Tekken: Bloodline

Get ready - for the comedy of the year. I've never held out much hope for animations/TV series/movies based on games, especially fighting games. However, even with such mental preparation, it is an awkward, absurd viewing experience. I don't think the story needs to be told in more than six episodes. On the contrary, I don't believe the length of it is used well, which leads to the details being rushed through (how did Jin meet his friends?) and the main storyline making people feel lengthy. Another intuitive feeling is that the creator did not refer to other animated series with similar themes when writing the script. Thetournament can't make people feel their blood boil at all, even if the moves of many characters are restored to the episode, and there are many familiar faces of players here. In fact, the tournament is not valued; it is only a part of the process, a necessary step to reach the end. As for the ending, I can't even feel how our protagonist has grown, and I can only say, "yes, you should choose ***** *** instead of *** because the former is stronger." Oh, maybe the story is as straightforward as the Tekken 3 story? OK, how much is 2022 minus 1996? In summary, the series failed to break the spell and wasted much potential. If you are not a Tekken fan but are interested in Tekken, please watch a Tekken tourney or buy a Tekken game to play. If you are a Tekken player looking for some fun outside the game, I suggest you read the patch note of Ver 5.00, which is way better than watching this. By the way, Netflix's translation is hopeless, I really hope they at least hire Google Translate.

I played Tekken 1, 2, 3, and Tag back in the day. I always dug Tekken (and Soul Edge/Calibur) more than the Street Fighter because it was more realistic for a fighting game. Fireballs and flaming kicks, I dunno. But jabs and roundhouses, yeah I can do those. And then Tekken had stand-ins for Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, a WWE wrestler, and a bear. How cool are those? And the soundtrack for Tekken 3 was funky as hell. Those baselines killed it. I still have the Jin, Hwoarang, and Nina tracks on my playlist. Tekken was always so damn cool. So how about thelatest anime? It was ‘right. Not great. Not even good. But alright. I made it through all 6 episodes and only got a little bored along the way. There are worse things to watch out there. Story This is a retelling of the story from Tekken 3. Being a fighting game and 6 episodes long, there is not much to it. Our boy grows up in a forest because that’s how you raise well-adjusted young men. His mother trains him in martial arts emphasizing honor, compassion, and the noble values. And then he decides to crash his grandpa’s and learns the ass-hole version of karate. There is a fighting tournament and people fight. Along the way, they touch on archaeology, mysterious disappearances, and the family business. Art The animation was not good overall. It looked cheap. They took every shortcut to save on the budget – slow pans over still frames, still character models with only their mouth moving, and low frame rate. The artwork was okay. The faces and the animation style looked off but could pass for the characters I know and love. The fights were pretty good. They modeled the moves from the game - Paul and Hwoarang had their unblockables, Xiaoyu did her AOP, and Jin & Heihachi had their godfists. They animated the impact effects faithfully too. I loved the impact effects from the game – the energy balls when you hit, the mixed colors of the counterhit, and the ice dust on block. In the anime, there were times when critical strikes were thrown and they would turn the image black and white to amplify the impact. Those were cool. They tried to highlight the strengths of the strikes rather than speed and fluidity. That’s a minus in my book. High level Tekken play looks amazing. You get the characters dashing, sidestepping, and feinting in between landing pokes and counters. And then there are the juggles. I was hoping to see some of the classic Tekken movement in the anime but was let down. And then the director went a little crazy with the camera angles. Not a fan. Sound Not great but not awful. I watched it in Japanese and the voice acting was competent. The voices sounded like they belonged to the characters and they were dramatic where they needed to be. The music was below standard. Tekken 3 had one of the most kickass game OSTs of all time. They got that 70s funk guitar sound and the groovy-af baselines. I was hoping for that in this anime but got none of it. Instead, it’s just the standard electric keyboard orchestra. The opening and closing themes were uninspired. Just boring wannabe dramatic orchestral music. I will mention that the OP featured the arcade cabinets. They honored the roots. Characters Yeah, they were there. Jin, the angry anime devil boy. Jun, his noble mother. Heihachi, the abusive granddad. Some of the other popular chars were there too. Nothing special. No surprises. We get a little bit of an arc with Jin but nothing interesting. Enjoyment I made it through 6 episodes on the strength of nostalgia and okay fight animation. They play the story straight forward. There was a little bit of the flashback-induced-finding-inner-strength power up at the end that reached for the next level of drama. In those moments, the music and the animations were flat and they didn’t reach the level of anime drama that I’m used to. Overall This anime didn’t crap the bed but wasn’t as cool as I had hoped. I liked it because it was about a video game that I remember fondly. If I hadn’t played Tekken, I would not have stopped halfway through. Tekken Bloodlines is average 5/10 but I’m giving it +1 for nostalgia. 6/10.

I don't usually do reviews, but seeing the average score of 6.6 I had to do it. If you grew up like me with Tekken video games, you will love this anime. Watching it is like playing an Arcade game of Tekken 3, through one of the most iconic characters, Jin Kazama. I finally understood who that green final boss was that I didn't know why I had to face at the end of the arcade. The story is very good if one of your favorite characters was Jin and the combat scenes are simply spectacular, including all the super famous moves of several especiallyiconic characters and the particles and lights when hitting and even defending. Those impossible grapples and combos, combining ground and aerial attacks that you spent so many hours practicing are in the series, I love it! It's like reliving your childhood all over again in this anime! The animation, the setting, the drawing style, is really good, I was surprised. The anime is a breath of fresh air and personality among so many anime that are clones of each other. Hopefully they release many more seasons and we can see and learn many more story arcs. I could give it an 8, but I give it a 9 for nostalgia and to support the production of more seasons, since an average of 6.6 seems to me to be a very unfair mark that is not true to reality :D

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