天下制覇

Alright, Shadow Hearts 3 is probably a better comparison, although without lightsabers or a chubby little vampire.

Impressions:

There wasn’t really an opening to speak of, just shots around the city with random credits dropped in for about two minutes. Nothing worth ripping at any rate. The world of Strait Jacket is taken straight out of any number of Japanese RPGs where magic and science coexist and have created a bizarre sort of fusion that never made any sense to me. They have the ability to use magic to do all sorts of things, but somehow always end up developing high powered rifles, cars, and guns while also living in basically 1910 and using plate steel as body armor. I suppose in this case, the Shadow Hearts series is a better direct comparison given the gooey monsters that burst forth and the unspeakbly evil loli wandering around, but then I’d have to explain why Lenny didn’t show up. TANGENT FINISHED, it was a pretty entertaining watch, but the creativity here was lacking something fierce. I suppose it’s something that you don’t see in anime all that often, but I’ve played enough RPGs to have seen it fifteen thousand times over in everything from Persona to Final Fantasy to Parasite Eve and back again. Essentially that somebody or something is using magic and science in a form of unholy combination, there’s an unspeakable evil somewhere and monsters are running amok. The only person that can save them is the random monster killer with a mysterious past.

It was rather well animated for an OVA. I’d say normal quality, but recent things like Koharu Biyori and Murder Princess have dropped my standards considerably. The CG was a bit overused, especially with how poorly they tried to integrate it with the normal art. One complaint I had is that the direction seemed to be pretty lacking in parts. Everything was decently done, but parts just seemed lacking in energy. This was especially noticable during the action scenes. Beyato shot it about 5 times before it tried to attack him, and even then, all it did was reflect his shots once, and then swat at him, which was apparently enough of an excuse for him to Divine Buster Magna Blast Excis (?) its face off and level a few streets. They did try a couple little tricks in parts, but they felt more out of place than anything since the rest was totally free from any sort of creative touches.

I did find his ‘transformation’ sequence, which involved his emotionless assistant painting his body, to be unintentionally amusing, so there is that. In conclusion, it was enjoyable, if a tad generic, but if you don’t have the stomach for the story/settings of RPGs, there’s probably little here for you. Beyato just isn’t an interesting enough character to carry the show in a way like Alucard does in Hellsing and with only three episodes, I doubt he’ll be getting much, if any, development. I suppose I’ll follow the remaining two episodes whenever they get around to coming out. Three episodes isn’t all that much of a commitment anyway. ^^