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When originally announced, I was more than a little skeptical about the entire concept of “Marvel Anime,” a series of four twelve episode shows focusing on Iron Man, Blade, Wolverine, and the X-Men. I don’t know how well the others turned out, but X-Men turned out much better than I originally thought. I can’t even remember why I was skeptical of the whole thing at first, but it probably had to do with how lackluster Batman: Gotham Knight turned out.
But I should have known better and put my faith in the story that Warren Ellis would provide. If you haven’t read his run on Astonishing X-Men, do so now. X-Men follows many of the similar themes and obsessions that concerned Ellis’s run on the book, even features the same team line-up. Call me crazy, but this is a team that I would like to see stripped down to in the movies one day – Cyclops, Storm, Beast, Emma Frost, Wolverine, Armor – it’s a good group, a nice mixture of powers/personalities, and Ellis knows how to write them really well.
The problem is, I’m not sure that the animators knew how to handle them. Emma Frost and Storm suffer the worst, as always. Frost is written as the snarky bitch, but the voice actress and animators have chosen to portray her as a softer schoolmarm type. It’s an odd choice and doesn’t fit in with any version of the character. Storm gets side-lined fairly often, underdeveloped, and doesn’t possess the regality that is needed. But Wolverine, Beast, Cyclops, Xaiver, and Armor all seem to come out the other side relatively intact and baring a close enough resemblance to their comic counterparts.
The choice of the U-Men as the leadoff villain is an odd one, but it eventually emerges to something far more interesting and personal. Also along for the ride are the Hellfire Club’s Inner Circle, a variation on Legion, and a quick cameo from Dark Phoenix. These different enemies actually come together in a very fluid and logical way once the full extent of the story comes to fruition. The only odd choice is the insistence on placing all of the action in Japan and replacing known characters with thinly veiled “new” versions that are just Japanese counterparts. A human genetic research scientist bears a striking similarity to Moira MacTaggert, but isn’t actually called Moira, despite having all of telltale signs of that character.
Your enjoyment will depend entirely on how you feel about anime. Me? I don’t mind it, not a huge fan, but I’ve found a few things here and there that I’ve enjoyed. The show does rely heavily upon light effects and a few of the character designs are a little strange, mostly Cyclops’ shoulder pads and the overly large breasts on the female characters, but it works more often than not. And the action sequences are top notch, it’s obvious where a lot of time, effort and money went, this isn’t a bad thing, as every episode zips back and forth between philosophical questions and grand fights. After a sluggish start, I think the series only improves as it goes on, comes complete with a satisfying story, dynamic and fluid animation, clever new character designs, and lots to enjoy. It may be a strange experiment, but I think if you come to it with an open mind it works pretty damn well.
