Demonbane TV Anime

[regz91]

Looks like the old thread got lost a while back. There's only one week left to go, so I think it's time to launch a new thread, and really start getting this show on people's radars.

First, the basic info:

Kishin Houkou Demonbane

http://www.demonbane7.net/
http://www.demonbane.com/
http://www.animate.tv/special/demonbane.php

Begins airing 5/18/06

Original Work: Kadokawa Shoten Publishing / Digiturbo / Nitroplus
World Supervisor: Jin Haganeya
Series Composition: Yousuke Kuroda
Original Character Design: Niθ
Character Design: Hideki Hashimoto, Masaaki Sakurai
Mechanic Design: Yoshihiko Machida
Guest Mecha Design: Kazutaka Miyatake
Design Works: Yasuhiro Moriki, Tomoyuki Aoki
Art Director: Masaru Ohta
Color Design: Hitomi Sano
Special Effects: Yutaka Senba
3D-CGI: Hiroshi Akimoto
2D-CGI: Yuujirou Yamane
Music: ZIZZ Studio
Music Producer: Mei Yoshikawa
Music Production: Frontierworks
Sound Director: Takeshi Takadera
Sound Producer: Tohru Nakano
Sound Production: Half HP Studio
Editing: Kengo Shigemura
Animation Producer: Rikiya Shinzaki
Sub-Director: Kazuo Sakai
Director: Shouichi Masuo
Animation Production: Viewworks
Production: Demonbane Production Committee

Confirmed Cast:
Al Azif: Rie Kanda
Kurou Daijuuji: Kentarou Itou
Ruri Hadou: Junko Asami
Nya: Ai Orikasa
Master Therion: Hikaru Midorikawa
Doctor West: Takumi Yamazaki
Leica: Nami Kurokawa
Elsa: Mikako Satou
Etheldreda: Rie Kanda
Winfield: Takehito Koyasu
Chiaki: Kaoru Morota
Makoto: Yuu Asakawa
Sonya: Satomi Koorogi

The members of Anticross have not been confirmed yet, but assuming they show up, they should be the same as the game:
Augustus: Norio Wakamoto
Vespasianus: Masashi Hirose
Tiberius: Kazuki Yao
Caligula: Dasuke Gouri
Claudius: Yuka Imai
Titus: Jouji Nakata

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Last Saturday, they held a Demonbane live event to promote the upcoming anime and the sequel game. As part of the event, they showed the first episode. Reports are that it was very good, satisfying all the hardcore fans that attended, despite what are described as numerous tweaks to the story.

Apparently, the episode ends with Demonbane's first launch, though. I had thought that, with only 12 episodes, they would be going through the story MUCH faster. It makes me worried just how much they've cut from the story to be able to go at such a leisurely pace in the first episode.

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In other news, they've also announced the release of two Drama CDs, to tell stories that they were forced to cut from the series. Just one glance at the cast list for the CDs pretty much confirms that they will revolve around the Metatron/Sandalphon storyline - and as such, both characters will probably be cut from the anime altogether. Which is a damn shame, as I had really been looking forward to some Metatron/Sandalphon battles in full animation.

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Despite some bad news for fans of the game, I'm encouraged by the positive reports from the live event. I'm thinking this will probably turn out to be a good anime, regardless of how it follows the game.

Demonbane starts next Thursday! Watch for it!

[Ty]

I wonder how closely this is related to the single OVA episode that came out a while back?

[regz91]

Since the OVA episode is based in game continuity and does not touch on the main plot - pretty much not at all.

Depending on how much the TV series diverges from the game, the OVA may not even be able to considered in the same story. Fans of the game were shocked to find that TV Kurou actually has a car - in the game and OVA, Kurou can't even scrounge up enough money to feed himself.

[TheGreenMan]

Al Azif? Please tell me she's in this show?

[regz91]

Impressive. A faithful adaptation of the game so far, making only a few minor changes here and there. I'm definitely feeling like this is going to be a great series - which wasn't always the case, especially when it was first announced that it would only have 12 episodes.

If I had a complaint about the first episode, it would be that they stopped right when Demonbane first appeared. It's a dramatic ending, but it also ends up feeling like the first episode was mostly set-up. I would have liked some actual mecha fighting to really draw people in. Plus, in a run this short, every minute counts, and this episode had a sort of laid-back pace compared to what I would have expected considering how much story lies ahead.

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However!

On WOWOW's official page (http://www.wowow.co.jp/anime/demonbane/epi1/), they list the titles for the first five episodes.

1. I AM PROVIDENCE
2. EVIL SHINE
3. REANIMATOR
4. THE INVADERS
5. THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH

Episode 1 has the same title as Episode 1 of the game. In addition, Episodes 4 and 5 have the same titles as Episodes 6 and 7 of the game. So it seems they'll cut out a lot of the more frivolous first half of the game in order to make room for the more serious second half. If they skip the game's Episode 8 (which is pretty short), then they'll have 7 anime episodes left to cover 7 game episodes. It'll be a crunch, but that appears to be the plan for the anime.

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WOWOW's page also mentions that there will be a 3-week wait (!) between Episodes 2 and 3. Yeah, that'll get people into the story.

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Some misc. thoughts . . .

They're using the original BGM! Yay!

They changed the voices for two of Leica's orphan kids. The third, George, isn't listed in the credits, so he's probably still played by Ai Orikasa (Nya) like in the game. I suppose it doesn't really matter since they're downplaying Leica's role in the story anyway.

Metatron makes a brief appearance at the end. Are they going to include her in the anime, or was she just a cameo?

All the Japanese commenters were right. That IS a funky little dance Al does to summon Demonbane. Who thought that up?

Can't wait to see what other people thought of it!

[golthin]

I can't wait to watch this!

[mellowrg2]

That was a near perfect port of the game.

Meanings it's probably going to seem really hectic to newcomers.

With strange aeons even death may be super deformed..

[regz91]

Ugh . . . cheap is the word that most comes to mind after watching Episode 2. The Demonbane fights are barely animated. And, adding insult to injury, we don't even get a real OP. The OP is set to clips from the first two episodes, and bizarrely includes footage from the original game to take up space. Is this production really that hard up for cash? I thought getting only 12 episodes would be a compromise to keep costs down, but now I'm getting the impression that even getting 12 episodes was an enormous achievement. We're taking a 3-week break until Episode 3, so we damn well better see an actual OP when it returns.

We're also really starting to feel the time crunch, I think. We don't even get a proper summoning sequence for Demonbane - Kurou and Al just show up in the cockpit in their new forms. We lost some good scenes in order to keep the story running. The flow in general just felt off. I think some of the fault may lie with the really bland animation.

Thankfully, we still get that hillarious scene with Kurou, Al, and Leica. That's definitely the highlight of this episode. And I think the anime is still pretty interesting - it's just made on a bit of a budget.

Next time (nearly a month later), we'll get to meet Elsa, one of my favorite characters, and hopefully the awesome West/Elsa duo will pick the show up.