Le Chevalier D'Eon: Interesting political intrigue, ultimately forgetabble

Synopsis: "During the time when Louis XV still ruled France, a certain woman was found dead in the coffin floating through the Seine river. D'Eon, the woman's brother, determines to seach for the killer of his sister, Lia. But there are some strange movements in France. And things become more strange when Lia's soul enters D'Eon's body..." Source

The first thing you are going to have to get past in Le Chevalier D'Eon is that the main character, D'Eon, occasionally changes genders when he is possessed by his sister. He also dresses up as a woman occasionally in order to bring out her spirit or in order to perform his duties as a spy in the king's service. Things get a little murky as he and his sister come closer and closer to just merging together into one person. It's tastefully done so unless you are just really sensitive to gender-bending in anime, it shouldn't be a problem.

Perhaps the main draw of the show is that it attempts to tie historical events that really happened and people that really existed into a historical fantasy story that involves a conspiracy to overthrow monarchy on a global level using magic as an explanation for the French Revolution. At the beginning of the show it was fairly cool. We basically get a historical spy show where the main character occasionally changes into his sister. As someone who has had a French history course that actually covered the era, I must warn you that Le Chevalier definetly takes liberties with history, but really, who cares? Le Chevalier manages to get the general "feel" of the period right. At the time, France was changing from a country of people who pledged loyalty to the French king to a nation of people dedicated to the idea of the French homeland and people. This manages to come up in the story as some characters are willing to give up their noble status for the sake of the betterment of the nation and its people while others cling tightly to their inherited positions, unable to cope with a world that would render their position irrelevant.

My favorite part of the show is when the cast travels to Russia in order to track down a lead and end up assisting the Russian Empress. Le Chevalier is the only anime I've seen that manages to have the kind of political intrigue I expect from a Robert Jordan or George R.R. Martin novel. Besides moral ambiguity, political intrigue is another thing I love in my fiction, so I was very pleased that an anime finally stepped up to the plate.

However, several reasons ultimately make Chevalier forgetabble. Number one, the ending is really rushed. They do a stereotypical anime thing and wait until the last episode to tie up all the plot threads, several mysteries, and even throw in some new surprises just for the hell of it. I ended up feeling they had plot twists that are somewhat confusing and don't make perfect sense just for the sake of having plot twists. This makes the show feel poorly plotted, especially when we take into consideration a few events that happen that never seem to be explained (why Elizaveta's blood was useful for opening up the Royal Psalms is one if you've seen the show). Number two, some of the cast falls a little flat, namely the main character. D'Eon is that nice sort of quiet anime guy we've seen before. His real "conflict" is dealing with his sister's spirit that is full of rage, as opposed to any interesting internal conflict that he himself has. Third, the show suffers from poor action scenes. Every time the cast started sword fighting, I could just feel the animators not really knowing how to animate fencing scenes well that could be "anime cool." They got better as the show went on, but the sword fighting animation is just terrible at the beginning. In the later part of the shows when magic duels are occuring, the characters are typically just chanting Psalms from the Bible at each other while latin phrases scroll through the air. It just gets a little silly after awhile and isn't very exciting as the characters aren't really paying much attention to one another.

Le Chevalier isn't bad and has some new ideas that I applaud, but isn't going to be a favorite of mine due to its lack of emotional intensity. The show never really raised my pulse like the last anime I watched (Eureka Seven). The main cast just did not really appeal to me although they get a little better at the end. The most interesting characters were often the side characters.I feel like it squandered some of its potential in order to focus more on plot twists that really didn't make a lot of sense. If you really like political intrigue or like history you'll get something out of it, otherwise don't bother.

Gundam SEED: My favorite anime of all-time

Synopsis: "Heliopolis, a so-called neutral space colony was holding a top-secret weapons research facility, producing Gundams for the Earth Alliance. ZAFT, which is composed of Coordinators (genetically modified/upgraded humans), attacks Heliopolis, stealing 4 out of the Alliance's 5 Gundams. In the battlefield, civilian Kira Yamato stumbles upon the Strike, the last remaining Gundam of the alliance, and is forced to pilot it. In the midst of battle he encounters his best friend, Athrun Zala, as one of the hijackers of the 5 Gundams, who sides with ZAFT. Being a Coordinator, he is the only one who can pilot the Gundam. But Kira is not with ZAFT, even though they're his own kind, nor the Alliance. Since the Alliance is the only place he could turn to at the time, he sides with them. He pilots the Gundam to protect his friends, and to fight his best friend, which pains both of them. It's a war between individual beliefs." Source

I originally wrote a tribute to Gundam SEED and how much I love it as a reader response over on the "Hey Answerman!" column on Anime News Network. If you want to read it just go here and do a find on Ryan. This review will be an expansion of that to discuss in more depth what I love about SEED and perhaps some counters to common criticisms against it. I won't be discussing SEED Destiny in this post, SEED's inferior sequel that has its really good moments, but has a horde of problems in plotting.

