ANOMALY //>

Titblade
Witchblade [2006]
The Complete Series
3.5/5

Excuse the main title, but seriously....if you guys saw this series, you'd have thought the exact same thing. This thing was tits central, and it was crotch central too, and ass central....and any other female body part central you can think of, lol. "Why?", you ask?......well, the studio who were responsible for it, specialize in a lot of over sexed anime. It's all very T&A and adult friendly. Does that take away from the actual story though? for me, no.

In case you don't know, Witchblade originally started as a comic book series in the mid 90's. I've got a few of them myself and they can be a decent read. The character of Witchblade [Sarah Pezinni] is one of the coolest chics i've ever seen in comics, and the entire concept of her armor being a living weapon on her body looks beautiful when drawn on paper [thanks to Michael Turner]. This anime however doesn't follow the comic storyline, it features a new character and a new location, Tokyo City. It does follow the basic premise of Witchblade though surrounding the armor and how it takes control of it's host like a parasite and forces the person to do it's work.

The storyline isn't overly complex, but it's interesting enough to keep you watching. The thing about anime tv shows that sometimes puts me off, is the fact that they run for around 24 episodes. And many of the times, anime can become a little overlong with that type of episodic format. This does suffer from it. It dragged a handful of times, and i did have to soldier on through those periods hoping the pacing got a bit better. Luckily it did. The times the series got good, it was surprisingly entertaining, and if it kept that pacing and intensity in the storyline throughout, it would have been pretty damn good.

The best part of the series was the relationship between the main character and her daughter. It was an unexpected aspect of the story that worked a lot more believably than i thought it would. And by the end of the series, it got surprisingly emotional. That Mother/Daughter theme runs through many of the other characters as well, in fact.........the entire theme throughout the whole show WAS around mothering. It was an interesting twist.

Is it for everyone?.....probably not. The over sexualized characters and fight scenes may put some people off if that sort of thing offends you. If you're like me though, and if you don't care about jiggly boobies and giant round female asses on screen a lot, then you'll just get used to seeing so much of it while watching the series and you'll just accept it and eventually become numb to it.
It has some pacing issues, and one VERY pointless "beach holiday" episode which really wasn't necessary. The last episode is a little anti climatic, but a decent enough finish to a series that had some really great moments. Overall, i'd recommend it.

The DVD set also comes with a great bonus disc that has a lot of Top Cow comics behind the scenes footage on it. Interviews with the artists and writers of the comic series, and some good stuff on how the anime series came about. That extra disc alone makes it's worth it for any diehard Witchblade fans.

Tit-on, Witchblade!