It´s not only been a long time since I post any content on the blog, but it´s also been a long time since I post an anime review (if you count the Animatrix, but that was more of a series of separate shorts and not a series with 30 min per episode and stuff); so I decided to look back at one of the animes I remember fondly, Solty Rei.
The story is set in a futuristic world where humanity lives underneath an aurora that covers a city preventing air travel and is constantly threading it´s inhabitants because of a catastrophe that occurred years ago that left the city in a bad state, many people died, many more got injured and some were never found... Roy Revant is one of the survivors of said event, but he isn´t without his trauma; this man is in his late 40´s lost his daughter to the aurora that fatal day, her body was never found and there is no trace that can proof she is still alive. Unable to move on with his life, Roy makes a living has a bounty hunter working for an old friend of his, Miranda Maverick... During a job, he comes across a mysterious young girl who unintentionally saves his life from a dangerous killer... and with her, his opportunity to finally let go of his past and finally move on from his loss.
Feeling pity when he finds out she is an unregistered citizen, the girl is eventually adopted by Roy and because the girl remembers nothing from what happened before meeting with him (not even her name), he names her Solty and from there the story is more about their relationship developing and eventually moving to the mystery of the aurora, Solty and the truth behind the event that hunts the cities past.
In this futuristic setting, some humans are enhanced with cybernetic implants, despite the original intention of the technological advances are purely humble to help does harmed from the aurora´s blast, many have used the implants to resort to a criminal life... Solty is 100% cybernetics, witch is impossible within the universe, making her a robot with emotions and capturing the attention of some curious people has well has other dangerous people.
The first thing I want to talk about is the good stuff; I really enjoyed the setting, the sci-fyish/post-apocalyptic setting is always cool to watch for me, the action scenes are fun and well animated in general and let´s not forget the story itself, while not perfect and not being exactly the best example I would use for a father/daughter bonding story either, it feels like the creators were´t really targeting to make something that pushed the envelop is terms of the previous mentioned elects but just make something fun and memorable; and in some respects they do that very well.
The characters are also fun to watch, Solty and Roy´s relationship is shaky at first, in a strange way; I would almost believe like they are forcing things up, like you kinda know that Roy will end up accepting Solty has family, but surprisingly I want them to get along... I guess that comes mostly from Solty herself; she is so innocent and despite all of her inhuman strength she would never hurt a fly. The rest of the cast in also likable, Miranda is supportive to Roy despite being a little stoic at times and the Anderson Brothers are alright.
But the best characters of the whole series in my opinion are the RUC Proceeds agents (witch are all curiously named after car models), on their own they aren´t particularly interesting, but is their legit camaraderie and friendship what makes them great has a group to see them work together and just being overall friends.
These characters are always thrown in harms way and always have something going wrong for them, at some points I felt really sorry for them, not only that... but through out the series these characters really seemed to be the only ones in legit danger. Without spoiling much, one of them dies, killed off in front of the others, I could tell when they are distraught by the death of their dear friend and after seeing just how close they are has friends, I could´t help but feel sorry for them. When characters are in genuine danger and care for their safety, you know the show in doing something right. (On a side note... Integra Martel is the best)
On the bad side, some of the CG animation sticks out like a sour thumb... specially on the mechs, funny because there really aren´t many in the overall show, not just mechs but the overall CGI just looks laking, unlike in something like Tiger & Bunny where the CG in not only good but is also an integral part of the characters, here; it just feels like a pointless additions.
Now I have to give some spoiler warning because I am going to talk about some key story elements, unless you plan to watch the show, you should skip the RED words:
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!
The "death" of Rose has a whole was well set if you ask me, she dies just has Roy finds out she was his lost daughter all along and just has they were accepting each other despite their differences, the outburst that Roy had on Solty I can understand, but is the fact that they BROUGHT ROSE BACK FROM THE DEAD what bothers me the most story wise about the whole anime! This was a huge missed opportunity to have Roy truly deal with his loss a second time, yeah it´s hard, but to me it should have been about him figuring out that he still had Solty and that it was all going to be alright, ya know, there is still hope and a chance for him to be happy (I really wanted to see something like that, and it would have really given the anime a more interesting air)... but NO; THEY HAD TO THROW THAT SHIT OUT THE WINDOW!! I think it could have also helped if the Rose that was used later by the RUC would have been reveled to be a high tech AI like Solty but by then it really would have mattered little, the damage was already done...
It bothers me because I can see potential for something very intriguing and that can really put a test to the father/daughter bond between Roy and Solty the series developed for almost the entire show but instead they went with the most dumb way they could have taken the story into... is a huge missed opportunity, is only salt in the wound when you see later how they killed off one of the Proceeds, almost like "oh it´s ok, that one is not an important character" *grunts*.
Despite it´s serious lows, I can forgive some of these and I can really enjoy this story has a whole, it´s a fun ride and one I hope to revisit again in the future when it feels new again and I can experience the entirety of the moments I like in this anime with nostalgic eyes...
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Hello readers!
I am sorry for the long delay but well... I´ve been very busy this last few weeks (yeah Christmas is part of the reason), but plenty has happened.
In the case of the comic, is coming up great... I hope that in January I can show a complete page has a preview of what will be
I will keep updates on this blog, stay tuned!
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