 | | ▪ | RELEASED BY: | | FUNIMATION ENTERTAINMENT | | | ▪ | ASPECT RATIO: | | 4:3 FULL SCREEN | | | ▪ | AUDIO: | | ENGLISH AND JAPANESE DD 2.0 | | | ▪ | RUNNING TIME: | | 213 | | | ▪ | RATING: | | TV PG | | | ▪ | RELEASE DATE: | | 12/04/2007 | | | ▪ | REVIEW DATE: | | 12/31/2007 | | | ▪ | REVIEWED BY: | | HOLLY ELLINGWOOD |
Based on Ragnarok Online the game, Ragnarok the Animation takes the characters from the game and gives them all new adventure and character developments in this animated series. It’s solid sword and sorcery adventure done role-playing game style and will beckon to fans of RPG and games such as Dungeons and Dragons and World of Warcraft.
There aren’t that many sword and sorcery fantasies these days being offered in anime. Ragnarok is a special treat, taking note from RPG style fantasy adventure and transferring it into an ongoing story of magic, knights, and monsters. For young fighter Roan and his childhood friend and healer Yufa, Ragnarok is their adventure as they travel to gain experience, raise their levels of power and abilities, and defeat monsters and face down villains along the way. During their travels they also gain quite the entourage. First is the mysterious magician Takius who is as beautiful as she is enigmatic. Then the young but mercenary hearted girl Maya who is a merchant who prefers animals and monsters to humans. Then the stoic Iruga and the brash girl Judia join the troupe making it nearly a caravan of different personalities and different characters with varying abilities. The first of the two discs in this volume works at introducing these various characters in an almost stand-alone episode style as the growing group moves from one adventure to another, defeating bandits, monsters and ghosts to uncover treasures and help innocent people. It’s not until the second disc in this collection that the show hits on an underlying theme to give personal impetus to the quest they must undertake. Yufa’s older brother is perhaps alive, but things have changed. Deadly fighters, magicians and more have banded together to work evil upon the world. To find out the truth about her brother and stop the growing threat, Yufa and Roan must face villainy as they have never known before. The anime gets more dramatic here with the underlying story. It also introduces a great deal more angst during the back stories on Takius, somewhat with Iruga and Judia, but especially with the origins of Maya. Hers is an especially traumatic tale and explains everything about the tough little girl and why she thinks as lowly of humans as she does. The anime also shows the childhood of Yufa and Roan with her brother Keough in order to build the drama and compulsion Roan and Yufa now feel to uncover the truth about what happened to him. Therefore by the end of these first nine episodes, the anime has established a strong and compelling sword and sorcery adventure with well developed characters. The animation is colorful and displays great fantasy sensibility. Done by GONZO which worked on such respected anime as Last Exile, Hellsing, Black Cat, Trinity Blood, Samurai 7, and more, the show has an above average animation quality for a TV series. The magic is done with wonder and vibrant style. It isn’t as elaborate as some of GONZO’s other anime, it has a rather tongue-in-cheek style for the ghosts. And some of the monsters are comparatively straight up creature-feature fair for anyone familiar with the sword and sorcery genre. That’s its bread and butter though, sticking true to the genre and offering a solid fantasy adventure with spells, magicians, brave knights, and an ever full stable of monsters to battle. EXTRAS:
The only bonus feature is FUNimation trailers. But considering the release has 2 DVDS with 9 episodes for the price of one, that’s a bonus in and of itself. IN SUMMARY:
2 discs + 9 episodes = a full plate of RPG styled adventure! Ragnarok the Animation is a full bodied sword and sorcery adventure for fans of World of Warcraft, Dungeons and Dragons, and anime series like Lodoss War.
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