Freezing

Epimondas May 4, 2015

3.3

I have to admit, it is kind of hard to absolutely love this anime.  It has way too many frivolous bits like girl shots for no reason and pointless gratuitous violence and bloodshed.  This maybe one of the worst or most offensive animes where girl bits are show in such shameless and purely for show kind of ways since there is no logical way they would get stripped the way they often do in the show in reality. It has alot of very uncomfortable situations as well such as the incestuous violent thug abusive rapist brother who, I am sure, everyone wishes was killed first and perhaps in the most nasty way ever seen in the show.  It makes even less sense how she still behaves around him or treats him as human at all let alone still talks to that monster.  Frankly the whole thing confuses the hell out of me, no human being would ever in my wildest imagination act the way she does with a monster like him.  It is very uncomfortable to watch bits about her past or when her brother comes into the story at all.  His nasty ways have not simmered either as he found a new weakminded and guilable masochist to abuse.   In some ways, this show loves to demonstrate what is the absolutely worst things possible in humanity.  The down side is, that it is also so often done in the most pointless, illogical, unrealistic, uninspired, tragic, shameless, grotesque, and flashiest ways possible.  First off, the setting is a bit odd, why is it always underage students?  Why in this case girls?  And why the hell do they wear skimpy outfits that offer absolutely no pratical combat protection or benefits.  The whole thing screams a joke on us.  Since however, they do dabble in the way way way over cliched use of underaged children in adult situations such as frontline combatents, that is a huge point off.  It is very unimaginative and unrealistic.  Seriously, if such a threat were so massive would the world really just send and rely on a handful of Japanese high school or middle school students or just girls out of those?  It's a joke.  Weak as the setting maybe, at least they do suggest only girls can do it however, there is no mention of how long they can nor do I see many examples of post high school contributors.   My complaint is probably the way things are foreshadowed but lead nowhere such as the special set of attatchments our lead male character has.  It is strongly suggested they are unique and only his sister who was the most powerful and skilled fighter against these dimensional creatures since the original, aka, his grandma, so its natural that we as viewers are forced to assume most men have fewer attatchments than women and he has more than any female even so... logically we would conclude he must have skills far beyond any man and maybe many if not all other women yet we only see slight improvements over other men.  Major misleading letdown there like a lie they planted in the foreshadowing to play with us.  Yes I know he is pretty skilled and powerful but given that only his sister and his grandma has as many or more, I should expect that he likewise should have far more than that to show for it.  It is naturally implied in the circumstances and what everyone else has and what they can do.  I feel way let down like they forgot he was so different.  There are a few other examples here and in season two where characters are set up one way in a sort of foreshadowing but do not live up to the strongly implied overall character that they are supposed to be.  It is not just there however but that aside, false forshadowing is a no no.  Satellizer is cute and strong at the same time.  She has clear vulnerabilities that only those close to her can usually see.  She is a well balanced character aside from the fact that she seems to be ok with a molestor family and never says a thing about it or avoids the ahole altogether.  By the way, it is often quite amusing how goofy Engrish names are.  I rarely see names that make any sense in anime especially if they are Western ones.  The Chinese transfer is a bit more shallow echo of a character and we never really get to see a great deal of depth or development from her, it is as if she really is a sidenote that they just added her to add fluff or more characters for the sake of adding more characters.  However, they do at times make modest attempts to try to make her a solid well rounded character but they are usually just dressing.  Another major issue I have aside from all the idiotic pointless garbage added for the mere sake of adding them, is too many characters minor and what appear at times to perhaps be or become major characters are dropped off long before we have a chance to know them at all in a way far worse than the "red shirt" phenomena seen in the Star Trek original series.  It would be much safer to be a red shirt in the first season of Star Trek in the '60s than to be a new character introduced after like episode 4 in Freezing.  That is how bad it is.  We pretty much see nothing but cat fights for keeps with the most brutal methods seen in most animes even of the more mature and violent nature.  There is alot of outright gory bloodshed often for no reason whatsoever and in such pointless ways that do nothing to aid the story nor the particular scene they occur in.  Often they introduce characters just moments before they kill them off.  Of course that makes it rather difficult ot feel much empathy for someone we just met in the story another major fail for the series. Mostly, it looks like a promising series that is very hard to stomach and get past the utter crap filled within in it that would only logically appeal to the most sadistic, twisted, and violent of minds.  Like those you might find in the high security section of a mental ward or on death row.  It even makes me wonder what kind of person creates such dribble.  It is so filled with the most disturbing crap it is hard to see the story behind it.  There is a story though it feels a bit unrefined or maybe incomplete or not quite polished.  It is like how they falsely foreshadow things as if they are not sure what direction to take things so they started a story in the middle of something and throw out a few teaser clues as to what is going on but remain murky on finer details yet they lead you on as if they will reveal more but never do.  It is not a well thought out series.  It needs far more development and refinement and a few things filled out better and more completely and a few things removed completely.  We get it is adult and there is sex and violence, but we do not need to see it with every student cat fight or battle or thrown in just for good measure to keep us aware it is filled with that.  They could use lessons on adding a few suggestive scenes without showing needless detail and a better intertwining build up of what why and when such things happen so it actually feels like its integral to the story not just there to try for an X rating.   Wrapped up its an unfulfilled promise full of pointless gory violence, abuse, unclothed women shots, and sexual situations.  The story easily gets buried in the immation crappy sci fi porn movie attempts this series seems to try accomplish.     It might be worth a viewing, one or two episodes and if you can take it the entire series, but I doubt it is worth watching it more than once.  I really wanted this to be a good series and it does lead you on for a while to think so with such an interesting premise, but it just kept letting me down over and over.

