Changes made to Review for Sacred Blacksmith: Complete Series

Revision 1

Created on Saturday, 3rd September 2011, 16:12
Change Submitted by Jitendar Canth

List of Changes:

Change #1 - death… I react
Change #2 - e boobs! <newline> <newline>[url="http://www.myreviewer.com/default.asp?a=0000144336"][imgmc=0000233864.jpg][/url] <newline>Cecily Cambe
Change #3 - God! <newline> <newline>[url="http://www.myreviewer.com/default.asp?a=0000144337"][imgmc=0000233865.jpg][/url] <newline>Manga En
Change #4 - acksmith <newline> <newline>[url="http://www.myreviewer.com/default.asp?a=0000144341"][imgmc=0000233869.jpg][/url] <newline>[heading]Pic
Change #5 - imation. <newline> <newline>[url="http://www.myreviewer.com/default.asp?a=0000144339"][imgmc=0000233867.jpg][/url] <newline>[heading]Sou
Change #6 - [/page1] ~~<newline>~~[page2]
Change #7 - ][page2] <newline> <newline> <newline>[heading]Ext
Change #8 - <newline> <newline>[heading]Conclusion[/heading] <newline>Somewhere early on in this collection of anime episodes, I lost my will to live, as I contemplated the banality of my existence, and the depths of sheer mediocrity to which a medium that I purport to cherish has sunk. This is mediaeval fantasy, swords and sorcery, admittedly not my favourite of genres in any medium, but one that has given us anime like Berserk, Claymore, Slayers, fantastic and varied examples of what imagination and creativity can accomplish. Then along comes Sacred Blacksmith and reduces it to boob gags and moe tropes, the same clichés that so permeate anime today, the clichés that sell to the core audience, but stifle any originality and creativity in the industry. <newline> <newline>Cecily Cambell is the main character, an inexperienced knight with a fairly ample cleavage. That is the character description, and we are reminded of that again and again. When we first meet her, we get a pointless, meaningless x-ray upscrolling shot, to show us what she looks like in the nude. What this has to do with the story is anyone[apost]s guess. Not long after, her breastplate shatters, revealing her boobs, and causing nosebleeds to the poor blacksmith witnessing the wardrobe malfunction. Incidentally, at all other times, Cecily wears clothing under her armour. It[apost]s just for that one shot that her top vanishes, leaving just the disintegrating breastplate. Thereafter, random acts of boobage occur throughout the series, peaking with the obligatory bathhouse scene in episode 7. <newline> <newline>People will also randomly comment on Cecily[apost]s boobs, complete non-sequitors of breast observation. They may be talking about military strategy, crop rotation, or the best way to catch fish, and all of a sudden, [apost]My, my Cecily, your boobs are big today, what are you feeding them?[apost] At which point Cecily gets all shy and bashful, and everyone laughs. I[apost]m no longer worried about what the anime creators are smoking; I[apost]m more concerned with what they think their core audience is like. Not even the most perverted, hormonal teen male, gender perception warped by terabytes of Internet porn, getting through a forest of Kleenex each week, spending each insomniac night glued to late night sex-chat TV trying to lip read, will be able to take something like Sacred Blacksmith at all seriously. <newline> <newline>Behind all this, there is a lot of exposition being dropped, about the Devil[apost]s Contract War, Luke Ainsworth[apost]s past, his relationship with the elfin Lisa, and there is a fair bit of action as well, as random demons pop up, terrorising the town, and providing something for Luke and Cecily to fight together against, to give them a reason to relate to one another. I hardly noticed it, because of the aforementioned banality, and it[apost]s all pretty redundant, as it gets repeated for the show[apost]s climax regardless. The first five episodes are pretty much disposable, booby moments obscuring the character set-ups for Luke, Cecily, Aria, and Lisa. Incidentally, it[apost]s Lisa that supplies the moe in this show, an excess of loli cuteness that just about avoids the sugar overdose until the [apost]Lisa goes clothes shopping[apost] episode. <newline> <newline>Then comes episode 6, and it[apost]s as if Sacred Blacksmith gets completely rewritten. It[apost]s the introduction of Charlotte E. Firobisher and her three guards that suddenly gives the show a dimension beyond the mundane. Charlotte is a girl looking to claim her Imperial heritage, the illegitimate daughter of a neighbouring state[apost]s Emperor, and her first plan is to steal the demon sword Aria, and kidnap the Sacred Blacksmith. She[apost]ll present them to her father as a sign of her loyalty and her royal