Forum - View topicHow is Speed Grapher?
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Elfen12
 Posts: 480 Location: Bay Area |
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Well, i'm thinking about watching it and perhaps buying Speed Grapher and i just wnat to hear about what people have maybe heard about it, or if anyone has seen it hopefully, then what they thoght of it. I've heard that there are quite a few of twists in the storyline itself, along wiht that, the ending is debateable. I hear that the end is either really liked or really not liked, thats what i've heard at least. I've also heard that the charactrs are more interesting "than normal". But what i havn't heard if its just good or not good... enjoyable or not enjoyable... so i'm just curiosu to see what peole have seen or heard about this anime, that may agree or oppose what i've heard.
-Elfen12- |
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Goodpenguin
Posts: 457 Location: Hunt Valley, MD |
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If your looking to scratch an itch for darkly violent action/adventure material, it's probably worth a look. By far the biggest problem to me with this show is it plays a rather campy plot as *Deep, Serious Stuff!*, which has the effect of both killing a lot of what should be sly fun, as well as making it strangely pretentious. You want to enjoy it's darkly campy elements, but the writing keeps asking you to take the material at a level the show simply isn't up to being. The productions values leave something to be desired as well. I'm partial to the gritty stuff normally, but I absolutely disliked this particular program. If your able to be a bit more forgiving of the writing, you may get more mileage out of it. When I first watched the show I went and looked at the review for the first DVD, and while I don't remember who reviewed it, found it pretty spot on, so you may want to give that a peek. Probably a good title to rent first to test the waters.
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Elfen12
Posts: 480 Location: Bay Area |
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hm intresting, well alright, thanks that was as helpful as it probably could have gotten, and i'll be sure to check out that review for the 1st DVD, and yeah, i think i will rent it and then see how i can deal with the writing dilemma before buying it. Afterall, money is tight right now
 . But so, you decided not to watch the whole thing, or did you end up watching the whole series?
-Elfen12- |
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sykosteve
 Posts: 356 Location: columbus, ga |
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I thought it had a lot of potential but didn't quite live up to it.
Also, the art style went seriously downhill. The dvd boxes look amazing though. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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The art quality never got so bad as to affect my viewing experience. In fact, I didn't notice the decline at all.
The OP was an energetic piece, good for a watch, but it didn't make me want to watch it each and every time. Usually I just skipped it. Don't even remember the ED, or the rest of the music. Was not annoyed or enthralled by it. I don't think it was pretentious at all. Events in episode 4 (one in particular), the last on the first DVD I had, really sold the series for me. It told me that as boring as the episodes could get sometimes, it knew how to have fun. It also captures well the atmosphere of despair that is prevalent in the lives of both main characters. You really do feel for one character in particular as she feels the weight of helplessness crush down on her. Action scenes are a blast, in most cases literally. Various instances of unique and interesting powers pop up in this series, and we get to see the tip of the iceberg within the first DVD alone. Though it doesn't top a series like Basilisk, it still does well. The plot was a little contrived in places to keep itself moving, and it wasn't very complicated (starts to kick in later). Other than that it was serviceable. The are tender moments in here, and its not all fighting. In fact, the first major fight is in episode 4. It also happened to be the episode which had the sweetest moment. Yes, it was that very episode that had turned me from an ambivalent watcher to one that wasn't hooked, but was still very interested. All in all, a good watch. It has heaps of flaws, but also has its good parts to keep the audience watching. It may be a tad ambitious, but by the end of volume 1 I was eager to watch the next volume. Which I promptly did. |
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Kruszer
 Posts: 7995 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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I enjoyed the series a lot myself and never regretted buying it. It has a cool gritty, sleezy atnosphere about it. The villains powers based on their fetishes was a neat and original concept. The story is great, the characters are likable and of the 3 Gonzo titles that Funimation liscensed arround then it was best of of the lot topping Trinity Blood and Basilisk.
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Randall Miyashiro
 Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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I have also stated previous how I enjoyed this series more than Basilisk and Trinity Blood. I posted a fairly long reply on why I love this series in reply to the panning it got from Zac and Theron.
At the time I had only watched up until volume four, but still stand by my opinions and am glad spoiler[that the Kagura and Saiga relation was indeed one of parent and guardian like I suspected] I really am still baffled at how many people read the main characters' relationship as one that has sexual undertones since I think that their innocent and wholesome relationship (despite all the sex in their world) is one of the main points in the series. There is also the fact that she is a prepubescent child and he is a burnt out older guy. In regards to the end spoiler[I found the fact that he can no longer do what he loves to do and made him famous due to the fact that he goes blind very sad. I also thought the idea that Kagura takes care of him like a parent who has dedicated his life to her very touching.] |
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shogun22
 Posts: 50 Location: Asia |
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The show was decent enough for me to continue watching, but I found some parts in the middle a bit dragging.
