Project ARMS - Reviews

First some items I need to adress. I'm Dutch to expect some spelling errors, if they are to annoying just message me and I'll fix it.

My opinion may vary from others and this is fine. People are different so there is a good chance that I will not like what you love. Deal with it. I'm not telling you that you should hate it too, I'm telling you why I didn't like it.

I'll try to keep swearing to a minimum but fail utterly on occasion. In general it is the more the anime pisses me off the more I swear so watch out for the low scored ones.

Art: This sries is from 2001 but I would have never guessed by looking at the art. It looks like something straight out of the eighties. Still it does what it sets out to do and do it relatively well.

Sound: No real problems here either. I can't remember any of the music and that is how I prefer it. Voice acting is fine but they didn't have much to work with either.

Characters: Main character is Ryo, a young high school boy who learns that his life is a lie. Not willing to lay down and die he has no choice to beat his enemies. He has a code of honer that he adhers to stricktly.

Hayato is out for revenge on the people who killed his clan and everyone in the town he lived in. His personality is volatile and has a habit of switching moods in an instant.

Takeshi is a recent transfer to the school and also one of the ARMS. Initially terrified of his powers he learns to deal with it with the help from Hayato and Ryo. Out of all of them he is one most driven to protect the innocent.

Kei is the only one raised by the group that created them and feels that she is the one best suited to lead. She tries hard but learns the hard way that wanting to lead and leading are two very different things.

Katsumi is Ryo's neighbour and the reason things get set in motion. She is the damsel in distress that forms Ryo's actions. Ryo cares deeply for her and she cares for him.

Keiths. There are seven of them and each has their own special power and personalities. They run a powerful organisation bent on ruling the world from the shadows. They also perform horrific human experiments trying to create the ultimate weapon.

Story. Ryo is just living his life when a transfer student throws things into chaos. Hayato claims that Ryo killed his clan and tries to kill him at school. It is then that Ryo learns about the world that he to is a part of when his ARMS activates. Together with Hayato they set out to fight the organisation out for their lives but first they must find the remaining two ARMS.

Rant. This anime is laughibly bad at times and this is actually the main selling point of this series. At times it reaches rediculous levels of bad and I laughed my ass off. There are plot holes big enough to drive trucks through.

If you are into bad anime that are so bad that they are good then this is for you.

A lame sci-fi action anime surrounding annoying characters.

The plot seems like an old kiddy ride: slow, rickety, and jerky. 

There are unrealistic occurrences all over the place.

I dropped it pretty early.

Overall, I would give it a 3/10. Trust me, just skip it.

Project ARMS is a 2 Season 52 Episode 2001 Anime Adaption of a Award Winning 1997 Biopunk Action Manga that used to be published on Shonen Sunday. And in Japan, was pretty popular enough to get a Toyline, Card Game, PS2 Game, Multiple Manga re-releases including one with the anime's artsyle, and even a Pachinko back in 2013. Produced by TMS Entertainment, the same studio behind the likes of Sonic X and School Days.

Story: 7

The story is about a Highschooler named Ryo Takatsuki who ends gaining the attention of the new student, Hayato Shingu, who after getting into some fights all from a misunderstanding all set up by an mysterious organization that calls themselves the Egregori, as well as awakening a lethal power from their arms. The boys along with Ryo's childhood best friend, Katsumi Akagi form an alliance. Not too long after they meet another recent transfer student named Takeshi Tomoe, who's legs also can turn into a mechanical weapon. The story is then about them trying to unravel what's going on while being confronted by members of the organization. Some of these plot twist being quite shocking but some that may be seen as silly by today's standards. Sadly however after reading the manga after finishing the series, I discovered that certain plot elements and characters, along with the true final arc of the series never made it in to the anime. Not helped by the fact the manga was still finishing up back in 2002 while the anime was still airing, which also led to some liberties taken such as certain villains meeting their downfall sooner than intended and a certain area's location change.

