Anime: Gokukoku no Brynhildr 62567

The past cannot be changed nor forgotten. That's why to hold on the past always creates suffering, although once it was really wonderful.

Brynhildr in the Darkness is an anime based on a manga by Lynn Okamoto of Elfen Lied. First impression, Elfen Lied? The one that full with bloody mess of gore scene that even go as far to introduce Pedophile, cruelty, sexuality and nudity. To be honest, it quite shocked when this anime is out. I nearly think it's as a new version of Elfen lied when it come to the gore scene. Still, there are quite gore scenes you can't evade. You can't escape from gore if you're going to watch this anime series. Better think carefully. Nevertheless this anime is definitely not an Elfen Lied new version or something like that. Don't compare them! It's wrong! Both anime have it's owns greatness. But this anime is so full with new comedy, new concept of story and a good character development involving past and present.

Side note, I already watch and complete this anime when all of the episode is already out. Regretful, I just thinking to write a review about it just now. Yet, I'm still can feel the enthusiasm about this anime. Let's get back to the story shall we?

Story 8/10
Romance. I'll tell it's directly that this anime have a really good romance inside. Watch this if you a romance genre fans. You will love it! Back to the story. The story of anime itself is pretty amazing. It's slowly build up and the effort has been paid up after the ending of the series. I think it the fresh one after so many cliché anime I've watches. The theme of memory loss and choosing dark tones is the one of the fact that brings out this anime potential far better. The stories tell us about Ryouta, a boy who the promise he had with his childhood friend’s kuroneko. Nightmare happen when Kuroneko die while saving Ryouta. Full with regrets after the incident that occurs. Ryouta chooses not to forget it and keep the promise. Yes, to find the real alien. Ryouta keeps up his promise up until his life as a high school student. But, one day, fates change everything when he meets with a new transfer student name Kurohaneko. The past will unfold with the destiny Ryouta never expect. Better take a seat mate. You will love this story. A really good performances by all the character. A big applause please.

Art 7/10
You will like it. The art of this series play an important role to show you. It's has been shown a great one as darker feeling in it. Animation inside will startled you. Why not see this for yourself? You can ensure it better this way.

Sound 9/10
Honestly, I love the Ops. It's so great while also bring this feel uneasy with darker theme yet fantastic. On opposite, the ending is quite catchy and might catch your attention before you even realize it. But the ops, I can say it's really fabulous. How fabulous? It’s like Bitch please, I'm fabulous. That's one about a quote not me.

Character 8/10
I also love the character. Kuroneko is so cute! The expression she made is simple marvelous. I will keeps saying it's marvelous and marvelous until you get bored of it. The others girl also cute but I think I pick kuroneko! Ehehe. Just thinking it back made me sound a creepy laugh and grin to ear. If I show this face at public. No doubt I will get arrested by police in no time.

Enjoyment and Overall
Sadly, I want to give this anime a masterpiece but I can't. Since in the last episode I feel like it was way to rushing. You know the feeling when you still eating food at cafeteria but the ring of your school is already ringing. Yea, bullshit man. Others than that, this anime is really great. Better not give up watching this series. I know you will like it. Definitely watch this series, I'm recommend it to you. But alert, it's not suit to children under age 13. By the way since I think this anime is really great, maybe a second season is not that hard to get. Oh Wait don't get too hype up yet, but I think the chances is pretty high. Let's hope so. Ganbatte Gokukoku!! This is my ending of review. Thanks for reading!

Review
Elfen Lied released in 2004 and amassed a large number of fans. The reason was simple: there was nothing like it before. It didn't matter if it was espetacular or bad, the fact that it wasn't terrible and the innovative idea were enough to grab the attention of the average otaku of that time. Hell, it had ecchi and gore, a Love Hina with surprising deaths, blood and superpowers! It had a classical latin opening! It was the must for the teenagers of that time. I was starting college and was entranced by this kind of work.

Anyway, jump ten years. Within that time we've seen an entire new genre arise from Elfen Lied's ashes. Hundreds of shows mixed cute girls and lolis with blood, murderer, gore, and other opposite things. Some of them were funny, others interesting, but the majority was bland. Gokukoku no Brynhildr (Brynhildr) brings one more attempt at the genre to the screens. Is it any good? Well... that depends.

