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Digital Downloads
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Written by maehara
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Wednesday, 13 August 2008 16:00 |
 Ah, another episode of BLASSREITER. I'd say "wake me when it's over", except I'm reviewing the danged thing. Hermann's logic seems to be faulty: after many episodes of insisting that Amalgam-form Gerd was no monster, five minutes as an Amalgam himself and he's convinced he is. Not what you'd call Mr Smart...
Hermann transforms into an Amalgam and destroys the Zwölf headquarters, before fleeing on Triple Six, Zwölf's latest experimental vehicle. Amanda pursues him, ignoring orders from Zwölf to break off and return to base. She's is determined not to give up on Hermann, having lost enough comrades already, but Hermann's mental state is far from stable and he doesn't respond to Amanda's efforts to reach him. Meanwhile, Sasha and the Apocalypse Knights begin their attack on the military air base taken over by Wolf and the Demoniacs, while Joseph receives further modifications to make him an even more powerful fighting machine...
Tough things, these Amalgams. Or Demoniacs. Or whatever they're calling them this week - the terms seem to be pretty interchangable. Drop a nuke on Wolf, and he just picks himself up from the mayhem and carries on regardless - which gives you some idea of the lengths that Zwölf will have to go to if they're to win this fight. It also means that you get some truly spectacular CG combat scenes while they give it their best shot, which is good as far as it goes.
The problem is, this series has been jumping about so much that I don't think it really knows what it's tying to do anymore. I get the strong feeling that the plot hadn't been fully developed when the show went into production, and as a result someone at GONZO or Nitro+ has been keeping a close eye on the ratings and adjusting the "story" to fit with what they think will be popular - hence the change from the early emphasis on bikes, to the current fixation on flying machines, and the corresponding changes in the opening animations to fit whatever they're concentrating on at the time. Somewhere along the line they got lucky and hit my personal interests, for all of two episodes, before moving on and trying something different. They lost me again at that point.
End result: something keeps me watching BLASSREITER, but for the life of me, I don't know why. Perhaps it's the lure of "free" doing its thing. I lost all hope in the series when Zwölf came on the scene and Sasha was raised from the dead, and I've got zero confidence that it'll pull the surprises out of the hat that it will need to have anything approaching a decent resolution. If you're still watching yourself, I admire your dedication - however misplaced it looks like being...
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