Baldr Force EXE - Reviews

Story

Though the idea of futuristic cyber worlds has been recycled time and time again, depending on the quality of the production it can be either fascinating or boring; Baldr Force, fortunately, is of the former category.  Yet, to my dismay, it had one giant hurdle that it had to overcome: time constraint.  It certainly made a valiant attempt at doing so, presenting both a complex and unique world occupied by interesting and depth-driven characters, but ultimately fell short.

The basic premise of the OVA is that mankind has advanced technology to allow a person to project himself or herself into a virtual world by "plugging in" to the net.  By means of electronics, computers can basically hi-jack a human's brain functions and translate them into this alternate reality with relative ease, allowing access for just about anyone interested.  It comes with a price, however: the process is physically taxing on the body, limiting the amount of time one can spend inside, and forcing a period of rest and recovery before one can re-enter.  More importantly, though, due to the high amount of electricity flowing through the human body, any sort of trauma incurred while in the virtual world can cause disruptions in this electrical flow, resulting in severe physical injuries and possibly even death.*

That said, the OVA follows a young man by the name of Toru.  Immediately after the opening scene, you find he's been apprehended for attempting to hack into a government agency, Flak.  He had been with three others at the time, but during the hack one of them, his best friend Yuya, had been killed by someone in the organization.  Flak, basically the police of the virtual world, are in the midst of hunting down a hacker who has been brutally murdering people on the web, and decide to offer Toru a deal.  They recognize his top notch skills, so they offer him a deal: he helps Flak hunt down the killer, they give him clemency.  Though on the surface he accepts seeming to accept the deal for his own personal freedom, his main goal is to hunt down and kill the member of Flak who happened to kill Yuya.

The story explodes from there, and soon we find Toru involved with a huge web of organizations and characters as he keeps getting deeper and deeper into the case.  Keeping in mind that this spans only four episodes, let me list them for emphasis: Steppen Wolf, Flak, VSS, Fei Dao, and Ren.  There are a number of singular characters who appear as well apart from these major groups; the total is probably around 20-25 characters, all of which have some connection to him in one form or another.  They are integrated into the storyline rather smoothly, however, but as I shall touch upon shortly, are simply too numerous to really connect with the viewer in a brief span of time.

Fortunately, Baldr Force doesn't dawdle with trying develop characters which it knows it doesn't have time to do, so the focus is shifted almost entirely to moving the storyline along; boy does it move.  It changes direction faster than a child with ADHD, taking you through a whirlwind of twists and turns.  Yet, it ends with a resounding thud, as the series runs out of time before it can really tie up any of its loose ends.  As such, the ending is awkward and defunct, even if really not all that bad in itself.  Had Baldr Force thirteen episodes to convey the same amount of content it tried to do in four, I think it would have been a fabulous series, but alas it ends up only as a decent OVA.

*Let me make a note for the faint of heart: this is not a happy or pretty OVA.  People die consistently throughout the course of the four episodes, and the process can be rather graphic at times.  Also, a number of other touchy topics surface as it progresses, including a rather brutal rape scene.  Definitely not for younger audiences.

Animation

Not the most tantalizing display of animation, but certainly of high-quality OVA standards.  Unlike many anime series, the duplicitous installment of CGI alongside the main style of animation actually worked rather well in this instance.  There seemed a particularly strong emphasis on synchronizing the two to look visually similar, which prevented the CGI scenes from being distractors rather than productive content.  As a result, the normally animated scenes have a realistic feel to them while the CGI scenes have a much more cybernetic flavor.  Given that the disparity between the two was one of Baldr Force's central themes, I felt the animators did a splendid job at showcasing this without any real fragmentation.

Sound

Being an avid fan of Kotoko's works, I loved both the opening and ending tracks.  In fact, I stumbled on the opening theme purely by accident (it's a remix of one of her older songs), and that ironically lead me to discovering this OVA.  Of the two, however, the ending theme, Undelete, is definitely more memorable.  If nothing else, I found Baldr Force a fruitful watch just for being able to listen to this song -- it's extremely melancholic and absolutely beautiful.

Characters

As I mentioned in the story section, there's just way too many characters.  Most series wouldn't dare impliment this many in twenty-six episodes, much less four, and with good reason.  Though the OVA progressed surprisingly well despite this, I felt many of the emotional aspects of the character relationships were overshadowed.  The plot continually shifts direction, but does so in such a manner that it leaves way too many loose ends undone. 

Toru and Ayane's grudge, for example, becomes virtually nonexistant as a plot element in the final two episodes, despite it being the foundation of the first two.  This was frustrating to say the least, as he makes for a fantastic lead with his passionate, loyal personality and firm dedication to vengeance.  The skeletal framework for a much deeper and intense relationship was built, but no meat was ever placed on the bones.  Just when you come to expect a climax, it ends abruptly.

Unfortunately, all of the key character connections suffered similar fates.  Far too much time was spent on raising questions and not enough on answering them.  While Toru's character flourished in spite of it all, it did not remove the bitter taste of artificiality.  I could sympathize with Toru, but I couldn't have cared less about anyone else.  Again, in the grand scheme of the anime it's not really important that I did, but it would have qualified the characters as "great" instead of "good."

Overall

In lieu of all the negativity, however, I did enjoy the OVA.  Its flaws occured from an abudance of depth rather than a lack thereof, which certainly offers for a more satisfying experience even if not all that stunning.  Some impressive scriptwriting and plot development, and my only disappointment was that the side characters were not given enough time to properly develop.