Visuals: 5

Even though this came out in 2001, the 1st season looks rather vintage for its time. Let alone some inconsistent off modeling moments so tongue in cheek, it makes you wonder if it was done on purpose for the lolz. Though Season 1's visuals got the whole dark sci-fi atmosphere down despite it's datedness. The same cannot be said for it's Season 2, which switched to Digital Animation, resulting in not only having a much different and brighter aesthetic, but also manages to be much more inconsistent in it's quality due to Digital Animation being pretty new at the time back then.

Sound: 6

The Opening Themes got this Nirvana style rock to them and are admittedly catchy and the Ending Themes are nice, especially Ending 2 and 3 (Garnet Crow FTW!). The Insert music is serviceable, though some tracks such as a certain melodramatic violin piece tends to get overplay at points throughout the series that it comes off as comical, and the 2nd Chapter added some of the corniest heroic insert music I have heard that I LMAO whenever they played. I however did like that one Organ Music Piece Katsumi played later on and a certain Musicbox tune much later into the show.

Characters: 7

Ryo is like a mix between Akira Fudo from Devilman and Bruce Banner from the Incredible Hulk with the E Rank Luck (And Seiyuu) of Lancer from Fate/Stay Night, he's a chill and friendly guy who happens to get himself involved in the whole plot and basically has to get used to defending himself and his newfound nakama while having to learn to properly use his newfound right arm powers.

Hayato is the foul mouth shouty angry guy who swears a lot and doesn't take people's crap that easily. He is motivated in wanting to avenge his parents and village's death at the hands of someone named Keith. Despite his hostilities towards Ryo early on they do over the course of the series become best buds and Hayato proves to be a total bro who lives up to the title of White Knight. Easily one of my favorites in this series. Not to mention he provides a lot of amusing lines of dialogue, especially in the English dub.

Katsumi is Ryo's childhood friend and clearly his love interest. She doesn't have any powers of her own. She's kinda like Fiora from Xenoblade Chronicles, minus the badass traits to balance out the Damsel in Distress tendencies. Her Relationship with Ryo gets more complicated as the show goes on.

Takeshi is the wimpy and timid Everyman, who over the course of the show has to grow himself a spine and become just as much of a capable fighter as Ryo and Hayato. Unfortunately, some of the more interesting stuff he goes through much later on in the story in the manga didn't get adapted over to the anime, giving him less screen time and presence that he had there.

Other noteworthy characters that get introduced along the way include a Female ARMS user with Eye Powers and Trust Issues, A Bratty Child Genius, A Police Detective, and a Blonde Psychic that wants Ryo's D. Sure the cast do sound stock on paper, but they do manage to be pretty entertaining and do avoid being stereotypes, though because the final arc was never adapted, they never got to reach proper conclusion to their character arcs, save for a few.

Voice Acting: 

The Japanese Version contains some well known seiyuus such as Nobutoshi Canna, Shinichiro Miki, Yuji Ueda, Minami Takayama, Megumi Ogata, and Shuichi Ikeda. Many of whom having done work on Persona and/or Danganronpa, making their roles here a lot more amusing in hindsight if anyone's familiar with their work. Though they're performances, while competent, isn't exactly their most outstanding work. It's not that they are bad per say, but more of being stuck with working with dialogue that can get admittedly laughably cliche and over the top at certain times (Volf, Karl, and Kou being the worst offenders to the point they are the most bland and forgettable performances). Also one minor antagonist, Kyklops sounds like a screechy cat. Still personally enjoyed them for what they are, particularly Nobutoshi Canna as Ryo, who I'll admit his performance as Ryo is rather underrated (In fact, Canna considers Ryo to be his most underrated role in his career according to his interview at Fanime 2019). Didn't stop them from reprising their roles years later for the Pachinko game back in 2013

As for the English Dub produced by the Ocean Group, it's manages to be pure fun cheese and relishes in on the surreality of it all, especially moreso in The 2nd Chapter. The Dub features some known Canadian VAs such as Kirby Morrow, Venus Terzo (Both she and Morrow were also Jean Grey and Cyclops in X-Men Evolution), Brian Drummond (Who gets some of the funniest lines as Hayato), Brad Swaile, Nicole Oliver, Jillian Michaels, Willow Johnson, and more. Even including some VAs from Ed Edd n Eddy in Villain Roles giving gloriously hammy performances. It also contains pretty hilarious dialogue, especially in the context of the situation they are in such as "Ryo's always been nuttier than a squirrel turd" to "They've gone crazy! Like Frat Boys on a Panty Raid!". It may not be their most professional effort when compared to their other dubs they made in the past, but it's an amusing campy project reminiscent to that of the English dub for Ghost Stories that is worth checking out if your into that kind of thing, especially considering that they knew that this show ain't gonna sell jack back then.

