View Full Version : Speed Grapher
braincandy99
08-17-06, 01:10 PM
I picked up the first 4 episode disc of this series.
I thought it seemed pretty good so far. I would've liked more of the Rupongi club stuff to be further elaborated upon (being the pervert that I am) but that was just a minor issue.
http://www.speedgrapher.com/
Some slight/brief nudity. Some lolita stuff. Hyper violent.
Have a bit of a funny story about this one.
Im a member, basically head of now, an Anime Group here in town. At the moment the group consists of me, about 3 other members my age that rarely show up, and three 13 year old kids.
We all get together at the anime shop and watch a dvd on the big screen. The owner typically picks out the video (You can probably see where this is going)
Well, he's away at a con for the weekend so he's got a 'pinch hitter' watching the store. Were all buddies and game together on the weekends so were chatting abit. This was the show he decided to put in for the meetup because it was new.
We start watching it and at times im thinking its abit 'adult' with its conversations, little did I know it was goign to get worse. It finally got to the scene where he broke in the the sex club (I didnt really know what the show was about until I started watching it myself) He breaks in and it pans across women with... tubes inserted and various bondage scenes.
I slowly turned my head towards my buddy and asked "He picked this one out?" in a tone of shock. The buddy was just as amazed knowing nothing about the series as well. I suggested we changed it and the two female 13yr olds agreed. Of course the boy was fine with it. We ended up putting in Rune Soldier.
Looking back it was rather funny and we laughed at it with him later. My buddy rented the thing and watched the rest of it and told me it got worse. Now we tease him asking if he watched the suggested videos first.
It has that weird sex club thing near beginning but later it's just normal violence if you can describe it as normal. So you might as well watch it untill the end if you got to that part.
I also suggest Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. :)
I plan on watching it myself, but with the 13 year olds in the room we decided to turn it off.
Is Higurashi no Naku Koro ni about as graphic or something?
Sollon Darkmoon
08-18-06, 01:14 PM
I plan on watching it myself, but with the 13 year olds in the room we decided to turn it off.
Is Higurashi no Naku Koro ni about as graphic or something?
Well to me its not as bad as what is described in Speed Grapher but it does have some suggestive stuff.
Dunno if a 13 yr old could handle it but I do recommend that you check out Higurashi no Naku Koro ni it is a really good series IMO hehe.
I plan on watching it myself, but with the 13 year olds in the room we decided to turn it off.
Is Higurashi no Naku Koro ni about as graphic or something?
Well, it's nothing of sexual nature but x9 more violent/graphic than Speed Grapher could ever hope to be.
Sollon Darkmoon
08-19-06, 07:38 PM
Well, it's nothing of sexual nature but x9 more violent/graphic than Speed Grapher could ever hope to be.
Thats saying a lot hehe. But Koro ni is graphic when it needs to be..."Actually, I take it back :evil" =P.
After reading this thread last week I decided to pick it up and check it out (I actually bought the limited edition box because it was a very nice looking box that I could put my six disk Cowboy Bebop set in if I didn't like Speed Grapher), and after the first disk I was still on the fence.
They introduced quite a few characters in the four episodes, and the animation seemed rushed (not horrible, just unimpressive. It seems like the animation was done by talented people who didn't have quite enough time to get everything right, so there are quite a few 'good enough' moments where you think the animation could be better if the animators weren't pressed for time), but I was interested in the 'euphoric' spin (a euphoric is a person who was kissed by the goddess/Kagura and has had his or her deepest, darkest desires turned into a power).
I also found myself interested in the characters. Saiga has his own inner demons, and has been completely changed by his work as a war photographer. Christopher Sabat also nailed the voicework for Saiga as a troubled ex-war photographer, so I found myself interested in what happens to him. Kagura seems to be the typical 'naive child who holds all the power yet herself is powerless and needs the help of a hero to defend her from all the bad people', but Monica Rial does a very good job voicing her and I'm sure there are more secrets and twists and turns that will come from this character.
I also liked Ginza, Saiga's corrupt psycho-cop girlfriend/stalker, where her running gag seems to be shooting people then justifying it as self-defense, much like South Park's yelling of "Oh my god, it's coming right at us!" before shooting something. While in the first disk she treats Saiga as her own boy toy, I'm getting the feeling that she does care about him and wants to know about his past. Like the darkness that's seeped into Saiga from being a war photographer, a darkness has also seeped into Ginza from having to work through a corrupt legal system.
It was a bit of an impulse buy getting the second DVD; I think it was the first disk where the audio and voicework, as well as a nice little extra regarding character auditions convinced me to get the second DVD. The animation quality still seems inconsistent, but the plot unfolds at a good pace, not feeling too rushed or too slow. Bits and pieces of information are tossed out, waiting for explanations later in the series.
The second DVD gets into a bit of the 'freak of the week' style with a pair of freaks, but they seem to be just a way to show the viewer Saiga's capabilities. The freaks are a woman who can transform into diamond and is impervious to Saiga's camera, and a dentist (gawd awful dentist's drill sound and all) who sprouts dentist drills and tools from appendages out of his back.
I also like some of the one-liners. One that got me chuckling was what Tsujido (a bad guy who's trying to get Kagura back from Saiga) says into her cellphone at the end of the eighth episode after her car was destroyed by Saiga:
Yes, I'll be needing you to get me another car immediately. Preferrably one that CAN'T BE BLOWN UP BY A ******* CAMERA!
This is the first series where had it not been for the (dubbing) voicework I would have taken a pass on it, but thanks to the voicework and a few interesting characters that I want to see how they develop, I think I'm going to stick with it.
I haven't picked up the DVD's, but that's odd about the animation. During it's TV run, the animation was certainly absurbdly bad, but I had heard the Japanese DVD's got it improved for release, I can't imagine that version not being brought over.
I'll have to check that out. As for the story itself, I found it somewhat enjoyable. I found the story somewhat lacking and the ending felt like a climax that you were still waiting to have happen.
But overall it's pretty solid and interesting.
I haven't picked up the DVD's, but that's odd about the animation. During it's TV run, the animation was certainly absurbdly bad, but I had heard the Japanese DVD's got it improved for release, I can't imagine that version not being brought over.
I'll have to check that out. As for the story itself, I found it somewhat enjoyable. I found the story somewhat lacking and the ending felt like a climax that you were still waiting to have happen.
But overall it's pretty solid and interesting.
It most likely is the improved version, but if the japanese airing was really bad, then I'm sure they just reworked the most glaringly obvious bad spots and what I'm seeing is the stuff that wasn't bad enough to get reworked, but not really the high end quality animation I've come to expect from today's releases.
It's more character and object movement than actual 'eye candy'; not enough to say 'Man, what a pile of garbage', but just that at some points in the story I'm thinking 'that movement didn't seem quite right'. Even popping in Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 and scanning a few battles and difficult movement scenes, while the visual quality is obviously better in Speed Grapher, Tokyo 2040 has fewer animation movement errors than Speed Grapher, and it's almost eight years old.