WitchBlade

(2008)

I’ll never forget the day I went to one of the local malls and went to a shop that actually sold anime. The girl working there seemed nice enough and I decided I’d take her advice on a new show to watch. The show she suggested to me was Witchblade, an action/slice of life/humour anime with a bizarre story. The bizarre story is the one of how the show came together, though, just in case you’ve seen the show and you’re wondering what the hell I’m talking about. Apparently the show started as a comic in North America (Yes, that is a red flag. Good for you for noticing it) which was penned by individuals who were deemed “not good enough” for Marvel and DC. I remember that part of the appeal was supposed to be that these guys were just too badass for DC and Marvel (which, given the course of both companies today, makes you wonder exactly how depraved you have to be to not make the cut) but now, without those dicks in the way, we could get the whole thing the way it was meant to be. Only apparently they changed most of the characters and the plot from the comic when they made the anime? If these changes were for the better then god help anyone who read the comic. The show starts with the following tantalizing bit:

   Sought by the greed of men since the dawn of human kind, but only bestowed upon the women whose fate it forever scars…the Witchblade. Is it the righteous sword of God? Or hand of the Devil himself? Now a new bearer has been chosen. And she must discover the answers for herself. As she stands on the brink of destiny, she is forced to seek the balance between ecstasy and ruin.

This is pretty deep. Let’s take it apart here. Since before we can remember the Greed Of Man has desired the Witchblade even though it is only bestowed upon women, who, upon such bestowal, have their fates scarred forever. No one even knows what the hell it is but apparently that doesn’t matter. I’m also a little bit fuzzy on Ruin and Ecstasy being polar opposites. What kind of a balance do you form between them? I would think you’d want to have 100% Ecstasy and 0% Ruin, wouldn’t you? Are the two even mutually exclusive? I understand that I’m judging a translation, near as I can tell, but this shit started in English so you’ll have to forgive me if I’m a little too nitpicky about this. Having watched the entire show I can tell you that none of these questions will ever be answered. Get ready for multiple jokes about big boobs, though. I like when a show doesn’t beat around the bush about how low your IQ has to be to enjoy it. Your directness is always appreciated.

So basically there’s this thing called The Witchblade which is not very well explained for most of the show, up until close to the end where you realize you don’t care about the plot at all. It has chosen a woman whose name, literally translated, means Gigantic Chest. She also has a Gigantic Chest. Make a note of this, because we’re going to go back there multiple times. I’m sorry if I’m ruining all of these classic jokes for you, but you have to understand I’m just a ruiner by nature. So Big Boobs Sue, or whatever it is, discovers that the bracelet that is fused to her arm permanently is not just a bracelet but is actually The Witchblade! It’s a good thing she has it, too, because there are a bunch of fucked up “machines” going around town killing women for seemingly no reason. There is a reason for this and it’s ultimately explained, but it’s just lame and idiotic and makes you wish it was just ’cause. At least that would have been interesting on some level. There are other people who have weapons that are similar to The Witchblade in power and use, which really begs the question of why the piece of shit is possibly the Sword Of God. Sometimes these people fight each other. It is almost never really exciting. The ending is just garbage and it will make sure that you never watch the show more than once, if you can even make it that far.

Here’s another thing that really pisses me off about Witchblade: the main character has zero fucking character. She’s a slob and she can’t cook and she’s mostly just good at begging for people to help her.  That’s her personality. Oh, but she has a shitload of Heart. Heart being the will to do something when the people who have created a story can’t be bothered to give you a reason for the character to do something and so they just Really Want To Do It because the story is not compelling otherwise. She’s also got amnesia just in case you thought you might glean something from her past. What past? Ha ha! I mean, who cares about shit like that? She has big boobs, dude. You know how in some shows and books they give a person amnesia but then when you find out who they were it was totally worth it because it adds so much to the story? Well, don’t be looking for any of that here. In Witchblade it seems very much that they were just too lazy to give her a past until people started to bitch about it, then they just slapped together something and said, “There, I hope those whiny assholes who want ‘character development’ are happy now.” We are not.

Basically, if you took all of the idiots I went to school with who had no actual idea what anime was and asked them to make an anime they would make Witchblade, only they would make it to be offensive to people who like anime. I can only believe that the people who made Witchblade were trying to be the opposite of offensive (note: that’s not ecstasy, which we al know is the opposite of ruin). So so far we have almost half of a story with big holes in it that never get filled, or do get filled with garbage, no character development whatsoever, substandard animation and music that you forget right after watching an episode. The remaining ten points I have to reward are for originality. Let’s examine that a little more closely. A female character who is very powerful but doesn’t know how powerful or even really why she’s powerful. She has big breasts and can’t cook or clean and she’s a slob. Sometimes she battles things. That’s the basic premise of the show, and to be honest I can list about a hundred shows that you could apply that description to. It’s the neat little things that make those shows stand apart which are completely lacking in Witchblade. It’s watering the formula down so much that you can only assume everyone will like it. This is what we do when we produce things in North America. Thankfully, in the time since I’ve watched this show, it seems as though no one in Japan was stupid enough to try to rip the formula off. It’s pretty obvious why.