Overall: 

While the show may not be seen as the most original, groundbreaking, or having the most stellar animation, especially by today's high standards. It manages to have a more grounded than the usual shonen formula but unusually strangely presented storyline from the blatant Alice in Wonderland references to some surprising plot twists and the hilariously strange designs of the ARMS. But is a overall pretty flawed adaptation of it's manga source material. However given that the Manga artist's previous work, Spriggan, is getting an anime adaptation on Netflix by David Productions, there is a probability that a Anime Reboot of this franchise might become a thing in the near future.

Story:

Well...it was your average shounen series I guess. Except this one had a darker twist to it.

Honestly though, it was nothing new. Boy gets power. He's scared of power. Faces strong opponent. Defeats opponent. Meets even stronger opponent, etc. And the way the series set the powers up was very convenient, they get stronger with every usage. So, I guess I knew what I was headed for, so I wasn't too dissapointed. Actually, it was the opposite. This series is as cliche and predictable (for the most part) as these types of shows get. Yet for some reason, I couldn't stop watching it. I had to continue, I had to know what would happen next.

Maybe it was because it tingled my long deprived action cravings. Maybe it was because I had nothing better to do. But honestly, I did get a lot of satisfaction watching this show and I would recommend it to people who have lot of spare time, and currently do not have a series to watch.

One thing I did like about this series was that it had no fillers. There was action in every single episode. Something was always happening. So that kept me on my toes, and one thing less to complain about.

Animation: It's been a long time since I've watched something this quality. It was really bad. There are an infinite amount of still shots and just generally bland colors and uninteresting scenery. The character designs also pissed me off a little. Jabberwock looks more ridiculous then he does frightening. The main character has the weirdest, puffiest, bushiest, side burns ever. Every time I looked at him, I couldn't ignore those sideburns.

Sound: I had a hard time scoring this one. The soundtrack was completely forgettable. However...the dubbing. Oh gosh, the dubbing, I watched the first season in Jap with Eng subtitles, but couldn't find that format for the second season. So I watched it in English. I..I honestly don't know what to say. It was so ridiculous that it was actually hilarious. I wrote the quotes in a book. Here's a sample:

"Everyone's going crazy! They're acting like frat boys on a panty raid!"

It's just the way the characters say these lines, and in the situation they use it in that gets me. A little 12 year old boy genius goes around calling everyone "fuck heads", which of course led to me hysterically cracking up for a good 10 minutes.

And also, there is SO MUCH cursing in this show. I mean, I don't give a crap about being a potty mouth. I curse all the time. I even get happy when characters in animes curse. But here...it was just annoying after a while. I swear, Hayato's (one of the main characters) vocabulary literally consists of "Fuck, Bitch, Damn, Dick, ass, etc." I literally wanted to punch him after a couple of episodes.

Characters:

Well, you've got all of them. The innocent girl. The hero who is afraid of his powers. The timid one. The brash loud annoying one. The girl who doesn't trust anyone. Oh, and they all have a troubled pasts. I could go on and on, but for everyone's sake, I'll leave it at that. The hero spends most of the show angsting. Hayato spend most of his time cursing little kids out and being loud angry and just generally, an asshole. The timid one is just there. He does stuff, but you don't really give a damn about him. I felt nothing for any of these characters. When ever they weren't acting like themselves they were spewing cliche statements like "I'll protect the ones I love!" Great great great dialogue. Really. Really makes me want to cry and say "Oh, they're so brave!"

Overall:

Despite the fact that this series is as mediocre as it gets, I still enjoyed it. I suggest you watch a couple of episodes in season 2. You'll get a kick out of the dialogue.