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Now in Japan
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Written by maehara
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Monday, 06 March 2006 00:00 |
 Here's one of those series where I struggle to come up with anything to say. Ginga Densetsu Weed centres on the lives of the dogs who live in a mountain valley, in particular the titular Weed - descendent of a dog of legend who now looks set to have to pick up from where his forebear's battles left off. If ever there was a show I had a hard time working up any enthusiasm for, this is it...
1 - His Name is Weed
In the Ohu Mountains, there's a place called Futago Pass - a dog's paradise since 14 years earlier when an enraged bear who roamed the area was finally killed. Over 150 dogs had taken part in the hunt to kill the bear, and had stayed in the pass when the battle was over. Now the time of peace is over, and strange creatues are once again attacking the dogs. In the battle against the bear, one dog - Gin - had the power to turn the tide of the battle. Now it's the turn of his descendent Weed to protect the peace...
I'll be honest and admit that I didn't manage to make it to the first-episode eyecatch before giving up on this. I suppose that in some ways there are some similarities to Wolf's Rain (Wolf's Rain has wolves looking for paradise; Weed has dogs who have already found theirs and are fighting to protect it), but while Wolf's Rain had some level of appeal and a lot of presentational style, Ginga Densetsu Weed has neither. The animation and character designs are quite poor, while the personalities of the dogs are very much playing to the stereotypes you'd see in a typical shounen fighting series - no surprise when you realise that's what it is, with the "unique" point that it's dogs doing the fighting instead of humans or aliens. The introductory scenes and title sequence point to special powers & powerups, but I didn't keep watching long enough to see any of that in action.
Even for fans of figthing series, I think this will be a tough pitch - I can see the setting putting more people off than it attracts. For myself, it just didn't work at all. Pass.
RIGHT TO REPLY: Apparently, Weed is the sequel to 1986 series and apparent fan-favourite Ginga Nagareboshi Gin (the events of that series are touched upon in Weed's opening scenes), a series I hadn't come across before. At least one Gin fan has taken me to task for not giving Weed a fair hearing - you can read more about this here. My own opinion of the show hasn't changed, but the background may interest others.
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