Running time: 24 minutes
Number of episodes: 25
Vintage: 2004-07-04 to 2004-12-26
Age rating: Teenagers (May contain bloody violence, bad language, nudity)
Genres: Drama, Mecha, Science Fiction, Shounen
Animation Production: Xebec
Broadcaster: TV Tokyo
Original Creator: Xebec
Production: Starchild Records, Xebec
Source: Anime News Network
The Good: Absolutely nothing.
The Bad: It exists.
Status: Dropped
My impressions and review:
Remember Neon Genesis Evangelion? It’s a classic by Hideaki Anno and although it was ridden with all kinds of problems due to funding it is still one of the best mecha series of all time. Well, if you liked Neon Genesis Evangelion you’re definately not going to like this.
Fafner’s first episode mirrors Neon Genesis Evangelion down to the bone. The school students, the giant shields that spring up from the ground to protect the town, the pilot’s father being part of the secret organization that protects the people from the enemy, and the reluctance of the pilot to fight are all here. Sure, they added some meaningless death scenes, but they severely lacked in augmenting the tension. It’s not the Neon Genesis Evangelion cloning that bothers me, it’s the lack of the effort to go beyond what Neon Genesis Evangelion presented.
I’m not very fond of the art style, although that usually has little bearing to how good an anime is. However, the terrible art and the lackluster storyline go hand in hand here. The voice acting for some of the female characters is rough and it makes listening to them a bit tiresome. Another thing that bothered me was the music. It just doesn’t have any significance to the scenes at all and doesn’t stick in your head like the sounds from Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Virtually every aspect of Neon Genesis Evangelion that Fafner ripped off is better in the original source material. They did nothing to evolve the mold and created a mess. Do yourself a favor and avoid Fafner.
It gets a lot better as it goes along, a hell of a lot better.
I think it’d be useful if you indicate at which ep you dropped the series. Personally I thought Fafner is very different from Eva. Both focus and build on different themes. Did you get to the Shouko and Tsubaki bits? There were some beautiful moments in those tales/arcs.
Well, most of my rant was based on my anger towards the first episode. I did watch the second episode but then the show reverted to “it’s ok, this is normal, we can get through this” and not a psychological ride the way Hideaki built Eva. That’s not to say every anime with mecha must be emo to the core because that is hardly why fans of Eva praise it so, but it really puts things into perspective. Eva is a much more complex and adult experience whereas Fafner felt more simple and less convoluted for better and for far worse. The legendary dragon pitch fused with random “this sounds cool in engrish, let’s use it” science doesn’t make it more interesting to me.
At the end of it all it’s still about kids being forced to be mecha pilots. I saw no future beyond what I saw. If it does indeed get better later on that’s good. However, can it really deviate much from the horrible flat experience the first episode (an important episode) delivered? It really felt like the seiyuu and the director didn’t quite understand the characters and how to convey struggle, danger, or adrenaline.
Hmm… if you drop a series with 2 eps on the basis of comparing apples to oranges, I think you’ll miss out on a lot of gems. Fafner is not exactly one but it’s not as worthless as described.
Well if you like it, that’s fine. People like what people like, even if they don’t agree. I don’t like it and I’m not willing to keep going on the promise of greener grass later on. Failure to deliver initially and consistently destroys an anime in my opinion. It can be the difference between something to watch and something to keep.
Well, It was a decent anime in my opinion, I certainly didn’t drop it, although I could have… It was sure worth it. Eva, being my all time fav, can’t be compared to this… thing. That’s not to say that this is a bad… thing, it’s actually quite neat. Fafner is actually about hardships, i think… And the final confrontation wasn’t bad. I’ve got the PSP game (In jap) and it’s pretty damn hot (Although a bit short).
And the beginning was full of sappy moments but those were okay i guess, later on you see less of wonder-boy a.k.a Mr “let’s ditch the island with the teacher” and more of the other kids.
It’s a good thing you dropped it. It’s a terrible anime. And actually, I don’t like the art direction either, and as it turns out, a lot of animes that the art director played a role in, I don’t like either.