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(All episodes watched): During the first episode, I was encouraged by the spirited OP sequence of World Destruction, which made it clear that some serious thought and effort had been devoted to this show. This seems a halfway serious and halfway comic tale of fantasy (a teddy bear-like figure wearing an eyepatch is a "hero"), and fortunately seems to balance the two halves fairly well and does a credible job with each. The story revolves around the "World Destruction Committee", a shadowy group of feared villains--except the "committee" in fact consists of only one serious conspirator, plus a couple dumb shmucks who get swept up with her. Even the woman, Morte, may not be all that bad. What exactly "destroying the world" entails is unclear at first. One thing I liked was the show's unpredictability; I didn't know exactly where it was going, but it made enough sense for me to enjoy myself. It's another balancing act, namely balancing what the viewer is and isn't told so that he/she is intrigued without becoming frustrated with an overly simplistic or overcomplicated plot. There was plenty of guns vs. blades action and an extensive ad for the video game seemed to be built into the end of the episode. My final impression was that World Destruction wasn't bad at all and I'd be glad to watch some more. The prison escape in episode three struck me as kind of simplistic and unconvincing. Is it just me, or is a show more entertaining (even if it's only taking itself halfway seriously) when the events really could happen, are original and unusual, and require a bit of cleverness? Still, World Destruction is a fun show--it just could have been much more fun if a little more effort had been put into it. Given it's amusing premise and characters, and the high hopes they instill, not being all it can be is somehow especially frustrating. The impression I got from epiode four was again of a fun show, but one which could have been better. Nice touches were added but not taken far enough, as if the scriptwriter became frightened of a new idea and backed off. The clever twists at the end would have been better if they had made some more sense and hadn't seemed abrupt. Still, the reason I'm complaining is because we got a glimpse of true excellence, but were taken no farther. It's frustrating that good ideas are being handled carelessly. Early on, I considered WD to be a favorite but with time I've become increasingly frustrated and disappointed. There is a touch of weirdness, definitely, but all-in-all the episode plots are too predictable and unimaginitive. Not a disaster, certainly, but I can't help feeling disappointed. At the end of an episode I'm left with an "Oh, that's it..." feeling. There seems little long term plot, just Morte, Kirie and Toppi running into strange problems as they wander about, and solving them within 23 minutes. Nor do any of the principal characters have much of a personality even as we near the end, which is odd considering how much talking they have done. Thankfully, there are a couple of good jokes per episode. The final episode takes off on a strange tangent about which few hints have been dropped. Something like 90% of the explanation of what exactly the "Destruct Code" is and how it works comes within this single episode. It was a bit surprising, made some sense, and as a result left me mildly happy. All-in-all, the words "frustration" and "disappointment", which turned up so many times in seperately written segments of this review, most neatly summarize my response to World Destruction. It ends up as a show about which rather than being angry at it for it's mediocrity, I regret that it's potential wasn't exploited to a greater extent. How could anybody hate characters like Toppi, Lia and Morte after all? Last updated Thursday, October 09 2008. Created Sunday, July 13 2008. | ||||||||
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Other Sites
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| Official (Japanese) Series Web Site | http://wd.sega.jp/anime/ |
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