Read Or Die TV - Reviews

Remember last time last year, when I watched an OVA called Mezzo Forte and I thought that was one of the many entertaining anime I had ever saw and then after that, I’ve reviewed Mezzo DSA, the TV series to follow it and I thought the TV series was very bland and vanilla compared to the OVA, offering nothing to the table aside from a few basics from the OVA. Well, I was very cautious when going into the Read or Die franchise as I know a few friends of mine said that OVA is very underrated and I wholeheartedly agree about. Now with this TV series, that might say the opposite that it isn’t as good as the OVA but hey, who knows? I might find a different opinion on it.

The series begins in 2006, five years after the "I-Jin" incident detailed in the Read or Die OVA. Yomiko Readman (a.k.a. "The Paper", agent of British Library Task Force) has supposedly gone missing, and Nenene Sumiregawa, her former student and best friend, is still in Tokyo after her parents moved to the USA. Nenene has not written a book since Yomiko disappeared, as she has become lonely and frustrated that her sensei has never read her last book, and she feels she can't write again until she hears Yomiko's reaction to the book, so Nenene often disappears for long periods of time searching for Yomiko, and has been periodically doing so ever since her "disappearance".

During a trip to Hong Kong, Nenene meets the three sisters, Michelle, Maggie and Anita (from the Read or Dream manga), who are supposed to take care of her during her visit. However, the hotel at which Nenene is supposed to stay at is bombed, and at a press conference Nenene is briefly held hostage by a jealous rival in her industry. The three sisters end up becoming her bodyguards and join her back to Tokyo.

As I watched the series, I will know there will be additional characters made into main characters from the aforementioned manga and the plot expands to more than just 3 episodes (to a full 26 episodes) and I only have half enthusiastic  when I was watching this. The plot of this is as like the OVA but it’s sliced and diced to either the average bad guy of the week to these character pieces that are more akin to the slice-of-life genre with one part being Anita in middle school (or it is high school? I couldn’t really tell. They looked way too young to be high school.) but it just feel odd and jarring as most characters from the first half disappears and then appears from out of the blue and/or a long time period for forced character development, which just puts me out of interest altogether.

Funny thing about the main 3 sister characters, all of them are named after Hong-Kong action actresses, hence Anita King (Anita Mui), Maggie Mui (Maggie Cheung, part of Anita Mui) & Michelle Cheung (Michelle Yeoh, part of Maggie Cheung) but yet, the fact is the only thing that is interesting about them as they aren’t that strong as characters but more of anime archetypes: Anita being the youngest but the most capable and often more focused on than the other sisters, Maggie being the quiet and silent one, and Michelle is the cheerful, older yet ditzy sister. Throughout the show, they do go through this sisterhood bond with another new character in the mix, Nenene Sumiregawa and yet, she is a very irritable and screechy character, whose only reason to appear in this is because she has a connection to the earlier master Yomiko Readman and yes, most of the characters from the OVA do appear in here, including Joker, Drake & Nancy, but if you’re expecting the femme fatale Nancy was in the OVA, prepare to be disappointed, as it was explained that she did suffer some brain trauma that had her in a childlike state.

The animation here as in the OVA, Studio Deen did the previous one, while in the TV series, they are replaced with J.C. Staff for this time and it was just……average. The paper battles were very spot-on with the previous installment although they appear within long periods of time. Character designs are actually faithful as I can’t spot the differences of how they were designed. The music is still the best part of the franchise as it still retains the spirit of the OVA and it even got more funkier when the opening theme for the show. Plus, the original themes from the OVA among other pieces are heard in there. I can say less for the ending themes as they are standard pop songs that seemed forgettable.

Fuck it, this English dub is bad and I mean it was grating as like the animation, the voice actors from the Manga dub was replaced by company Geneon / New Generation Pictures and most of them tried to do British accents and some can’t do it well, especially the replacement actress for Yomiko (Hellena Taylor), Joker (J.B. Blanc) & Junior (J.D. Stone) and some of the main female character voices are often shrilly and screechy, mostly Nenene’s voice.  However, I’m not going to fault the dub that much as they did hire kid actors to play the younger characters and if you try to find some recognizable voice actors in there, the only people whose voices I got from there are Hunter MacKenzie Austin (playing Michelle), Carrie Savage (replacing Amanda-Winn Lee for Nancy Mukahari) & Patrick Seitz.

