Witchblade

Surprisingly good, honestly. Sure, at first glance it seems to be gratuitous with fanservice or whatever, but that's maybe 10% of the show, there is a (relatively) layered plot with criss-crossing faction alliances and grey character motives. At its core it's really a story about a mother who will go to great lengths for her daughter, over all others. Also, a decent and original story for what is supposed to be a loose adaptation of a Top Cow IP. It doesn't seem to have much in common with its American counterpart besides the titular Witchblade artifact itself. Maybe the artstyle is somewhat dated, but not ... jarring enough to take away from the show. Worth the watch overall.

First, I need to start with some basic background information for a series like this.
Witchblade is a 1993 comic by Top Cow Productions, an imprint of Image comics - my favorite comic book publication and one that I respect far more than Marvel or DC, which infamously screw over their artists. Batman's creator died a janitor, for instance. In my opinion, Witchblade is one of the best comics ever made, especially amongst independent comics (which pretty much means other than DC/Marvel). It is mostly just surpassed by other long-running Image series like Spawn. The time period that it came out in (early years of Image) ... both boosted its popularity and simultaneously cursed it into never getting a PROPER adaptation, despite how good it is, as comic books at the time were not treated as seriously in adaptations (eg. Batman and Robin), especially indie comics (eg. The Spawn movie and the Savage Dragon cartoon which were watered down versions of extremely mature stories) with the full 90s edge, raunch, cheese, fanservice and eXXXtreme Яadical names which I all love BTW.

However, it has gotten easily more adaptations than any other independent comic book series, unless you count the billion Walking Dead spin-offs and TV movies. It had an equally successful spin-off comic called The Darkness, which is heavily intertwined with its story, as well as a recent remake/reboot comic series and multiple crossovers with the likes of Spawn over the last 30 years. It had a TV movie in 2000, which acted as a pilot or first episode for its live action 2001 series starring Yancy Butler, which went on for 23 hour long episodes across 2 seasons and rapidly deteriorated in the second season, where it stopped following the comic book story, increased the dated CGI use and declined in budget. It is to date the most faithful adaptation as far as story goes, but also the worst.
The comic got a manga and this very anime in 2006, which is listed here on MAL as being an adaptation of, despite the fact that they have nothing to do with each other. For starters, the manga is only two volumes long, while this anime is 26 episodes long, so the story is clearly more developed here. But it isn't even close to being similar to the manga, nor the original comic. For starters, the main character in the manga is called Takeru and is a teenage daughter of monks living in the countryside and going to highschool. It features different side characters, villains and setting. In this version, the main character is called Masane Amaha and is a single mother living in a post-apocalyptic big city and struggling financially to the point where she has her daughter Rihoko taken away from her. Neither of those are even close to the original bearer of the Witchblade - Sara Pezzini, an Italian-American NYPD undercover detective. These are two different continuities/reinterpretations of the story or series vaguely inspired by Witchblade and bearing its name.

I have to say that it is the best of the adaptations, although between the trash 2000 movie, the trash 2001 TV series and the rushed 2 volume manga (which has a lot of positives, actually), isn’t exactly a very stiff competition. So how good is this anime, actually?
First of all, while I provided a big info dump on the history of the comic with adaptations, you do not need to know ANYTHING about the franchise to get into this, as most people who watched this back in 2006 didn’t. As I said previously, it is Witchblade in name only as far as plot goes. To answer the question I’ve been stalling on, it’s pretty good, but flawed. Besides the fanservice, there are very few generic anime tropes in this – good or bad. It is flawed in a very unique way that almost needs to be studied.

Writing
The show suffers from a very, very rare problem for anime. It does too much showing and not enough telling. From episode 2 onward, the city is destroyed in what looks like an apocalyptic event. Apparently, it was always like this, but in episodes 1 & 2 it was not explained and the part of the city shown looked perfectly fine. This post-apocalyptic look was only really shown in the OP/ED. It has literally nothing to do with the plot (early on) and wasn't in the comic, the manga, and has nothing to do with anything, really. It's utterly bizarre and surreal. It has back-to-back episodes that make you feel like you MISSED an episode in between. In episode 3, Masane and her daughter are still looking for each other, and the 5yo Rihoko is somehow smart enough to figure out where she needs to go to find her mother and manages to get to Tokyo tower on her own, where her mother conveniently sees her from a helicopter right when she was losing all hope. We only see her looking down and not the daughter’s reaction and the episode just ends. In the next episode, they are already together in a previously established hotel. At the end of that same episode (4), she meets the big bad – another Witchblade bearer! – and then the episode ends right then and there right as they are about to fight. Exciting, right? The next episode (5) starts in a completely different time and place after the recap with no explanation and has a completely different story – a filler fanservice episode, believe it or not! – at least until they meet each other at the end exactly like they did in the previous episode. Two different, conflicting timelines that converge to the same point in space and time simultaneously. What the sh*t??? Were these two different drafts for the same episode that ended up being animated and used as two different episodes? I have NEVER seen this in an anime, except in JoJo and in Steins;Gate in arcs where the characters are messing with time and space powers. I had to go back and look through those episodes to make sure that I didn’t miss something.