tollie01 Nov 16, 2015

6

Allright. It's been a while since I've done something like this so bear with me as I try to find my way again.I did quite a lot of them in the past on a different website which you can find here: http://legendsofsatura.net/index.php/forum125/6-reviewing-guild.html ....They probably aren't very good though but please do stop by if you have the time and inclination. Originally the site was for writers, mostly original but also fanfiction. Also I'm Dutch so there will be spelling errors. If you find them annoying give me a shout and I'll try to fix them. Oh, I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum but there will be some. Usually the worse I rate an anime the more spoilers this will contain. You have been warned So, you have probably already read what the animation is about in the discription given by Anime-Planet, which is the same as on the box. I will therefore try not go into the story that much unless I'm ranting about something (spoilers). ART: I must admit that regardless of content the anime looks amazing. Action scenes are smooth and characters are easily identifiable. Try as I might I can find nothing wrong here. SOUND: Like the art there is little to complain here. Special effects are good and the music didn't really bother or stood out to me. Voice acting was adequate but the actors didn't have much to do in terms of acting with characters going into combat at the drop of a hat. CHARACTERS: Main character is Kazuya who decides to join West Genetics and become a limiter for a Pandora. A limiters job is to support the Pandora in her fight against the mysterious Nova. Kazuya is a fairly typical main character who is terribly naive, way to trusting and always comes up for his ideals. Satellize el-Bridget is also called the untouchable queen in that she pretty much destroys any who oppose her or touch her. The only exception is Kazuya and she eventually agrees to take him as her limiter Of course no triangle is complete without a third member and enter Rana Lichen. Initially from Tibet she joins WG in order to learn more about her Pandora abilities and immediately falls for Kazuya upon arriving. STORY: Pretty simple really.... Nova are mysterious interdimensional being who just appear randomly and destroy shit. Pandora are superhuman girls who are the only ones capable of fighting them. Only girls have the ability to become Pandora and testing is mandatory but becoming one is voluntary. Helping them fight are their male partners, called limiters. Together they fight as a single unit and only then do they stand a chance of defeating a Nova. Understood? Good, now here is where it gets tricky. Both Pandora and limiters are limited commodities in that their number is very small. This gets a bit further explained in the second season but of the limited number of girls who are compatible to become Pandora only 2% actually volunteer to become one. I tried looking for numbers of girls who decide to become Pandora but couldn't find it. Regardless the number is pretty small as WG is essentially a school where only a few hundred girls train to become Pandora. There is a second school in Japan East Genetics but that is essentially it. Mortallity among active Pandora fighting around the globe is very high. So with such small number of girls available why is it such a good idea to let them beat the shit out of each other? Seriously there much be multiple fatalities each year from the brutal fighting going on on school grounds. Don't tell it isn't possible because I'm fairly sure that many navy SEAL's go through their training without fighting to the death. Also.... Armor. Is that so difficult? Why have them fight in skimpy clothes that desintegrate at the merest touch? I know full well that fanservice and female nudity is one of the selling points of the series but there comes a point where enough is enough. When your characters spend more time in shredded clothed than undamaged ones then you are doing something wrong. I will recommend this for fans of the genre only. If you don't like this then stay far far away from it.

