sanford.jerrold - 2014-04-18 13:58:09

This is a review of the entire film series; all six of them.

Broken Blade, as it is called on the cover of the DVD set I own, or Break Blade, as it is called here on Hummingbird, is a series of six films set in a sci-fi fantasy world where humans possess the power to magically control quartz. Using this power, humanity advances technologically, relying heavily on this ability to go about both their daily lives, and war.

For in this world, there is war. The lands of Krisna and Athens do battle with one another using golems; gigantic mechs that are driven by the quartz manipulation ability that almost all humans possess.

Almost all humans.

Rygart Arrow is an "unsorcerer", one born without the ability to control quartz. As such, everyday life is hard for him. But as we and he discover in the first film, he may just be the key to victory that his country, Krisna, desperately needs.

So! Sounds pretty epic, am I right? I wrote that little introductory synopsis off the top of my head. Well, an epic tale is exactly what I expected going in. In retrospect, I was over-hyped. Over-hyped for something that was not nearly as awesome as I was expecting. Allow me to elaborate.

Broken Blade has a good enough premise, if not one that is overused, even outside of the mech genre (being a newbie to the mech genre, I have only what I have read to go on here). It necessitates action, and action is what is delivered. Unfortunately, it focuses too much on the pretty mecha fights and too little on the wide-cast of characters.

The story is quite simple, and so manages to be buried beneath the action. Krisna has good quartz, Athens is running out. Therefore they invade Krisna. Athens has way better golems than Krisna, so defeat looks inevitable for them.

Some things happen, but mostly the films are just golems destroying each other (albeit quite beautifully, but we'll talk about animation later). By the end of it, I felt like it had just been a bunch of fight scenes strung together.

Granted, the films were adapting an ongoing manga series, so the sixth is semi-original and has it's own 'conclusion', but they could have done better. I feel like important story elements were skipped over in order to cut to the action. If this is as deep as the manga gets, I'd be pretty surprised.

It felt like everything was over rather quickly, despite being the approximate equivalent of a 13-episode series.

Some of the plotlines just didn't go anywhere, or were just silly (like the hostage plot thread - ugh). This made the non-action scenes feel like a waste of time, and the story suffered as a result.

The characters did not fair much better. I hardly felt any attachment to anyone because they were all given very little time for development or even meaningful dialogue. There is some good stuff at the beginning, but after movie 3, it all becomes rather derivative and uninspired. Some characters are faded out or killed before they really have the chance to shine, which is disappointing. New ones are introduced to quickly take their place, but still lack the depth I would have liked to have seen.

If, by the end of a series, I can barely remember the names of half the cast, they've done something wrong with their characters. Or the dubbing, at least (but again, we'll get to that later).

The main trio of characters, Rygart, Siggin and Hodr held the potential for some interesting interactions, but ended up doing nothing interesting at all. Some seeds were sewn but never again addressed. It seems more and more likely that this film series was simply a means to get me to read the manga.

So the story was weak, trampled underfoot of action scenes dominated by golems and quartz. The characters also suffered, the cast spread too thin to have any lasting effect on me, or even garner my concern. What about the animation and sound?

Animation, I must say, was pretty awesome. The numerous action scenes were all beautifully animated, although I must say nothing ever struck me as awesome, but rather, run of the mill fighting. There was some cool stuff, but I never got shivers like I do with great fight scenes.

I do however love robots, and the golems were pretty neat. Seeing them shrouded in massive cloaks was awesome. Seeing them shredded and disintegrated by storms of bullets was glorious. The animation and art style truly was the highlight of this anime.

That said, I must address that thing that I tend to dislike the most in anime. Sexual fanservice. We don't need it. We certainly don't need a twelve year old soldier-girl whose only remarkable quality are breasts larger than those of most mature women. Why does she need them? Why does she have to be twelve? Why does her plot-line even exist? She contributed nothing to the story. Blergh.

Soundwise, I have a gripe.

Until now I have not had a problem with any English dub that I have heard. However, Broken Blade's dub, by Sentai Filmworks, I take issue with. Specifically, I take issue with some of the translation/script writing, and the casting of the main character, Rygart. Greg Ayres does not suit this character. He doesn't fit, and unfortunately Rygart is the character that receives the most attention and development (what little there is), but I just couldn't connect with him, because his voice didn't suit his design or his actions. It didn't work, and I can't help but feel this was one of the main reasons I didn't like the series as much as I thought I would. I think I would have preferred the sub.

In terms of music, I found the opening to be the only thing I really liked. There were some okay battle tracks, but they were repeated a little too much, or simply left out of some fights that I think really could have used an epic track to be improved. Sometimes, the music was a bit too loud and competed with the dialogue, but that could have been my TV.

So in summary, the Broken Blade series serves us a weak, simple story, bland, underdeveloped characters, and a poor English dub, offset only by a decent opening and some bloody beautiful animation. Seriously. Some of those mechs just got ripped apart and broke into so many pieces...but anyway, it wasn't enough to redeem the series in my mind. It was okay, but nothing special. Bit of a disappointment for me personally.