Brynhildr is the tale about Ryouta, a nerdy boy who spends all nights gazing at the stars. While this has turned into a hobby of some sorts, he does so because he promised his childhood friend, Kuroneko, that he would prove that aliens existed. Kuroneko died in an accident he thinks he was responsible, so his promise became even more important to him.

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1. You know what awaits you
   Expect the following: nerdy boy finds childhood friend, unexpected transfer students, harem building, lots of ecchi scenes, witches, bizarre magic, and a bit of gore. The harem building is all that you know about if you've seen at least one show of the genre: busty blondie, pervet girl, typical damsel, and gothic lolita, all with your tsundere behavior and tons of scenes where pantsu, swimsuits, and other ecchi stuff applies.
   
   Perhaps far too light..
   Unlike Elfen Lied, Brynhildr is a bit scared of tearing interesting character aparts, so most of the gore you'll see is kinda light because it happens with useless characters or in some way that it loses any possible impact, such as showing a possible future that never happens. The protagonist and his harem girls are completely immune to true harm, although they are fleeing a secret super-powerful organization, are dealing with aliens, magic, psychic stuff and other national-level threats.
   
   The sense of fleeing and lack of time for the girls dissipates as suddenly as it is presented due to that light-, ecchi-focused narrative. Elfen Lied and others of the genre had more impact in the scenes that opposed the happy-go harem life, something lacking in Brynhildr.
   
   And as far as ecchi goes...
   Brynhildr is your average harem show for most of the time. The pervert girl provides some funny scenes, but sadly she is just another tsundere that takes a bit more time to remove her mask than others. The other girls are no fun at all, far too basic, far too common, and lacking some sort of realism, comedy, or drama to enhance their personalities. As a matter of fact, all the girls, initially told to be dying within a few days, never show any sign of fear because of that. They just want to be normal teenagers, go to school, meet a nerd boy and live in a harem.
   
   The production doesn't help
   Arms studio has a huge portfolio of ecchi shows, but none of their major works hit the mark. Brynhildr doesn't hit the mark as well. As far as art and animation goes, it is quite basic, with a general lack of detail and average work. The character design doesn't help as well, being so basic that the entire cast will quickly merge with characters from other shows inside your mind. The only saving part is the sound direction, which takes Elfen Lied as an example and manage to mix the annoying girls with a slightly more serious work. The opening is a dramatic instrumental score, while the voice-actors manage to do a great job even with all the girls around.
   

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Comments
It has been some time since my last similar show. Elfen Lied left a nice impression when I first watched it, but doing so again showed me it was no masterpiece, it was just a nice change of pace. Brynhildr initally made me think the same thing, with two starting episodes that managed to keep the ecchi to a controlled level and proposed a nonsensical, yet inspiring story idea of a boy starting a harem of over-powered witches fleeing even-more-powerful foes. Sadly, the show never progresses past this idea. The enemies are random and beaten easily by the protagonist's "smart" ideas, while the "magic" of the girls is uninspiring and basic at most. The ecchi focus offers a nice experience for fans of the genre, but as it goes forward, the opposite gore-alien-super-power stuff loses ground and everything starts to lose fun.

Most creators get better with time but Okamoto is not one of them. I mean, holly shit, he had a decade to make a new story that is not repeating the atrocious problems Elfen Lied (EL hereon) had, and instead of that, he rehashes the exact same thing in Brynhildr and made it worse.

Both stories try to sell their shit by being edgy as hell, full of gore, splatter, nudity, and any other manipulative jump scare tactics you can think of. EL is better, not because it had more of that crap, but because said crap were still a fresh thing back then, as far as tv anime go (and no, 90s OVAs don’t count). The thing is, nowadays animated violence is too mainstream, and thus nowhere near as special because we see it all the time. Brynhildr doesn’t have the instant hook effect of EL, and thus loses simply for not being made in that time period. Retro always wins, even if it’s a terrible anime.

