I read a comment about this show on a blog and decided to give it a go. The idea of a Gainax – J.C. Staff project sounded like a good idea but I forgot this Gainax was pre-Gurren Lagann Gainax. Oh well, maybe next time they work together we’ll get Potemayo operating a mech with Sunao acting as the aloof father-figure of a secret organization bent on saving humanity and the show would be called Potegelion
Final Series Score: 6/12 B-
Rewatchablity: very low
Pros: J.C. Staff’s watercolor look and an interesting world where the story takes place
Cons: the ending fizzled and the fight scenes where lackluster.
Melody of Oblivion, or MoO, was a joint project between Gainax and J.C. Staff from 2004. That, on paper, sounds like a can’t miss project but after watching MoO, I would say that it missed it’s mark.
The show starts off well enough. We’re thrown into a world where humanity has lost to the Monsters and they now rule the world. They aren’t really hands-on rulers, instead they are content in allowing their human traitor-underlings rule things with one exception – they feed on people and thus need sacrifices. After losing the war, humanity seems hell-bent on forgetting about Monsters and getting on with normal life and if the random child goes missing then they’ll just pretend nothing’s wrong. The only group still opposed are known as the Meros warriors.
This is where Bocca steps into the picture, he’s a dissatisfied high school boy that wants to become a Meros warrior. He gets his wish but just being a Meros warrior doesn’t mean he knows how to use the powers of a Meros. He decides to find the one guy that he knows is a Meros warrior so he can be trained and without much regret leaves his family and a very buxom class rep. behind to find the Meros warrior. A girl that’s looking for the same Meros warrior tags along and she has a magic bracelet that will making finding him easier. In the course of finding this Meros warrior he fights different monsters, with the locals being angry at this, and finding other Meros warriors.
As the show goes on though, it becomes apparent that Bocca is no Simon and we can’t expect him to pierce the heavens with his drill so the ending has to settle for a lesser goal. And this is one of the show’s big failings, as far as I’m concerned, because they create an interesting premise and world for Bocca to fight in but can’t work the story out well enough that it feels like he accomplished much in the series. In comparison, Simon from Gurren Lagann accomplishes much, much more in essentially the same episode count.
The final thing that I should bring up that might sway someone to watch or not watch this show is to mention that while this show can’t be classed as a fan service show there is some in the show. And well some shows can use fan service to help drive the plot of the show like Maid Guy, most shows either use fan service gratuitously or to cover for lack of plot – for MoO, the fanservice seems to try to cover over the poor battle scenes.
I don’t think this is proper follow-through in archery
Anime Opening
Anime Ending
Filed under: anime, series review, youtube | Tagged: anime, gainax, jc staff, melody of Oblivion, review
Its funny that you should post on this, I’ve been slogging through this show lately… and it is sad that the whole thing kind of got killed by the fanservice element. The soundtrack is fairly impressive, though.
The fanservice element is well played I thought.
I think of it in line with Utena, and in a way the two shows are quite similar.
Thanks for the comments. I’ve never seen Utena but for MoO; even if the fanservice was quality fanservice (and I think it could be argued that it was), it felt like most of it showed up during the fight scenes and if you looked at the fight scenes without the fanservice then they’d be really lackluster. And for a show to be coming from Gainax and J.C. Staff I shouldn’t be thinking that the fight scenes are lackluster.