Review of Elemental Gelade: Vol.1

Introduction

From the pages of Japanese manga serial `Monthly Comic Blade` to the screen of your living room, `Elemental Gelade` is a 26-episode anime which follows the adventures of Cou, a junior sky pirate from the Red Lynx crew who, whilst on a heist, opens a sarcophagus expecting it to be full of loot, but is more than surprised when it turns out to contain a powerful, yet fragile young girl named Ren, an Edel Raid - the descendant of a powerful ancient race and the target of many, admirers and assassins alike. Cou vows to protect the girl (cue cheers!), and takes on the dangerous mantle of escorting her to a promised land where she`ll be safe from harm. Along the way, they`re joined by members of a self-confessed Edel Raid protection squad called Arc Aile, and encounter agents of an omnipresent group who want to exploit Ren`s power for their own twisted and evil purposes (cue boos!).

Volume 1 contains the first five episodes of the fun and lighthearted series.

Video

Full-frame 4:3, and you`ll be hard-pressed to find any major technical flaws with the transfer. The show itself is bright and colourful, with some fairly energetic animation and the quaint, semi-cutesy visual style that seems to go down well among the broad-appeal anime fans. There are a few evident artifacts during some fast-motion scenes and a few instances where the visuals notably soften or dull, but you really have to be looking for these to pick them up.

Audio

English dub or native Japanese with subtitles, but disappointingly only in Dolby Digital 2.0; a strange choice for such an action and set-piece orientated show. Still, the tracks are both clear with solid mixing. The voice cast on the Japanese track is notably more mature-sounding and versatile compared to the rather dull and samey Americanised dub, which when combined with the manga-faithful artistic choices in terms of character design, does tend to make it feel like you`re simply watching a Saturday morning `toon for kids, doing the show an injustice in the process. Also worth mentioning is that the score is full of pop-ish tunes if that`s your cup of tea, and the theme tune which opens the show is truly a bubblegum J-pop fan`s wet dream.

Features

If you manage to pick up the `Limited Edition` version (which at time of writing is currently retailing for the same price as the bog-standard version), you`ll be treated to a free copy of the first volume of the Tokyopop manga, which contains the first four installments of the translated comic. It covers events up to the end of the third episode of the anime, is worth £6.99 and well worth a read. If you aren`t lucky enough to get the book (and the score at the end of the review reflects this) then all you`re left with are the usual MVM extras - only less of them; textless opening and closing and trailers for `Gun X Sword` and `Saiyuki Reload`.

Conclusion

The spikey-haired teen male lead, the colourful look and the almost family-friendly nature of the show may appear to hark back to the likes of global merchandising brands and popular kiddie sensation shows like `Pokémon` or `Yu-Gi-Oh!`, but `Elemental Gelade` isn`t that sort of anime. Really, it isn`t. It`s lighthearted and often goofy and silly in equal measure, but it doesn`t pander to childishness, and the story and themes are beyond the shows which share its initial look. If anything, it could be favourably compared to a Japanese role-playing video game without the turn-based fighting, stat management and general interactivity; a genre which often takes its cues from manga and anime. In fact, the epic quest and storyline, sky pirates, airships, floating islands, gallery of quirky characters, monster-battling and powerful magic attacks have more than a whiff of JRPGs `Skies of Arcadia` or `Final Fantasy IX` in particular. Whether or not this is a good thing depends on the individual, but seeing as interests in anime and gaming often go hand in hand, it could be considered a positive.

There`s a fair whack of comedy in the show, and while it`s entertaining, watching the characters goof off for ten minutes before pondering where they should be going or exactly who is after them is a little disconcerting, especially after the first action-packed episode set on board the Red Lynx airship, where mystery assassins are coming at Cou and the gang from all directions and the sense of immediacy and pace is top-notch. Also a little jarring is the switching of animation style to a quasi-metaphorical, comically exaggerated character design where a character depicting anger may suddenly appear large and looming over their miniscule target, or a character having a moan may appear take on the appearance of a squawking baby. It`s part of the style of the show, uniquely anime-like, but it`s not going to appeal to fans looking for a little more serious with their side of silly. On the other hand, one of the more positive aspects of the show is the burgeoning relationship between Cou and Ren, blossoming young love between people from different worlds, and it`s handled with a gently-gently approach, being set up as a main theme for the run of the show, and the maturity of it is rather endearing.

The main gimmick in `Elemental Gelade` is Reacting, where humans fuse bodies with Edel Raids to produce powerful weapons, which sets the scene for numerous battles across these five episodes. To be fair, the narrative isn`t particularly strong across the disc, with the story taking a bit of a back seat after the first episode, with a focus on getting across the abilities of the characters and the forging of relationships between them, but there is room for a two-part arc, complete with cliff-hanger, used to drive the story forward in terms of the dangers the protagonists face. Yet by the end of episode five, the characters haven`t really come too far - in terms of their journey - from the first episode, although shared danger has turned Cou and the Arc Aile, former enemies, into the bestest of best buds. But then that`s what first volumes are for, and you can fully expect the story to pick up in the second volume, especially with plenty of name dropping of organisations and places that have yet to be fully revealed, and a short glimpse at the power behind the group who are pursuing our heroes. As an introductory volume, it`s done its job, and introduced us to the world and characters of this enjoyable, yet somewhat stylistically contrary anime series.