Toonami Talkback: Casshern Sins - "A World Replete with Death Throes"

[Cody S.]

He's BEAAAUUTTIFUUULLL!

Casshern Sins - A World Replete with Death Throes Wrote:After the murder of near-goddess Luna, the ruling robot society of Earth falls into decay. The only robot left unaffected by the disease known as "The Ruin" is Casshern. Unable to remember if he truly did kill Luna and trigger the beginning of the end of Earth's entire civilization, human and robot alike, Casshern now wanders the world, trying to unravel the mystery that connects him, Luna, and The Ruin.

Toonami Premiere - [6/3] 1:00am

SPOILERS
Doesn't look like we have a 'spoilers' button just yet - so if you've seen future episodes of the series and wish to discuss them in this thread, please note them as spoilers BEFORE discussing them so the rest of us can read in peace!

Discuss!

[Daikun]

A much better episode than last week. The melodrama goes way up from before. 4/5

This makes me concerned about the premise, though. Is every episode from here on going to be a bunch of Monster of the Week battles? There has to be more to it than that.

I hope...

[Aaron B.]

(06-03-2012 05:14 AM)Daikun Wrote:  Is every episode from here on going to be a bunch of Monster of the Week battles? There has to be more to it than that.

Spoiler: Yeah, there's plenty more. Eventually we start running into other, seemingly indestructible robots that are built of the same "material" if you will, as Casshern. Some of them are kind of mentally unstable, too, which is kind of fun. These are the larger sources of conflict in the anime (and the fight sequences are nice). But it's a give-and-take; you'll find that some of these villains are terribly shallow and have zero actual personality/motive. While on the other hand, we'll also meet some rather incredible episode characters, monster of the week though they may be, which are better suited for the story than the main characters themselves.

[Daikun]

Thank you, Aaron, for clearing things up.

Since it's a spoiler discussion, I'll respond in the same text color.

Spoiler: If there are other robots made from the same material as Casshern, though, doesn't that kind of kill the whole premise? Why devour Casshern when they can take any of those other robots? Does Casshern have something special about him that the others don't? (A simple "Yes" or "No" will do for that last question. If it IS something special, I'd probably prefer not to be spoiled on what it is.)

[Red X Robin]

Casshern Sins may very well be the most depressing anime series, starring an android, since Android Kikaider: The Animation.

Seriously, watching Casshern Sins is like looking into the strange mind of an emo kid... with a robot fetish.

Well, at least I don't hate it. This episode gets "4 Stars" for the way it strongly dramatized the dying robot characters. It was great to see the dog (Friender) in action, too.

[Aaron B.]

(06-03-2012 06:24 PM)Daikun Wrote:  Thank you, Aaron, for clearing things up.

Since it's a spoiler discussion, I'll respond in the same text color.

Spoiler: If there are other robots made from the same material as Casshern, though, doesn't that kind of kill the whole premise? Why devour Casshern when they can take any of those other robots? Does Casshern have something special about him that the others don't? (A simple "Yes" or "No" will do for that last question. If it IS something special, I'd probably prefer not to be spoiled on what it is.)

Spoiler: I think the premise of the series is "survival" in general, rather than "surviving off of Casshern" as we see in the early episodes. Later episodes will articulate this a lot clearer (and through the eyes of more personable characters). If you can tolerate the depressing narration and bleak art direction, there are still some storytelling highlights to be had.

To understand this series from a really wide perspective, it's best to think of Casshern as a luxury model, and to think of all the others as high-end copycats (they're still immensely useful, but they aren't as "special" as Casshern...). Again, I've watched about three-quarters of this anime, but this speaks to a lot of what I can recall.