Where to start on the reasons I like SEED? First off, the initial hook for me and SEED was the concept of the two friends on the opposite side of a war fighting each other. I had a similar short story idea (now a concept for a novel) before I ever saw SEED, and I was instantly interested to see how they chose to execute the idea. For a large part of SEED, the emotional heart of the story centers around the conflict between Kira and Athrun. It works quite well. Although Athrun's side ends up looking more like the "bad guys" because the writers chose Kira as protagonist, both Kira and Athrun have completely understandable reasons they are in the war between the Earth and ZAFT forces. What we get are two characters who are what I like to call "thoughtfully righteous." Each character strives to do the right thing, but each suffers a lot of angst and confusion as they are both thoughtful enough to see the other character's side. If you are like me, you practically thrive on this sort of moral grayness in fiction.

However, I think this sort of "thoughtful righteousness" is where SEED fails for SEED's detractors. I have seen Kira and Athrun called "emo," "gay," or "whiny." Does Kira cry and brood after he is forced into combat with Athrun? Yes. But the question shouldn't be whether this is unmanly or whiny, the proper question is "Is this realistic?" Let's see. Kira is a 16 year old civilian who suddenly finds himself forced to fight his childhood friend and to become a killer. Assuming you can swallow the circumstances that lead to this (and if you want to like anime you had better get used to this kind of setup), I don't find Kira's reactions unrealistic at all. If Kira simply embraced the combat and gave no second thought to battling Athrun, he would seem almost inhuman. If Athrun the more experienced soldier gave no thought to his conflict with Kira, he would just seem like the stereotypical military robot soldier that simply follows orders. From a good writing standpoint that would be a failure and it would completely destroy the emotional core and theme of the story.

I think in the end, Kira and Athrun are characters that some viewers would not want as friends due to their constant angst over whether they are doing the right thing. However, they'd probably be glad to have their daughters date someone like them. I personally think the world could use more thoughtful people like them, even if they don't always agree. My ability to relate to Kira and Athrun is one of the major reasons I like them, and by extension, their show so much.

Aside from the "concept" of Gundam SEED, I also really enjoy its main theme, that being that war causes people to kill because those they care about are killed by the other side resulting in an endless spiral of hatred, conflict, and death. SEED proposes that we all need to take a step back and try to understand our enemy and see us as he sees us if we are ever to achieve peace. You can quickly see how Kira and Athrun's conflict ties into this theme along with the events of the larger war that is occurring around theme. As anyone casually familiar with Gundam knows, a Gundam show always has an anti-war theme while being immersed in the middle of it.

You perhaps may be saying right now, "But Ryan! Are concept and theme really the only reasons Gundam SEED is your favorite anime?" Why no! Perhaps the most important part of Gundam SEED is its ability to achieve an emotional intensity that most animes can't hope to follow. As anyone who has SEED can tell you, Kira and Athrun's final duel is unforgettable. There is a scene between Cagalli and Athrun where they argue about the continual escalation of the war that is perhaps the best voice acting I have ever heard. Also, many of the scenes involving Kira and Fllay will get your feelings roiling if you are the type who gets as emotionally invested in fiction as I do. There are various other scenes, but you'll just have to watch SEED for yourself. SEED has a LOT of scenes that will have your heart racing, and I can't really convey the awesomeness of this in a simple review.

For me, Gundam SEED has it all. The emotional core of the story sucks you in. The theme is poignant. The scenes are unforgettable. One detail I'm sort of leaving it out is that all this is occurring during the middle of a war where we also get scenes with side characters engaged in politics. In short, if you are looking for a good war story that has something to say, you could do far worse than Gundam SEED. If you need an emotionally dead protagonist who is simply a killing machine, go back to playing Gears of War or Doom or something.

Welcome to Synthesis of the Arts

My name is Ryan and this is my blog where I primarily intend to review works of fiction including books, anime, movies, and video games. Why? Because I enjoy to think, talk, and write about things I like, and I also enjoy putting things into a list like form. Reviewing and critiquing fiction combines both of these. I have a large backlog of stuff I'd like to talk about and bring to your attention if you were unaware of it, so my goal is to post a review every week or so. The name "Synthesis of the Arts" is the coolest translation I could find for the German word Gesamtkunstwerk a Wagnerian concept that I really like.

A little background about me. I am a professional programmer who only recently graduated from North Carolina State's computer science undergrad program. It pays well for my lifestyle, and I enjoy it. I aspire to eventually become a writer, hopefully combining the freedom of fantasy with the kind of psychological explorations of good and evil that you may know from authors such as Dostoevsky. I'll have more to say about him in some future post.

Now, why should you bother reading this? Odds are you somehow know me personally. Otherwise, I like to think I have a fairly unique perspective due to my combination of fictional interests. I like stereotypical geeky things like fantasy and sci-fi books, anime, and Japanese made video games. However, if you looked at my favorite literary works, most of them AREN'T that kind of stuff (Dostoevsky, Ayn Rand's works, Shakespeare are some of my favorite). I tend to not like the geeky stuff unless it somehow explores human emotion in a meaningful fashion in addition to its cool fantasy/sci-fi stuff, whereas a more ponderous work of "literature" had better have an interesting storyline in addition to its melodrama if I'm going to be fan.