Ask John: What Are Gonzo’s Best & Worst?

Question:
What do you feel is the best and worst from Gonzo?

Answer:
This question would be impossible to answer if applied to many of Japan’s most high profile anime production studios. Many of Tokyo’s best known anime studios have produced far too many anime for any single viewer to be familiar with all of them, or have produced numerous anime that have proven difficult for American viewers to find and watch. Gonzo is a relatively unique production house that isn’t especially old and has managed to get nearly all of its productions before an international audience. While I haven’t watched every Gonzo production to completion, I have been fortunate enough to sample nearly every Gonzo anime work, including lesser known productions such as Digigirl Pop, Melty Lancer, i-wish you were here-, and music videos for groups including Perfume, Blood Stain Child, and Linkin Park. Gonzo has established a reputation for creating slick, stylish, ultra-modern animation that unfortunately frequently suffers from superficial narrative depth, weak resolution, or both. While I believe that it’s reasonable to criticize the quality of anime anime production intended for public consumption, I don’t want to imply any disrespect. Not everything that Gonzo has produced has been gold, but even poor anime productions are still a product of a tremendous amount of care and effort from artists that are motivated by a love of the art form.

Many of Gonzo’s major anime productions have technical weaknesses. This criticism is easily applicable to successful but flawed works including Afro Samurai, Kiddy Grade, Bakuretsu Tenshi, Speed Grapher, Trinity Blood, Hellsing, Kurogane no Linebarrel, Solty Rei, Glass no Kantai, Red Garden, Gin-iro no Kami no Agito, and Ao no Rokugo, just to name a few. But in my view, Gonzo’s most disappointing production has to be the 2001 Real Bout High School television series. I have a particular fondness for stories involving cute Asian girls with swords. I really wanted to like Real Bout High School. I purchased not only the four domestic DVDs when they were released, but also the six domestic manga volumes. Granted, some of the weakness of the anime series must be blamed on the wildly convoluted narrative of the source material, but a good anime adaptation would have constructed a strong story by importing just relevant portions of the original novels and manga. The anime suffers from aimless story development that never has a clear vision of its goal. The show is never certain if it wants to be a schoolyard sitcom, a fantasy adventure, or an action drama. As a result, it jumbles all three genres inconsistently, never concentrating on or effectively developing any of them. Furthermore, the series suffers from periodic lapses into terrible art design and animation quality. The show is simply a jumbled mess of confused intentions and terrible execution. (The earlier Bakuen Campus Gardress OVA series – not by Gonzo – does a far superior job of being the anime that “Samurai Girl” wanted to be.)

Further mention should be given to the unfortunate Final Fantasy: Unlimited television series. Squaresoft and Gonzo gave series director Mahiro Maeda carte blanche to create the series he envisioned. The Final Fantasy that Maeda envisioned was entirely different from what the rest of the world’s Final Fantasy fans expected. The series utilized superficial Final Fantasy references, but otherwise didn’t seem to utilize the core concepts that typify the Final Fantasy franchise. Furthermore, the anime seemed to never have a clear target audience, as it was ostensibly a children’s series but occasionally exhibited subtle sexuality suitable for older viewers. The series’ was also victimized by having its planned broadcast length cut in half after Squaresoft – reeling from the failure of the Final Fantasy: Spirits Within movie – withdrew its financial support for the production. So the series’ pacing and story development, which were originally constructed to unfold over 52 episodes, had to be reconstructed at the eleventh hour to conclude in 25 episodes.

Three of Gonzo’s television series productions, I think, stand noticeably taller than the bulk of Gonzo’s work. The first is 2002’s Saishuheiki Kanojo. Good ingredients go a long way toward creating a good meal, but preparation is important as well. Shin Takahashi’s original manga provides a strong foundation. Gonzo’s adaptation did an outstanding job of bringing the monochrome page to vivid life. The anime series is beautifully drawn and animated and emotionally staggering. And its climax doesn’t falter the way many Gonzo endings do. Of course, Gonzo did have to follow up this masterwork with a wholly unnecessary and inferior OVA series, but that doesn’t diminish the quality of the original TV production.

The 2004 Gankutsuou television series seemed always on the verge of falling into insubstantial irrelevancy but managed to consistently remain tense, intelligent, and fascinating. With its unique fashion design (including contribution from acclaimed fashion designer Anna Sui), spectacular sci-fi setting, and its ability to fall back upon the integrity of its source material – Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel, Gankutsuou had plenty of opportunity to either “phone it in” or get wrapped up in its own hyperbole. Yet the series always maintained a strict focus on its characters and developing a riveting, believable story. The Gankutsuou anime deserves praise for simply being a high quality production from beginning to end.

Naysayers will casually dismiss the 2008 Strike Witches television series without even seriously considering its strengths. But there’s a reason why the show was recognized by the award selection jury of the 2008 Japan Media Arts Festival and why the show has been the best selling Gonzo production on Japanese DVD in eight years. The abundance of cute girls and cute panties does help, but more importantly, the Strike Witches TV series devotes much of its length to character development. The show gradually allows viewers to get to know the cast’s personalities, histories, hopes, and fears. Viewers develop relationships with the characters at the same time the characters develop relationships with each other. And when the show does break into action, its action scenes are intricate, fluidly animated, and exciting. For a show filled with animal eared girls and striped panties, the Strike Witches television series is unexpected smart and technically exceptional.