credentials. It[apost]s an interesting enough story to get me paying attention to what was happening on screen. When Charlotte[apost]s first plan doesn[apost]t work, Cecily takes her in as part of her family, and even though episode 7 is the acme of the show[apost]s obsession with boobs and moe, it still manages to be more interesting and entertaining than anything that has come before, mostly because Charlotte is the most interesting character in the show, and her story at least manages to engage the emotions. Unfortunately, it[apost]s something of a false dawn, as Charlotte[apost]s character leaves the story at this point, but it does bring into focus the political knife-edge upon which the situation in the region teeters. It does reveal in greater clarity just who the players in the grand conspiracy are, the ones raising the demons and pushing the world into chaos. <newline> <newline>Episodes 9 and 10 start filling in the blanks in Luke[apost]s back story, and by doing so reveal the grand enemy that the world faces, and why everyone is looking to him as the one person who can forge a Sacred Sword to defeat the menace. It also reveals the nature of the Devil[apost]s Contracts, the truth about the Demon Swords, and revealing just who Lisa is, before taking us to the conclusion of the story in the final two episodes. It[apost]s when the conspiracy is revealed in its entirety, and Luke must stand up against the mastermind, overcoming his doubts, and Cecily must show her mettle as a qualified knight, with no mention of her breast size at all. <newline> <newline>The Sacred Blacksmith is a show of two halves, utter, predictable, and low-rent banality in the first half, followed by some decent storytelling and character development in the second half. If you have to have two-sided anime like this, it[apost]s far better to start off rubbish and come good than the reverse. But even when Sacred Blacksmith improves and settles down, it doesn[apost]t do enough to stand out. The story is stop-start piecemeal, and there[apost]s never really a consistent flow and tempo to the thing. The real story begins to spin in the final four episodes, and it[apost]s then that my attention became glued to the screen. It would have been far better to have the story and character development in these episodes properly paced over all twelve, but instead we get random acts of boobage. <newline>url="http://www.myreviewer.com/default.asp?a=0000144346"][imgmc=0000233874.jpg][/url] <newline>[heading]Conclusion[/heading] <newline>Somewhere early on in this collection of anime episodes, I lost my will to live, as I contemplated the banality of my existence, and the depths of sheer mediocrity to which a medium that I purport to cherish has sunk. This is mediaeval fantasy, swords and sorcery, admittedly not my favourite of genres in any medium, but one that has given us anime like Berserk, Claymore, Slayers, fantastic and varied examples of what imagination and creativity can accomplish. Then along comes Sacred Blacksmith and reduces it to boob gags and moe tropes, the same clichés that so permeate anime today, the clichés that sell to the core audience, but stifle any originality and creativity in the industry. <newline> <newline>[url="http://www.myreviewer.com/default.asp?a=0000144340"][imgmc=0000233868.jpg][/url] <newline>Cecily Cambell is the main character, an inexperienced knight with a fairly ample cleavage. That is the character description, and we are reminded of that again and again. When we first meet her, we get a pointless, meaningless x-ray upscrolling shot, to show us what she looks like in the nude. What this has to do with the story is anyone[apost]s guess. Not long after, her breastplate shatters, revealing her boobs, and causing nosebleeds to the poor blacksmith witnessing the wardrobe malfunction. Incidentally, at all other times, Cecily wears clothing under her armour. It[apost]s just for that one shot that her top vanishes, leaving just the disintegrating breastplate. Thereafter, random acts of boobage occur throughout the series, peaking with the obligatory bathhouse scene in episode 7. <newline> <newline>[url="http://www.myreviewer.com/default.asp?a=0000144347"][imgmc=0000233875.jpg][/url] <newline>People will also randomly comment on Cecily[apost]s boobs, complete non-sequitors of breast observation. They may be talking about military strategy, crop rotation, or the best way to catch fish, and all of a sudden, [apost]My, my Cecily, your boobs are big today, what are you feeding them?