Oh, and I just realized that I have yet to explain to newcomers what the witchblade actually is and what its appeal is! It is an ancient cosmic artefact, older than humanity itself, with both divine and demonic energy in it, that forms a symbiotic bond with its user (who is necessarily a woman), giving her super strength, agility, high leaping abilities and of course CLAWS that can slice through anything. It even provides some form of regeneration. If you like Wolverine or you like the sci-fi body horror type symbiote in the omnitrix, you will like Witchblade, the comic, witchblade, the weapon and probably Witchblade, the 2006 anime as well, although the claws are in practice replaced by a sword-like think coming out of her wrist. The witchblade has a mind of its own, though, and since it has demonic energy in it, it does partially consume the wearer, making her more bloodlusty….and more lusty all together. Yes, it is shown, not just vaguely hinted at, that while using the full witchblade armor (which let’s just say isn’t guarding that much of the body or even the vitals), the wearer becomes a violent, psychosexual sadist. It is very much a Hulk-esque losing of sanity and only retaining partial awareness of what’s going on. Honestly, in the original comic having a Southern Italian woman that is nearly 2 meters tall was far more unbelievable than an ancient sci-fi dark magic artefact infused with Hellish and Heavenly power alike. I just realized that this is literally Kill la Kill before Kill la Kill! It doesn’t have the stylishness or high energy epic directing by Imaishi-sensei, nor does it have a remotely similar plot, but it has almost the exact same type of fanservice with almost the exact same method of fighting with almost the exact same type of symbiote. It also features the character going from embarrassed about her body to confidently displaying it and going insane from using the revealing armor too much. So if you liked those things in Kill la Kill, you will like them here.

Music
The opening theme song is absolutely fantastic and is quickly becoming one of my favorite underrated anime openings. The ending - not so much. I have no idea what they were thinking with those futuristic "beep boop" sounds. Overall, the music was good and quite interesting. Definitely one of the best aspects of the show.

Visuals
The animation is good. It's nothing mind-blowing and it has gotten less impressive almost 20 years later, as almost every single anime in the 2020s has had insane animation, but compared to other anime from the mid-2000s, this is above average for sure.

Characters
Although I don’t see the point in adapting something that you want to change completely, making the protagonist a single mother made her struggle very sympathetic, but also makes the lack of a father figure into a missed opportunity of having him be the big bad, or one of the villains, or a martyr that is revealed to have been tragically killed by the big bad, thus leaving Masane alone with Rihoko, which would have given Masane a very powerful personal opposition to the villain, instead of just fighting because they keep attacking her to…steal her witchblade? - or because the script said so. Masane herself was made to act more childishly from episode 8 onwards and is given the cliché anime quirk of being a loud, annoying, energetic drunk that doesn’t want to settle the booze down for some reason. There is an old man at the hotel that constantly messes up her name and calls her Masamune. This pun may fly over many people’s heads, but it’s because "mune" means chest in Japanese and, well, she’s well-endowed, much like the Sara Pezzini that she is based off of. Not to mention that Masamune is actually a common name in Japan, probably more than Masane. Rihoko is very, very cute, as any anime little girl is (except Nui, oh God no!). The guy that helps Rihoko is really wholesome, though for obvious reasons people in universe are sus of seeing a grown man walking around with an unrelated small child.

Ending
Spoilers aside, the ending was quite a bit rushed. It is just about the only thing that the anime has in common with the Takeru manga. They copied the idea of an American invasion of Japanese waters for the purpose of extracting the withcblade. I will say that it gets really sad in the last couple of episodes and I wish that this plotline had been explored more earlier, instead of wasting time on filler. This show has at least 4 episodes that I would consider "filler", as they revolve around shopping, cooking, eating and family time with Masane and Rihoko. Sure, it might be wholesome slice-of-life fun, but that's not really what you come to Witchblade for.

Overall
Despite how much I criticized it, the show is quite good and as I said is probably the best adaptation that the comic ever got, despite having nothing to do with it besides the power of the witchblade, which is quite sad. But let’s not let the comic overshadow this! We already have enough anime being outshined by the manga they are adapting.

I think it is well worth a watch if you are:
A) A fan of the comic;
B) Someone who has potentially never heard of the comic but is interested in the core concept of the witchblade;
C) Fans of Kill la Kill as well as fans of fanservicey anime more generally.

I would say that Rihoko being so cute makes this anime a lot better than it would otherwise have been.

6.5/10

✪ Genre: action, comedy, drama, sci-fi (genetic enhancement), military, seinen


✔ Positive Aspects ✔

◧ The quality of the animation is typical of any Gonzo production, highly saturated, fairly vibrant colors, with the characters being distinct from one another, with clear facial expressions.

◧ I found the concept of this series very interesting, even though it could have developed more.

◧ Probably the strongest aspect of the show was the character development of its protagonists, with the mother-daughter duo taking center stage, and every plot change being understandable only through this lens.
...

✘ Negative Aspects ✘

◧ As far as the unfolding of the plot goes, this was a major bummer for me. The series seemed to lack an obvious antagonist. At best, there was a mixture of different characters periodically acquiring antagonistic roles which were allowing the plot to unfold in its distinctly inconsistent manner, constantly giving me a sense that it was lacking in direction. The wearer of the Witchblade did not appear to be progressing much, either with regard to her fighting abilities, or her growth as a person on an emotional and/or intellectual level. Also, we did not get to know much about the device itself, besides some sporadic references very early on in the series.

◧ Another gigantic bummer for me was the character development of the deuteragonists. Both the mother-daughter duo’s fellow residents and her 2 coworkers were barely developed. For most of them, I did not get a clear idea of where they were coming from, I did not get to know much about their personal histories, their motivations, their thought processes. It’s not that the series dedicated that much time in action scenes or the story was sufficiently complex that it required extensive air time.

◧ On the sound department, there was not much to speak of, since I can barely recall anything at all.

◧ The action scenes seemed to be very rushed, escalating normally but ending somewhat abruptly, not allowing the viewer to take much pleasure in them.


Overall: A pretty boring series which had decent potential but did not make much effort to live up to.