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Canaan Review

Posted by Serated in Anime / Manga October 18, 2009 at 01:00:44 AM

I finally found sometime to actually finish this. To think I put off one single episode before writing because I figured school was more important than reviewing stuff, go figure. Canaan comes to us by the same makers of Fate/Stay Night and Tsukihime, ala Type Moon. And yet again, is based off a game. So the story goes as such, it takes place in China with a young girl named Canaan who is a mercenary. We meet the next character Maria who is visiting form Japan as a journalist in order to watch a festival. As it turns out, Maria is Canaan’s only friend, and so Canaan does everything within her power to protect Maria. Some other stuff is revealed as well, like the terrorist organization called ‘Snakes’ and their leader Alphard who are out in some sort of way to kill Canaan. So what better way to do that than through Maria?

The storyline comprises a lot of interesting ideals. Some of which are the whole government cover-up/conspiracy thing, developing biological weapons and super soldiers, and the horrors of war; just to name a few. The storyline actually doesn’t have one of those episodes where everything is truly revealed or solved, which was kind of weird. Another is how the anime literally teeters on the concept of Maria and Canaan being lovers, seeing as they have several scenes of being alone with one of those monologues that hints on it. But yet again, it’s not revealed.

I think probably my favorite part to this is all the action. While the story isn’t fully disclosed, the fun lies in the gun fights. The one in the first episode alone is like watching a Matrix movie without having anything slowed down with that annoying bullet time filter. The thing I didn’t like too much was how infrequent they were. Mostly because there’s really only a few that actually matter, the first one and the last one. So a lot of the anime in between feels really kind of pointless. You could probably watch the first few episodes and watch the last two and might understand the entire story and fill in the blanks yourself and still come out satisfied.

I guess if I have to complain about something, it would have to be the use of the whole terrorism concept. The main villain just seems not into what she’s doing; that a lot of her plans fail in the long run and she doesn’t really care that they do. The whole use of the term ‘terrorist’ doesn’t even seem to fit well here either. They aren’t attacking anyone in particular (at least not successfully), and nor is there much of any real benefit to them. They aren’t a big weapons company banking on warring nations buying out their guns and ammo, and they don’t have very many interesting or devious plans. If anything, they seem more like any Batman villain. Not intending to succeed or do harm unto others, but wanting to see what Batman will do to foil their plans.

All in all, it’s a pretty unique anime that I have never seen before. It’s like some animes, but it also indirect towards them in terms of genre. If you have 13 episodes worth of 30 minutes and liked Ghost in the Shell, then you will probably like this one too. If you’re like me and love girls with guns, then the gun plays will definitely hold you over to the end, however infrequent they are.

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