[apost] At which point Cecily gets all shy and bashful, and everyone laughs. I[apost]m no longer worried about what the anime creators are smoking; I[apost]m more concerned with what they think their core audience is like. Not even the most perverted, hormonal teen male, gender perception warped by terabytes of Internet porn, getting through a forest of Kleenex each week, spending each insomniac night glued to late night sex-chat TV trying to lip read, will be able to take something like Sacred Blacksmith at all seriously. <newline> <newline>[url="http://www.myreviewer.com/default.asp?a=0000144353"][imgmc=0000233881.jpg][/url] <newline>Behind all this, there is a lot of exposition being dropped, about the Devil[apost]s Contract War, Luke Ainsworth[apost]s past, his relationship with the elfin Lisa, and there is a fair bit of action as well, as random demons pop up, terrorising the town, and providing something for Luke and Cecily to fight together against, to give them a reason to relate to one another. I hardly noticed it, because of the aforementioned banality, and it[apost]s all pretty redundant, as it gets repeated for the show[apost]s climax regardless. The first five episodes are pretty much disposable, booby moments obscuring the character set-ups for Luke, Cecily, Aria, and Lisa. Incidentally, it[apost]s Lisa that supplies the moe in this show, an excess of loli cuteness that just about avoids the sugar overdose until the [apost]Lisa goes clothes shopping[apost] episode. <newline> <newline>[url="http://www.myreviewer.com/default.asp?a=0000144354"][imgmc=0000233882.jpg][/url] <newline>Then comes episode 6, and it[apost]s as if Sacred Blacksmith gets completely rewritten. It[apost]s the introduction of Charlotte E. Firobisher and her three guards that suddenly gives the show a dimension beyond the mundane. Charlotte is a girl looking to claim her Imperial heritage, the illegitimate daughter of a neighbouring state[apost]s Emperor, and her first plan is to steal the demon sword Aria, and kidnap the Sacred Blacksmith. She[apost]ll present them to her father as a sign of her loyalty and her royal credentials. It[apost]s an interesting enough story to get me paying attention to what was happening on screen. When Charlotte[apost]s first plan doesn[apost]t work, Cecily takes her in as part of her family, and even though episode 7 is the acme of the show[apost]s obsession with boobs and moe, it still manages to be more interesting and entertaining than anything that has come before, mostly because Charlotte is the most interesting character in the show, and her story at least manages to engage the emotions. Unfortunately, it[apost]s something of a false dawn, as Charlotte[apost]s character leaves the story at this point, but it does bring into focus the political knife-edge upon which the situation in the region teeters. It does reveal in greater clarity just who the players in the grand conspiracy are, the ones raising the demons and pushing the world into chaos. <newline> <newline>[url="http://www.myreviewer.com/default.asp?a=0000144359"][imgmc=0000233887.jpg][/url] <newline>Episodes 9 and 10 start filling in the blanks in Luke[apost]s back story, and by doing so reveal the grand enemy that the world faces, and why everyone is looking to him as the one person who can forge a Sacred Sword to defeat the menace. It also reveals the nature of the Devil[apost]s Contracts, the truth about the Demon Swords, and revealing just who Lisa is, before taking us to the conclusion of the story in the final two episodes. It[apost]s when the conspiracy is revealed in its entirety, and Luke must stand up against the mastermind, overcoming his doubts, and Cecily must show her mettle as a qualified knight, with no mention of her breast size at all. <newline> <newline>[url="http://www.myreviewer.com/default.asp?a=0000144360"][imgmc=0000233888.jpg][/url] <newline>The Sacred Blacksmith is a show of two halves, utter, predictable, and low-rent banality in the first half, followed by some decent storytelling and character development in the second half. If you have to have two-sided anime like this, it[apost]s far better to start off rubbish and come good than the reverse. But even when Sacred Blacksmith improves and settles down, it doesn[apost]t do enough to stand out. The story is stop-start piecemeal, and there[apost]s never really a consistent flow and tempo to the thing. The real story begins to spin in the final four episodes, and it[apost]s then that my attention became glued to the screen. It would have been far better to have the story and character development in these episodes properly paced over all twelve, but instead we get random acts of boobage. <newline> <newline>[url="http://www.myreviewer.com/default.asp?a=0000144362"][imgmc=0000233890.jpg][/url] <newline>Th

Initial Version

Created on Saturday, 3rd September 2011, 16:05
First Submitted by Jitendar Canth