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This review will contain SPOILERS for the show and will be pointed out before each section.
INTRODUCTION
While the premise of a character exploring the meaning of life after the world fell to ruin greatly interest me the execution itself was poorly done.
CASSHERN
Firstly, the main character Casshern is uninteresting as the only emotion he exhibits is depression, because of the fact that the caused the "ruin" which overtook the world. While facing the fact that you are the one that caused the end of the world would cause likely cause the feelings Casshern displays the issue is he doesn't remember doing this, in fact he remembers nothing. ... He is told multiple times that he killed Luna which caused the ruin and every time he acts if this is the first time he has heard this information. Even after seemingly accepting this fact and coming to terms with it, in a later episode he goes back to the way he felt before this. Eventually Casshern does learn that he must move on from his past, but his personality doesn't change all too much.
LYUZE (SPOILERS)
Lyuze wants to kill Casshern because he killed her sister and Luna and is the cause of the ruin. Every scene she is in with Casshern she states this to him. She yells at him explaining to him that it is his fault the world is like this. I understand her anger at him at first but that is all she does is just yell at him (which just becomes repetitive), until she learns to accept that he has grown as a person. Another issue I found with her character is that she believes that she has the ability to kill Casshern. It is demonstrated in almost every episode that Casshern is the most powerful being in the world, and that even though he wants to die he can't. So, it confuses me so much why she believes that she has the power to kill him, even after she ultimately joins his side and sees this. I've heard people say that her loving Casshern doesn't make sense after she so strongly hates him, but I disagree. Casshern has no memory of who he is and is a completely different person than who he was before. What does not make sense to me is how she still wants to hate Casshern even after acknowledging he is not a bad person; and the reason for this is the most selfish reason I can think of, "If Casshern isn't bad than that means I was wrong." Overall Lyuze's motives aren't bad, however the way she expresses herself is poorly written.
OHJI/RINGO
Ohji is Ringo's caretaker and I do find there dynamitic to be interesting. Ringo is a small girl who is basically the embodiment of purity in the world of ruin. Even though she is affected by the ruin it does not bother her and she just wants to play and be happy. It is a little cliche having a child not understanding the severity of what is happening around them, however I do think it works in this instance. Ohji's only motive in life is to look after Ringo and make sure she is happy. Well, it is a one-dimensional motive, learning more about Ohji it does make sense. Ohji does get more backstory halfway through the show, however nothing is done with this. I think the two are just average characters that mainly help drive the themes of the show.
DIO/LEDA
Dio and Leda are very one-dimensional characters. Dio is jealous of Casshern and wants to kill him, that is his only motive. The whole time Dio is on screen he is complaining about how much he wants to kill Casshern. While this does get resolved by the end of the show, it does not feel satisfying as a viewer because there isn't a connection between them outside of what we are told their connection is. Leda is Dio's partner, and she is actually the one controlling the strings which is shown from very early on during her introduction. Leda could be interesting if she didn't have to deal with Dio's want to kill Casshern. Every interaction between the two is summed-up as Leda: "Dio do this thing for me." Dio: "No I only want to kill Casshen." That is the extent of their relationship. Well, each character may have been interesting on their own the fact they are together drags them down, although this is explained in story reasons.
BRAIKING BOSS
Braiking Boss is one of the more interesting characters in the show and his reaction to the ruin and his relation to its causation are probably more realistic than Casshern's in my opinion. That being said he is not used much and only left a minor impact overall for me. I feel as though he should have been explored more than Dio and Leda and would have made a better main villian.
DUNE
I don't really have much to say about Dune besides I found him interesting.
LUNA (SPOILER)
The twist that Luna became "evil" if you can really it that didn't hit it for me. Well, it is explained why this happened, it doesn't feel satisfying at all. In fact, everything surrounding the character and her build up is unsatisfying. I think I should add that there is a difference between disliking the twist and finding it unsatisfying. I liked the premise of the twist, however like I said in my introduction, the execution of it was poorly done.
SIDE CHARACTERS
The show begins episodic, however towards the end this pacing stops. In the more episodic episodes new characters are introduced. I don't think any of these characters were real hits for me, and most of them just established the same theme. The Bandit robots are just stupid. I always hated the idea that every single low-level grunt believes that can defeat someone obviously higher in power than them. They are mostly just used as conflict when there needs to conflict or Casshern has to fight something.
PACING / PLOT
The pacing of the show is really slow, and I don't mind that in shows however the plot was boring to me, so the slow pacing amplified that feeling. As established in the Character review most of them are one dimensional and poorly executed. My biggest issue with the plot is it doesn't make sense how characters go from location to location; I'll explain the best I can without spoiling things. Basically, there's this rumor and Casshern tries to follow the rumor, but you only get the bare minimum details of the rumor as the viewer. Basically, the characters just sort wind up where they need to be with no explanation. This could easily be fixed with a side character saying, "oh by the way I heard if you go here, you'll find this," but no. It is never explained how our characters know where to go they just stumble around into places. While I understand this makes sense in episodic episodes, it is strange to see in the ones that aren't. Besides that, some things are introduced and never explained. One-episode introduces some background for Leda, but nothing seems to come of that. In the same episode a super important item is introduced that could be the solution to the main issue in the whole show, but again nothing comes from that. Those are my main issues with the plot besides the issues I have with the characters.
CONSISTANCY
This show is very inconsistence in many aspects. Besides what I described with the plot in the PLOT section there are more issues I have. First Casshern gets a robo-dog early on named Friender. Well, I don't mind him, he will just disappear for whole episodes with no explanation. In the very episode after he joins Casshern he is just gone the whole time, and then shows up in the episode after that one. What a robot exactly is also makes no sense. There are two types of robots, Bandits which are like more "classic" robots and then more humanoid robots. While some of the more humanoid robots look like robots; still robots like Casshern, Lyuze, and Ringo look like humans. On top of this some robots, bleed (blood not oil), breath, sleep, cry, feel (like the sense not emotions, but they have those too), grow up from children to adults, etc. the only thing they don't do is eat. In one scene Casshern ask Ohji if Ringo is human because she is bleeding, but then later on we see Ohji bleeding, and we know he is a robot. (Also nothing comes from Ohji's answer to Casshern.) It seems to me that the writers wanted the Robots to be able to express emotion, but just ignored the fact that they were writing robots and not humans. My last issue happened in two instances. First is in episode 18 where the same clip with the same animation and everything played back to back. While it could be argued that this was purposeful as the whole episode is basically a dream sequence, it felt more like an editing error. This happens one more time, but that time it is only with audio.
FIGHT SCENES
I've read a lot of people saying that the animation is one of the great aspects of the show, but I disagree when it comes to the fight scenes. They come off very choppy to me. One scene will be a character winding up for a hit, then cut to a close up on where the impact is. Most of the time you don't ever see the two people fighting in the same scene and it doesn't work for me. I want to actually see the fight not just close-ups of the hits. I will say however, that there is one fight towards the end that I think is done pretty well.
CLOSING THOUGHTS.
Casshern Sins has a good base but nothing else. Well characters seem like they could be interesting they are one-dimensional. The plot kind jumps around with no real solid connection between. There are many inconsistencies and things that just don't make sense as a viewer. Some important moments are poorly executed and what should be emotional comes off as laughable (Episode 18 and the overuse of Janice's song). I rated this anime a 5, which for some reason is listed as either Average or Mediocre. I think Mediocre sums this anime better. I don't think its good, but I wouldn't call it bad. It is worse than other anime's which I've given Average so I believe Mediocre is the best word to describe it.