Regardless, it only takes a couple hours to watch, so there's really no reason not to try it out.  Baldr Force probably would have worked better as a thirteen episode series, but its level of production quality allows it to pass as an OVA.  Overall, one of the more solid short-length productions and worth your time if you're interested.   

I picked this OVA series up because it was part of the S.A.V.E. packet here at Right Stuff. This means that it was very very cheap and I decided to gamble. Why is it a gamble? Well.... these SAVE series can be put in 2 categories. The first is that the series was good and many copies were bought in because they expected high sales and they want to get rid of their left over stock. The second is because the series was utter crap. Guess which category this one falls in.

ART. The art can be summed up as utterly garbage. The scened in the real world a decent enough but a lot of it takes place in the Wired, or virtual world. The Wired is made up of horrible CGI that actually hurts to look at. Mind you, I have seen worse CGI, but this looked truly awful and switching from one medium to the other is jarring to say the least.

SOUND. The voice actors do their job but they don't have much to work with. You have seen most characters done better in better anime although the latter is not hard to achieve.

CHARCTERS. Main character is Souma Toru. He is a highly skilled hacker who joins FLAK in order to avenge the death of his friend.

STORY. This is a 4 episode OVA series so there is very little story to be had. In fact I pretty much summed it up in the character section of this review. It's amazing really but that one sentence really is all there is.

RANT. I've already mentioned the bad CGI so I will not mention it further. But it is bad.

The main problem I had with the 'story' was the very reason that Toru fights. First off you can forget averything you read off the box as it is utter BS. I do not know what anime they used to write that but it certainly wasn't this one. The names match up but that is about it.

Here is why Toru joins FLAK. FLAK is a government(?) organisation that regulates everything that goes on in the Wired. Toru is part of a group of hackers that break into systems in order to steal information which they then sell. Knowing that the risks are becoming to great they decide on one final run and break into FLAK. Unfortunately they get caught between FLAK and a terrorist organisation that is also after FLAK and get ripped to shreds. Everyone is arrested but Toru's best friend is killed by FLAK forces. Not willing to let his friends death slide he joins FLAK in order to find the one responsible for this death and avenge him.

Did you see the utter stupidity in the story? Let me clarify a bit further. Toru knows that the Wired is becoming increasingly dangerous. He decides to hack the system of the very people responsible for making the Wired and dangerous place for people like him. He does this knowing full well that getting caught might mean death yet he goes anyway. Unsurprisingly they get caught and one of FLAK people kills his friend. Although FLAK was completely in their right when they killed him and Toru is actually the one responsible for his friends death with his halfassed plot to break into their system he goes and join FLAK in order to find one person simply doing his job and kill him or her.

This is the guy we are supposed to root for here and this at no time happens. There are some subplots that centre around the main character. This is mainly to create a bigger threat so that he is forced to abandon his revenge plan and fight with the killer but the root of the problem remains. The one responsible for his friends death is none other than Toru himself. If he had picked any other target he would have gotten away with it and his friend would be alive. But he went for the most dangerous target instead and paid the price.

Fourteen. That is the amount of community anime reviews I’ve done for Anime-Planet. In this review, I am taking a look at the generic but fun four episode OVA Baldr Force EXE. No spoilers or cursing, as usual.  Check out my other reviews. I welcome comments and criticism or reviews of my review. Thanks for reading and on with the review!

Story; It really is not very original, but it does keep you entertained and just a warning, your head may explode after watching this – not really, if anything it’ll explode of how generic the show is. It follows a young hacker named Souma Toru, who works for Steppen Wolf, a group of hackers obviously. When Steppen Wolf disbands, stuff gets pretty interesting and he is taken into custody by a mysterious organization and so Souma Toru is forced to join FLAK or else face prison. From there, he meets a girl who calls him "big brother" and sounds really darn creepy in saying it,  yet another hacker-terrorist group and the VSS who do not have much of a role in the first place.

Animation; The illustrious and sometimes bipolar studio that brought you Macross Frontier, Sousei no Aquarion and Noein, BALDR FORCE EXE Resolution is animated by the studio Satelight. It's pretty much a bunch of mecha/robots running around in cyberspace and they look pretty darn generic. Not a very unique one in the bunch at all. The 2D animation is very pretty solid and gorgeous and definitely the real story of the OVA. Background and scenic shots look pretty too. Satelight did an okay job with this. Not exactly the level of quality that I have come to expect of OVAs.

Sound; If you are a fan of KOTOKO, like me, you will know she is the singer of the opening song. The opening song is absolutely gorgeous and exciting to listen to. The ending song is also very easy on the ears but pales in comparison to the opening. The background music is interesting as well, if not just a little generic. The voice acting was so-so for English and only a little better for the Japanese track.

Characters; The characters weren't very remarkable or unique. Baldr Force EXE brings nothing new to the table with its characters. Souma Toru was the typical guy with a burden and bone to pick, similar to other stereotypical shounen male characters. I think in the overall sense, the secondary cast was just so much more fun to watch. The designs are highly appealing and really satisfying to look at.

Overall; I cannot say I really loved or liked it. It was merely okay to enjoyable. Nothing more, nothing less. Really. It For only four episodes so it was not a real big time-consuming task. All in all, it was satisfying, violent and entertaining. If you got time to kill, give Baldr Force EXE a chance. It was a fun way to spend a few hours. I do not regret watching it. It brings nothing new to the table, but what really does anymore?