THE FOLLOWING WEBSITE IS SUPPORTED BY: 

Back to the review page

SUMMARY

For Kazuki Makabe, life on the small island of Tatsumiya, is pretty boring.  He goes to school, his father spends all day working, and each school day is full of tedium.

Then the mysterious Festum attack.

Kazuki and the other children of Tatsumiya Island discover that their home is actually a giant military fortress, created for the sole purpose of fighting the Festum.  He is shocked to learn that not only his teachers and his father are members of the military group that runs the island, his best friend Soshi is in charge of coordinating giant robots called Fafners into battle.

Pressed into service by Shoshi, Kazuki charges into combat as a Fafner pilot.  Can this boy survive his first battle in a machine he doesn't know how to control?

DVD VISION TEST

VIDEO: This is one sharp looking transfer. There are no pixels, wrinkles, or blemishes anywhere to be found. This is the benefit of digital based animation. Many of the technical errors of the past are gone.

AUDIO: Both the English and Japanese 2.0 are pretty evenly matched.  The Japanese has a little more treble than it's English counterpart.  There is a fuller soundstage on the English track, but it's softer than the Japanese.

EDITS: The only edits noted were the use of the clean open and close.

EXTRAS: The non-credit opening and a reversible cover make up the extras.

WIDESCREEN REVIEW

STORY: Part "Raxephon", part "Evangelion", with a little "Argentosoma" thrown in, Fafner won't win any awards in the originality department.  It's the many unanswered questions combined with all to human characters is how writers Kazuki Yamanobe and Ko Ubutaka keeps you fascinated with this anime.

ACTING:  The casts on both the English and Japanese versions are very dramatic.  In his first major role, Makoto Ishii plays Kazuki with the right amount of aggressiveness and confusion.  Kohei Kiyasu plays the arrogant, smarmy Soushi in a very subtle way.  Instead of over the top, arrogant rantings, his calm demeanor and almost Zen like delivery gives the character an almost menacing quality.

Sadly, I can't really comment on the English cast, as no names are given for each of the characters.  I did notice the voices of Wendee Lee, Johnny Yong Bosch (although I can't confirm it was him), and Tony Oliver, but I would have liked to know who played what.  Fortunately, the entire cast from Bang Zoom! does a wonderful job, and in many cases, surpasses the Japanese cast.

FAN SERVICE: Nothing in the adult content realm, but you can see plenty of influences from "Evangelion", "Gasaraki", "Raxephon", and many other "ethereal mecha anime". 

CONCLUSION:

Evangelion, Raxephon, Gasaraki.  Three titles that helped to redefine the "giant robot" genre.  Each one stripped away the standard conceits of a brash young boy and his robot who was led by an enigmatic relative.  These archetypes were replaced with unwilling heroes, forced into life or death situations because of the power they possess by an uncaring, and equally enigmatic father figure.  Fafner is very much in the same vein as these ground breaking series, filling the gap that the conclusions of the Evangelion Platinum Edition has left in our lives.

Life is pretty bland on Tatsumiya Island.  I mean it's really bland.  For the first half of the episode, we see all the characters, going about their day, with little to no fanfare.  To be honest, I was bored right out of my skull.  I was half tempted to stop watching, and move on to another DVD.  But, I had to see if things picked up.  Surely, Geneon had to come up with a winner this year, something better than "Burn Up Scramble"?

Oh Boy did they!

I give credit to writers Kazuki Yamanobe, Ko Ubutaka, and Director Nobuyoshi Habara.  To demonstrate how slow life on the island is, they took a big risk of alienating viewers.  Had I watched this on TV, I might have changed the channel.  Just when I was about to, they hit me with one hell of a great battle sequence.  For the next episode and a half, I was treated to a gut wrenching, life or death battle that was alternately cool, and spooky, thanks to the bizarre tactics of the aliens.  From there, they slow down enough to introduce the characters and establish their relationships before throwing us back into another hot and heavy battle, not only against the Festum, but other humans as well.

Another reason why "Fafner" was able to get it's claws on me was that the writers don't spell out the entire mystery all at once.  Like "Saikano", episode one plops you in the middle of the story, giving you precious little information on the war, the island, and the organization that is fighting it.  I don't want to give anything away, but two thing I can say is that the war isn't going so well, and aliens are not the only things the people on the island are afraid of.  I'm sure there is more to come, but it will suck having to wait for the next volume.

The cast of "Fafner" is not populated by a bunch of cookie cutter characters.  The men and women in this story are real people, each with their own issues.  Kazuki's father, placed in a senior leadership position, hates the idea of sending his son into battle.  He also has to contend with Soushi, who is convinced that he would make a better leader.  Ms. Karia, one of the teachers, originally very friendly with her students, becomes cold and even rude after they are commissioned to fight the Festum.  We get to see the grief many of them feel after the first attack.  One woman in particular not only looses her husband, but when her son is chosen to be a Fafner pilot, she exclaims to them "I just lost my husband, and now you want my son?"  It's scenes like these that help elevate this anime above its peers.

The animation by XEBIC looks great, with a perfect blend of CG and traditional animation elements.  In fact, it's so well done, I thought that this was a "Gonzo" release.  The folks at "Xebec" continue to hone their animation techniques since Nadesco (which was awesome in it's own right).  The motion was very fluid and natural, helping to amp up the intensity.  This is some fine animation.

Evangelion, Raxephon, Gasaraki.  These titles reshaped the "giant robot" genre.  "Fafner" now joins their ranks as a refinement of the elements that made these previous series so great.  "Fafner: Arcadian Project" is a gripping, evenly paced, and well written anime that will please new and old fans alike.  I shall be very interested to see what happens to this little island as the series progresses.

Return to Top

Back to the Review Page