I thought about letting this wait until after the Thursday showing, where hopefully a handful of you would have gotten a chance to see it (the only reason I already have is because I won’t be here, so I watched a bit with Gene and Chris last night), but I’m leaving campus in a few hours and needed something to do, so I thought opening discussion on this early wouldn’t be too bad. That way, anybody who’s already seen it or has read the original manga or the 1996 OVA could go ahead and talk about it.
However, I should be polite and mention that there is a decent chance of spoilers in this post. Nothing humongous, but I’ll probably discussing some events up to the episode I watched (since last night we watched, what? Five episodes? Six?). They won’t be marked, since this is the only warning.
First, my overall impression of the anime: it’s not bad. I will probably finish it, just to see what happens. It’s not the greatest thing I’ve seen, as it kind of has its share of cheese, but even with the abundance of joking and mocking remarks we had about the show it was still something enjoyable–for me, at least. I also kind of like the ED, in case it matters.
The show is generally about a thoroughly unlikeable guy, Senkawa (who I believe Gene described as “like Shinji [from Evangelion], but retarded,” and not in any charming fashion, I might add), who gets accidentally punched in half by Birdy (essentially a space cop action girl with body armor any man can enjoy; it’s naturally safe to say she’s the real main character here, in case the title of the show didn’t give that way), who decides to make it up to him by letting his consciousness share her body until his is ‘rebuilt’ by space furries some handful of lightyears away.
That last paragraph may have given you a bad impression. But don’t worry: it gets marginally worse. Senkawa, because he wants you to hate him that badly, is pissed off at this arrangement because he would obviously rather be dead. He also doesn’t like that Birdy likes to go saving the universe when he could be failing midterms or going to get-well parties. There were plenty of lulz about this at the showing.
Despite all that, though, the show really isn’t that bad. It’s actually very well animated, and I was always intrigued by the sort of things Birdy could pull off in the combat scenes. The story is sometimes absurd (but I can feel it going somewhere), and the characters aren’t always lovable, but at least they aren’t boring, and Birdy herself is actually a pretty cool character, since even if she is kind of a generic action girl, she isn’t incredibly ditzy about what she does, so she doesn’t end up coming off as obnoxious.
Birdy. Oh, no, wait–
There's our Birdy. Oh, and Senkawa. He might be important too, if we're lucky.
As Gene informed me, Decode is sort of a remake. The first Birdy there is, I presume, from the 1996 OVA, and the second is our current model. She’s been given a pretty obvious makeover in favor of more modern definitions of attractiveness and moe, but she still works pretty well as a heroine.
Anyway, I can’t really think of anything else to say about it. It’s a decent show and I hope that if you plan on seeing it on Thursday or have already seen it, you enjoy/enjoyed it. I’ll probably keep watching to get the rest of the story, so maybe some of you can dissuade or encourage me on that.
Thanks for reading! I’ll see you all next semester. Happy holidays and whatnot.
Responses to Optional Showing Pre-review (Preview? What? I dunno): Birdy the Mighty Decode
Chris · December 16, 2010 at 6:20 pm
I’ve got to say, despite all the things I can pick apart about this show (as evidenced by my plethora of commentary on Monday), this show isn’t bad. The characters and story aren’t mind-blowingly original, but then again, few actually are (especially considering the original manga was written in 1985, and the original OVA was in 1996). The story is well-written enough that it makes the cliches tolerable, and that’s all I can really ask for when watching/reading anything from any country.
As for Senkawa, perhaps there’s hope for him yet…some of the most memorable characters for me have been those I initially hated, precisely because they overcame those character flaws and developed into something more respectable (like Simon from TTGL). To be honest, I’d rather see a character like that than one that’s totally badass right off the bat. Of course, that’s assuming that Senkawa does get better. (On a side note, despite all my contempt for Shinji’s character, I suppose I can half-forgive him due to what he represents as a character archetype)