But even if we don’t stick to how fresh the gore feels today, Brynhildr is still worse. Bleeding in EL was to the most part a result of torture by the military dudes. In Brynhildr they were bleeding because they were not taking their medicine. It doesn’t have the same punch as when you are coughing blood from metallic spheres that are being thrown at you as part of a satanic experiment. Also, many of the girls turn to goo when they die, instead of leaving behind dismembered bodies. Even that feels silly compared to the non-dissolvable corpses of EL.

Both of them have a very catchy opening song but the EL one is infinitely better for having stolen artwork by a famous artist. The pseudo-artistic looks of it, combined with pretty damn good opera singing, resulted in one of the best opening songs of all time. On the other hand, Brynhildr’s song may be catchy, but it’s also dubstep, a patchwork of music clips from earlier works, stitched together with computer. There is hardly as much effort put into making it, as there is with an actual singing performance accompanied by a whole orchestra. The same thing applies for the artwork they used in the intro. There is nothing pseudo-artistic about it; it’s edgy shit and clips from some action show. You can actually replace the song with any other you like and nobody will be able to tell the difference. That makes it lazy, contrived, and even tasteless. Furthermore, for some retarded reason this show gets a second opening in the last 3 episodes, and this time it is a horrible mismatch of screams and epileptic scene changes. Whatever good impressions one would have from the music it is completely trashed because of this mind baffling decision to replace an average opening with ear bleeding junk.

Both of them are full of girls being constantly naked and bleeding, but EL is excusing it far better. The military bad guys kept the girls naked, so they won’t use clothes as weapons, plus it was depicting how they were not treating them as people but rather as beasts. Even when they are shown naked in front of the harem lead, it was being masked as innocence, because they all had the intelligence of a monkey. There is no such thing in Brynhildr, it is shamelessly throwing at you boob jokes, cloth fetishes, tsundere talking, and forced bath scenes for no other reason than having fapping material. It’s not even trying to present itself as innocent, since some of the girls are mean bitches.

A big chunk of the drama in EL was its grey morality. The supernatural girls were constantly killing people as means to survive, and because the normal people were mistreating them. The military dudes were cruel as means to control the girls and protect humanity from them. It falls apart later on when you realize it all has to do with genes, but at least on a very superficial level it was excusing the cruelty. Brynhildr doesn’t do that. The girls are not shown killing normal people and are simply running away from generic megalomaniac evil dudes, because they will be killed if they are captured. There is no grey morality, it is more than obvious to tell who are the bad and who are the good.

Both shows have a blunt male hoarding girls in his place, but EL does it better. Kouta was just an average guy with a ridiculously high amount of trustworthiness. He was not bright or cunning; he was just your typical visual novel vanilla guy with a big heart all chicks are supposed to love. Ryouta on the other hand is an asshole. He is constantly making boob jokes, and is trying to look like a smart-ass in every chance he gets. In fact, the show is constantly trying to make him look like he is a genius who always plans ahead, and is thus an amazing protagonist. The problem is, the plot makes no sense, the writing is horrible, the twists come out of nowhere, and thus any so-called deduction procedure he uses comes off as completely silly. If the quality of the writing does not the intelligence of your characters, any attempt to as competent and intellectual will feel pretentious and stupid.

Both shows have girls with superpowers but EL is better because they had no variety. The only difference Dicloni had was simply the maximum reach, or the amount of ethereal hands someone could use. The witches on the other hand have completely different powers. It seems like that is a positive thing, but in such a story it isn’t. Every girl ends up being defined by the power she uses instead of whatever personality she has. Because the Dicloni had similar powers, it was much easier to them for whatever stereotype they were, but not the witches. There is also a ridiculous amount of plot convenience because of this variety. One can predict the future, one can travel in time, one can teleport, they can do anything with such broken powers. There is no consistency if anything is possible, and nothing is important because nothing is solid.

Thus Elfen Lied is better in pretty much everything. Not that this means it’s a great show by any stretch of the imagination. They are both terribly written edgy shit for those who think gore and nudity equals maturity, and promote the stigma of anime being deviant animated porn. It’s just means that one is a bit less crap than the other.