Random Insanity Alliance Forum, Mark V
Cactuar Zone => Special Interest Boards => Random lnsanity => Anime => Topic started by: cctmsp13 on November 25, 2009, 02:45:00 am
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(cranky old man mode ON)
You don't know how spoiled you young whippersnappers are. What with your digital fansubs released like 2 days after the eps are out in Japan. We couldn't do that back in my day, what, with our 14.4k modems and all it would take forever to download, much less finding a computer with the processor that could actually play it or the Hard drive space to store it. No, back in my day fansubs came on VHS. Do you guys even know what a VHS is?
(cranky old man mode OFF)
Anyway, in cctmsp13's obscure anime corner, I will be looking at some of the lessor know anime I have watched through the years, it'll tend to be older stuff, though not necessarily.
And so we begin...
Chapter 1
The Violinist of Hameln
The Violinist of Hameln (aka Hameln the Violinist due to some translation misunderstandings) is about a violinist named Hamel. He has two notable features - one, the horn on his head (actually not that noticable, as he wears a hat all the time), and two, he has the power to play magical music. OK, you say, magical music, like magical how? Well like summoning a bird - a 100 foot wide bird made of water that he can ride and that will drown you.
So anyway, Hamel lives in a village with his talking crow Oboe. A girl from the town, Flute come to take Hamel to a festival the town is having, so he can perform on his violin. They go to the festival, but the town gets attacked by demons. The villager start fighting back, and do rather well considering they're fighting demons. During the battle it's revealed that Flute is actually the daughter of Queen Horn (apparently it's a family tradition to ditch their children in remote villages) The villigers due their best to cover Flute and Hameln's getaway, but ultimately fall to the demons. Unable to escape, Hamel starts playing his magical music, which brings back the villagers as zombies. The zombie villagers then continue fighting the demons, and Flute and Hamel escape.
So now it's up to Hamel to get Flute to the capitol and Queen Horn, where forces are gathering to protect the capitol from the encroaching demon armies.
Along the way they find out about Pandora's box, guarded by Queen Horn, which if opened would grant the demons limitless power. They encounter new instrument-named allies and enemies, and discover the secret that Hamel may be one of the demons himself, and may have a connection with Pandora herself.
Ratings:
I don't do the plot justice, the plot is very engaging, with a fair share of twists and turns.
oh, and yes, in case you noticed, near everyone is named for instruments (like 3 people of the extended cast aren't)
The music for the series is very well done, with a good number of classical violin sequences.
The animation, on the other hand is lacking. It's quite well drawn, it just lacking in amount. They love to do the "we're just going to pan an image across the screen" trick. Really, the animation rate is nearly as low as that guy on PBS who would read a story and paint pictures that go with the story as he's reading it.
overall I'd give it a 6/10. could have easily been a 8/10 with better animation
Worth watching?:
Definetly worth a try, the plot is strong and moves well, even if the animation is lacking.
Getting it:
This series has never been released in the US. It is available from the torrents at animesuki.
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Good review, i hope you'll do many more!
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Good review, i hope you'll do many more!
Agreed, and its about time that anime got some recognition.
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Released in 1996. Old school stuff, yet pretty decent.