FINAL VERDICT: The show isn’t wholly unfaithful to the OVA, the spirit of that is still present in the TV series but I just don’t think it was ready for a TV format, even the plot as ridiculous in the OVA seems better suited to that. Mainly one character left somewhat of an impact of the show, only 50% less than Yomiko. I wouldn’t say it’s inferior to the OVA but it’s nothing that most people would say when talking about most anime out there. By any chance, you should stream or rent before buying.

ROD the TV was a very interesting watch for me. At first I was not sure I would like it as I had started a few anime series at the same time and it did not jump at me as being awfully great, and I did not watch past the second episode at that time. A few months later, I decided to watch episode 3 and 4 to see whether the rest of the series was worth a shot. What a great surprise it was after those episodes! As soon as I finished them, I could not stop myself from putting more discs in and watching the rest.

This speaks volumes for the story as I am not usually one who has to impatiently and compulsively watch a series so quickly. The episodes tend to end on captivating cliffhangers (a tool employed to great effect in shounen classic Saint Seiya) that have the audience on the edge of their seat and the ride pays off some healthy dividents throughout the series. The suspense of the middle section of this anime has not been matched in any action series I have ever seen so this anime really breathes new life into a rather stale genre (not saying that Noir or Madlax are bad shows but their pace are no match for this series').

The animation of Read or Die the TV can be summed up in one word: SUPERB. All the way through, there is consistency in the way things are drawn and animated, which is a great achievement for a series of 26 episodes with not so much as a recap episode thrown in. The battle scenes are especially stunning in this anime as the fluidity and depth of field of the medium is brilliantly explored. The backgrounds and the character designs are also excellent and remain so throughout. The only thing I was not a fan of was the fanservice of the series. It was not excessive so it was never a big issue but it did affect how seriously one perceives the show in a couple of spots.

Read or Die's only sore spot is the soundtrack, as it is an adequate one but not one that stands out. The scores suit their scene effectively but they are not powerful enough to warrant a purchase of the soundtrack. The sound effects are great during the battle scenes and when objects move (which is important here as a lot of travelling and levitation takes place), and the voice acting is also very accomplished.

With a professional seiyuu cast, characters are brought to life successfully and Read or Die delivers just that. The main cast of Maggie, Michelle, Anita and Nenene are voiced so well that they are distinct characters, and on more than one occasion the performance allows you to feel the anguish of the characters without it sounding overdone or melodramatic. The episode previews are actually a great demonstration of the eloquence performance of the cast.

The characters of R.O.D only ever suffer from sounding one note in a few places because some of them are underwritten. This is to be expected when the story has to cover so much and the cast is fairly large, but it still affected how some of them came accross even if it were just a minor quelm. Characters like Anita, The Paper and Maggie suffered in that sense a little bit because the writing did not call for them to be more than one-note characters most of the time. A few efforts are made to make them a little more believable throughout and especially towards the end, which was convincing enough but not quite as engaging as it could have been.

As mentioned, R.O.D has a whole lot of story to tell and it does so very well for most of its run. Some elements could have been explored a little further, such as why the British Library and especially Wendy were so devoted to their cause but what was given was convincing enough to not leave plotholes which was the most important thing. The inclusion of later characters was also done smoothly which was great but it does not really come as a surprise since this show's writers are some of the best out there when it comes to pacing a story. The twists were also well paced and brought in to consistently engage you more and more in the title.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this anime and I think it can easily be enjoyed by many because of its broad appeal, so it is an easy recommendation. Keep with it if you are not too sure about the first few episodes as it just gets better from there, and delivers one of the best action anime series of all time.

I shouldn't be rating this after only seeing one episode, but I'll come back and update if my opinion changes. I have good feelings about this and will continue watching.

My favorite thing about this is that it has a great variety of female protagonist that aren't completely sexualized, it's one of the few anime's I've seen with that. Plus their powers are pretty cool.

It has a bit of a slow start, but is still interesting enough to carry the narative. I found the animation was good, nothing spectactular but it doesn't detract from the story. Voice actors I thought were pretty good, overall sounds didn't stand  to me though. 

three sisters engage there lives with eachother as true sisters even though they arent related. One of the sisters is a succsesful writer but hasnt published a new book in years.