MIMISSed_Bandwagon
April 14, 2020
Not Recommended
Majin Bone was a different type of anime experience for me. I went into the show not expecting to like it; I’m not a fan of mecha or coming of age stories for boys. It was a recommendation from my brother who told me to stick with it, but even as I dove into it I just couldn’t find my footing. I started to enjoy it, eventually, but I was disappointed that it took so long. Despite my displeasure at its length it wasn’t SO bad that I wouldn’t recommend it. My feelings towards the show aren’t so much with its execution but howI felt personally as a viewer.
The show is about high schooler Ryujin Shougo, a boy who lives with his father and older sister at their family dojo. Shougo’s mother has disappeared for many years, but he’s not lonely with his best friend Sato and her mother living next door. After tragedy strikes Sato’s family, Shougo is granted the powers of the Dragon Bone, the planetary core that has been assigned to protect the Earth and its inhabitants. Using the power of the Dragon Bone, Shougo and his new friends from around the world use their powers to protect the Earth from intergalactic threats and the sinister Primordial Majin.
Visually, the show looks *alright*. I was going to give it a pass because it came out in 2014, but when I did a little bit of research I realized that a lot of good anime managed to come out that year. Yuki Yuno is a Hero, some pretty Idol shows, and even the reputable favorite, No Game, No Life. So then I dug a little deeper thinking, “Okay, maybe it was made from a low budget studio…” Wrong again. It was produced through Toei Animation which happened to release a One Piece movie, Dragon Ball Super, and multiple beautifully styled PreCure series that year as well. So that begs me to think, who exactly was working on this project? Did everything else come out looking beautiful because they were already fan favorites and they couldn’t disappoint? Whereas Majin Bone was just a fighting card game that didn’t really take off in America and no one would notice if it was bad?
What’s bothersome about this style is that the characters are juuuust on the cusp of “same face-ism”. There’s a boy template and a girl template and with some slight modifications in hair and eye color you have a different character. It isn’t helpful in the beginning when you’re trying to learn people’s names and Bone partners. Dark Wyvern, Phoenix, Crocodile, Cerberus, Raven, Hawk...which side are they on and who are their adepts?
The best way I could describe it is that it’s...shapely? It’s an anime of polygons...it looks like the kind of drawings that a beginner artist would make and the artistry is almost 2D. There’s no definition, barely any shading, hardly an effort to take advantage of shadows...there are times when they do a really phenomenal job with super smooth frame by frame motions, particularly when they’re fighting in their armor in the cocoons. But it goes from super cool fluid fighting motions to crickety-rickety slice of life polygons. As if there was a switch labeled “budget” and someone kept playing with it throughout the show. One of my favorite characters, Luke, the Shark Majin has super long Sesshomaru/Sephiroth hair. You can do a lot to show the volume and flow of the hair, but it ends up looking like the hair from a plushie; just a long, solid piece of fabric. Did the animation progress as the show progressed? Yes, but not by much. It progressed as much as One Piece’s animation did in all the years it’s been on air.
The show was 52 episodes long, but it could have been cut short to at least 40-45. There were filler episodes, 1 or 2 recap episodes, and I can’t believe they managed to sneak in a beach episode. What I don’t like most about the shounen and shoujo genre is that it focuses on the “heart of a boy/heart of a girl’ trope and from that other notable instances arise.
“I can do this! As long as I have my friends by my side!”
“I have to believe in the power of my heart! Only then will I be able to succeed!)**
“I won’t let them beat me! Not when I still have the strength to fight!”
“I have to win! Everyone is counting on me!”
I got tired of the whole “Believe in yourself” rhetoric very early on in the show. It has a very “believe in the heart of the cards” aspect, the cards being the Majin Bone that the adepts were piloting. They were very clever to include actual plot in episodes that were filler so you couldn’t skip most of them. If you thought you could skip the beach episode and went onto the next one, you’d be wondering why someone was in the hospital and the city was in ruins in the next. It’s not fair! *sobs*
I started to get frustrated at certain points because it was so obvious that the antagonist was up to the absolute worst, but for the sake of the succession of the plot most of the people in the inner court turned a blind eye or played ignorant so we could get to the major boss fight in the end. Even when 2 of the highest members of the court disappeared under mysterious circumstances and the shifty, braggart takes the seat most people don’t show much skepticism.
Because the show is 52 episodes, 2 seasons, I must admit that the best part of the show is character development. Each character truly feels like they have a proper place within the storyline, its progression, and a true sense of teamwork. They have to complete a ‘line’ of at least three people so they can summon a Majin to do their bidding. So having all of your teammates with you is crucial to fighting the enemy. There were also many fights that didn’t include the main character so the others had to hold their own when help was never going to come. I can’t stand watching anime when even though there’s like 5-6 people in the group you only need the leader to commit the finishing blow. I’ll give a pass to Miraculous Ladybug because she needs to do that because of reasons.
The music in the series was alright, it wasn’t half bad. I caught myself humming along to it not really because I liked it but because I was watching it back to back to back and the tune ended up being kinda catchy. I DID get tired of the insert tunes though. Not the songs, but the tunes that play at certain times when characters are doing certain things. We all know what those are. All I have to do is mention that “plucky tune from Naruto” and almost everyone will start to hum it in their heads. Or that “sad flashback flute” from Naruto as well. *cue wooden swing*
I’m going to give this show a 2 out of 5. I don’t think there was any room to make an anime out of a card game like Majin Bone. Pokemon and Yokai Watch are much more entertaining when combining these two elements of entertainment. It’s like if L.O.L Surprise! Dolls got a television show. I took off for the visuals, the length, and how it leans too heavily on tropes. Perhaps I’m biased because I don’t usually gravitate towards mecha, but I’d like to hear an opposing perspective that actually appreciates the show.
**Only acceptable in Kingdom Hearts
