicness again. The twin kids sure sound too annoying, being too crybaby and butchy girl but that is a minor detail.
- What I didn’t like is many parts in the dialogues where the characters MUST mention the name of everyone they talk to every five minutes, even if they know him for decades. I understand that this is a language issue as the Japanese show politeness and compassion by stating the name instead of a “hey you” or “him” but it still feels lame in the eyaes of everybody else. Also, the way they talk sounds pretty much like comic book material as they keep using all-time favorite hero vs villain quotes. I mean, lol, how much cheese can you make out of all this? Ok, I again understand that the way of writing way far more woody back in the 70’s but the show was made today, so it feels bad to the ears.

STORY SECTION: 5/10 [Now where did I put that 2nd edition Dungeon Master’s Guide?]
Analysis: Premise 2/2, Pacing 1/2, Complexity 1/2, Plausibility 1/2, Conclusion 0/2

- As if straight out of a cheesy campaign book, it is the story of two kind hearted royal twins TM being hunted by an evil army TM and being saved by a man with a leopard head, who has memory loss TM. The story is not bad at all but it doesn’t feel much either. More mature than a fairy tale yet not close to be seen as realistic or serious.
- The first half is about the gang being chased by evil minions and Guin the leopard fighting them in order to protect the twins. He even gets to rally all the savage tribes of the wilderness in order to fight the Mongol (racism or what?) army. This part is actually ok to watch. The story is generic and the battles rather dull but everything is done with such passion and atmosphere that unless you expect Hellsing action every 5 minutes, you are not going to be bored.
- The second part is where things get rather dull as the action is almost zero and there is a lot of political intrigue and mystery going around. This part fleshed out the characters, introduced some romance amongst them and made the world to feel a lot more complicating than just “save the princess, kill the dragon”. Still, not many things happened, the pacing was slow, and the ending is way too open for a sequel as nothing is really resolved. Which makes sense as the series only adapted the first of a very long line of epic fantasy books written in the 70’s.
- The story had a dramatic change from Conan the Barbarian to Rose of Versailles and it seemed to never use the good parts of each kind. Too little story, no twists on the first part, too little plot, no action on the second. It is still an ok watch but seriously, it could be done better. And as I said, it is not even finished so tough luck.

CHARACTER SECTION: 6/10 [Hasta lavista… Guin]
Analysis: Presence 2/2, Personality 1/2, Backdrop 2/2, Development 1/2, Catharsis 0/2

- The cast is an interesting bunch. It begins very generic and rather boring but as the episodes go by, many get killed and many more develop through romance or some revelation about themselves. Heck, they even grow up physically, as there is a time skip between the two arcs. Thus they become a lot more than yet another generic cast.
- Still, they will feel weak for half of the show as there is nothing going on around themselves and it is mostly “get the twins / oh harsh world” type of plot where the story drives the characters and not the other way around. What I mean is that there was a lot of DM help (cough) Divine Intervention to help the plot move along and the characters were not masters of their own fates. Also, Guin seems to strike too much like “I can beat you all, I can outsmart you all, I am the destined one yet I know nothing about my past” type of lead (if not like a Tiger Mask or King look alike) that seems to have the scriptwriter in his animal skin boxer pocket. Adding a mascot fuzzy animal just for kicks did not help in taking them seriously. Also, we have yet again two dynamic women in the cast who take no shit from anyone until they are mocked for being born female, fall in love and turn to passive sheep thereafter. On the opposite hand, the two main boys begin as crybabies and grow up to be badass. Oh the cheesiness…
- Even the character development is quite messy, since because of the time skip you are not allowed to properly understand how their personalities changed so much, plus the whole thing is quite convenient.
- Beyond all that the cast is fine and it sure has a lot more meat than most counterparts in other shows. Still, leaving the story unfinished could only lead to their development being unfinished as well. That detracts a lot from the overall.

VALUE & ENJOYMENT SECTIONS: 5/10
Value Analysis: Historical Value 0/3, Rewatchability 1/3, Memorability 3/4
Enjoyment Analysis: Art 1/1, Sound 1/2, Story 1/3, Characters 2/4

Some parts feels great and some are plain snoring, thus I half liked this series. It was thresholding too much between epic feeling and cheesy storytelling to really shine and is not even complete. I no longer like the simplistic plot of the 70’s plus I got too spoiled by A Game of Thrones. The scenario was way too simple to bother watching it again, and the battles were too short and usually “divine interventioned” to actually care scrolling through again. Thus, it was a so-so experience.

VERDICT: 6/10

SUGGESTION LIST
Berserk
Twelve Kingdoms
Serei no Moribito