SadisticTendencies Apr 8, 2011

1.5

*This was originally a rant that generated insults and trolldom in general. Hopefully, a few changes I've made will manage to convey my opinion of this show a little better.*  The most interesting question in the world of anime has prevailed through yet another season: can the lack of a compelling narrative be compensated for with abhorrent amounts of fanservice screaming in unison with surprisingly bland characters? My inner being would like nothing more but to verbally mutilate the 2011 atrocity known as Freezing, but in a desperate attempt to maintain some sort of decency I eventually decided not to; but rest assured, this review is a highly negative one. Quite frankly, I doubt I’ll ever rate anything lower than this… Story: 1/10When an extraterrestrial threat desires global supremacy in the world we humans inhabit, you’d assume that tanks, aircrafts and experienced soldiers would be put to diligent use; but that would be overlooking one of the most efficient resources we have at our disposal: abnormally large breasted teenagers who can be genetically modified and trained in the art of combat. Known as “Pandoras”, these female warriors are paired up with boys of similar age, and attend an academy where they improve on their fighting skills. This is where our protagonists are introduced. Because the Pandora known as “The Untouchable Queen” resembles his sister in terms of appearance, wussy boy Kazuya is determined to become her partner, and his success is a fact, despite her tsundere personality initially forbidding it. Upon realizing that the Pandoras spend more time fighting and sexually harassing each other, than they do focusing on the actual threat, Kazuya’s pacifist persona is brought to light, allowing him to tediously stop fights and preach about the value of peace. The overuse of melodrama, the lack of an actual storyline (emphasis on “lack”), and the crucial plethora of unoriginal characters made the narrative into a no-brainer, and unless your thirst for boobs and irrelevant violence is insatiable, I’d suggest you stay away from this pile of excrement. With a better approach matters could be endurable; a lighthearted tone and deliberately exaggerated action sequences practically go hand in hand, but Freezing explains ridiculous scenarios as if they were highly realistic, and eventually ends up blunting them instead. <hr> Animation: 7/10Boasting a fairly successful symbiosis between traditional animation and CGI, the visual section isn’t entirely without redeeming qualities. Disregarding the character designs that are devoid of proportional accordance, I enjoyed the ending of the show from a technical point of view: an anime should refrain from depending too heavily on computer graphics, but Freezing features just the right amount to look stunning. Furthermore, the frequently occurring outbursts of violence are choreographed decently, despite recycling the exact same formula that commonly involves exposed mammary glands and plenty of injuries. They are made with care, if a tad too reliant on the use of still images. <hr> Sound: 2/10For a slice of life show the soundtrack would fit terrifically, but when it accompanies out-of-place melodrama it’s hard to appreciate it. The OP is standardized to the extreme, screeching out J-Pop with glee; respectively, the voice acting is not precisely top notch either. Kazuya’s persona is portrayed by an actor whose talent lies solely in his ability to invoke a strong feeling of hate from the audience; as he nasally chants for his female partner whenever she’s facing danger, you’ll find yourself yearning for the hypothetical scenario in which he dies… Don’t misinterpret: the music in itself carries its own form of charm with beautifully applied piano music, but its mere existence in a sleazy show like Freezing shouldn’t be allowed. Worthy to note is the equally fanservice-packed Highschool of the Dead that at least realized its limitations and threw in some rock to support key moments: but the crucial difference here is that Highschool knows how to appeal to its audience, while Freezing desperately attempts to seduce both romantics and lovers of Anime explicitness. <hr> Characters: 2/10Attempts at character development accompany the narrative through various flashbacks and references, but much as I appreciate its presence, greater ambitions would be beneficial; the character studies don’t even try to strike you as realistic. Ecchi is known to derive female characters of their potential appeal, and so is the case here. The ladies in Freezing constantly abuse one another, and of course they merrily participate in the occasional boob-grabbing just for the sake of it. “The Untouchable Queen” is a beautiful title indeed, but its origin can be found in a plot device that’s not very compelling, and as a result her painful history seems less significant. You can only sit through a specific amount of screen time in which the Pandoras sexually harass each other until you question the academy they attend. Their principal glances upon her school with a solemn and slightly hopeful look; she knows that her students are the only ones capable of saving mankind, but inexplicably refrains from stopping the horrible abuse that’s allowed to occur within school property. Perhaps she should lower the requirements needed to attend her school; independency and individual strength is a must, but is a huge set of bouncing assets really that vital? To conclude the character section I’d also like to point out the lack of creative design that damage the potential appeal even further, right as the aliens are introduced. They look like poorly scratched together pieces of metal that, hypothetically speaking, my younger brother of seven years would be able to artistically improve. Furthermore, their motive regarding world domination is blurry; as far as I could perceive them, they come without any characteristics at all. <hr> Overall: 1.5/10Inadequate to be entertaining on all levels except for the animation, Freezing cruelly represents everything that’s wrong in the world of Anime; ecchi prioritized far above coherency, and a narrative whose ridiculous simplicity and lack of realism muddles whatever the show wants to say. A different and more lighthearted approach could have resulted in something endurable, but when the show takes itself too seriously it crosses the line to what the average viewer can tolerate.