Part of the dissapointment, the animation quality dropped after the first epsiode (great opening scene by the way), its like Gonzo shifted from their B-class animators to their D-class animators. |
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Elfen12
Posts: 480 Location: Bay Area |
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So it sounds like it has its flaws, but that its enjoyable nonetheless, thats rather good to know, and yeah i think i'm goin to end up renting it, and then hah probably buying it knowing me...
-Elfen12- |
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DClark
 Posts: 110 |
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I don't think it's a great series, but it's above average and it has its moments. There are some of the worst renderings of vehicles I've ever seen in an anime though, and there are a few other scenes which visually shouldn't have passed any reasonable quality control, but there are some good looking scenes too (it's pretty much all over the map, so when you get a good looking scene near one of the bad looking ones, it's a bit jarring).
I have to mention the english voice actors, because they're the reason Funimation got my money on a per-disk basis instead of waiting for the box set or avoiding the series completely. I bought the first disk and visually was unimpressed but the action was okay and the voice acting was excellent, which held me through the second disk and then through buying the entire series. They sound great and the lines themselves seem very natural and normal, and reasonable for the characters. If you turn on the subtitles while listening to the english dub you can see a lot of massaging of the translation for the betterment of the series. My single favourite line in the series was Tsujido's "Yes, I'll be needing you to get me another car immediately... preferably one that can't be blown up by a f---ing camera!" which is so much better than the subtitle translation of "Get some replacement cars immediately! Ones not even a bazooka can blow away!". Plus the way Greg Ayres delivered the line was perfect, with him starting by calmly explaining he needed a car, slowly raising his voice into a yell by the time he got to the last word. The whole english cast did a great job with this series, and should be an example of how a good translation can make an average series into a good, entertaining series. |
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samuraiwalt
Posts: 647 |
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It's been showing on IFC you can watch some clips on their website. If you decide to buy it Right Stuf has it for $6.99.
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18594 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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If you're going to watch it, watch it dubbed. I cannot think of a series which benefits more from its English dub than Speed Grapher does.
My detailed observations/opinions of the series can be seen in the reviews linked off of the Encyclopedia page. The brief version is that, aside from the dub, I only found the series worth watching because of Ginza and the Saiga/Kagura relationship develops; to say that they save each other in about every sense of the word would not be an understatement, but it seemed almost like the series succeeded at that by serendipity rather than design. I thought the series tried much too hard to be specifically "adult-oriented," to the extent that its graphic content often came off feeling forced and cheesy. "Exploitive" might be another appropriate word, as the series seems to make a point of victimizing Kagura as much as possible to try to engender sympathy which would have come naturally if the series had just let it happen. Although the show conceptually had potential and had a few strong moments, in execution (especially artistically) it was generally a disappointment; this series could have been so much more if Gonzo had used its A-team for writing and visuals. Opinions vary quite widely, however. |
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rainbowcourage
 Posts: 1216 Location: what is commonly known as "hell week" |
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My problem became the monster-of-the-week feel, though I did enjoy the innocent and sweet Kagura and Saigo relationship. But the fights just became boring, and the OP made me giggle; it was just a ridiculous lead-in to the "serious" fights. It wasn't great and it wasn't bad, it fell somewhere in-between.
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Elfen12
Posts: 480 Location: Bay Area |
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They do seem to vary rather widely, however, the fact that all these opinions are present, makes me feel the want/need to watch it even more for some reason. Wow though, that link, i didn't know thye had stuff for that, thats really good to know. And yeah, the thing about the show is it kinda attracted me becuase it seemed rather unique from how i've been hearing about it, and the wide range of opinoins and views on it also contributed to my wanting to watch the series, so yeah, thats interesting about the turning on the subtitles, I hadn't really thought about doing that for any show, but its a good idea.
-Elfen12- |
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XarBat
Posts: 10 |
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I thought it sucked. They make it seem like it will be some big adventure, but that is incorrect. The locations and music from the first few episodes are reused up until the end. The characters get really shallow and predictable half way though; and to make things worse, the fights (if they can even be called that) with the Euphorias start coming at a much slower pace.
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