| about
trismugistus.com
and digital-bondage.net
are my web sites.
trismugistus.com
is where I upload my anime, manga and tv&film reviews,
and also where I occasionally post short stories and longer
works I've written.
digital-bondage.net
is my wallpaper site and provides anime, manga and other
desktop wallpapers in a variety of resolutions. I also
have a few tutorials and some resources, such as psds
for you to download.
I also run a site called scan-city.org,
which provides scans from the latest japanese anime magazines
for you to download and use in your wallpapers.
You can also read my blog here
or check out my anime list here. |
|
|
| divergence eve and mizaki
chronicles review |
|
|
| details |
| The Genre: 26 eps across 6 DVDs from ADV |
| The Format: sci-fi |
| 
|
| The plot: In the 24th Century, intergalactic
space travel has become a reality. One of the first
outposts in the far reaches of space is the Watcher’s
Nest, a launching point for the brand new state-of-the-art
inflation hole drive portal. Unfortunately, the
outpost has recently come under attack by a mysterious
and vicious alien force known simply as the Ghoul.
A group of young hard-headed (and hard-bodied) female
cadets with fresh out of boot camp have been assigned
to defend the station at all costs. This bevy of
beauties is unexpectedly thrown into a hornet’s
nest of trouble as they finalize their training
to become elite pilots in the Seraphim squadron. |
|
| back
to top |
|
| opinion
|
| Before I kick off, this is one of several shows
recently that seems to have ended up spread across
two half-size seasons. I’m not sure if this
is something of a new trend, or these just didn’t
tend to get released by US companies until recently,
but they’re not stand-alone series at all.
Really, it’s a 26 episode series, but with
a change in credits half way through. You can’t
watch Divergence Eve and fully understand the story,
and you can’t understand Mizaki Chronicles
without having seen Divergence Eve. I therefore
thought I’d review both as one.
Now for the review itself: |
Blimey.
I was really rather stunned by this –
take a look at the pics dotted around the
review and have a think about what you think
Divergence Eve is like.
The characters are wearing skin-tight and
revealing costumes, yes? They’re almost
all female, yes? Huge breasts abound, right?
And they look to be holding guns and there
are some mechs kicking about, correct?
So what’s it like? I’m sure you’ve
encountered shows like this before –
hot chicks, bouncy boobs, tight bods and more
fan service than you can shake a stick at,
all done at the expense of anything resembling
depth, plot, character development, and stuff
like that, yeah? |
 |
|
Well if you’re thinking all that, you won’t
be surprised to know that that’s what I thought
too, but you will be surprised to find that you,
like me, are wrong.
Or at least sort of wrong. I mean you can’t
deny that the character designs are rather extreme,
and it’s certainly true that the boobies do
jiggle, but the bit I was wrong about is that there
would be no plot and no depth. There is a plot,
and it’s quite a strong one; the characters
are quite well rounded and are developed well throughout
the series. |
 |
The plot of Divergence Eve is actually rather
complicated and is (possibly taking my surprise
levels to bursting point) hard Sci-Fi. That’s
right, it’s not just got a plot, but it’s
got a plot that would be worthy of a full-blown,
serious Science Fiction novel. A lot of the science
is quite accurate too and to add to this ethos of
believability, the Mechs are quite realistic too.
The mechs aren’t 500 feet tall, they’re
not extravagantly designed and generally they’re
much more like such robots would be in real life
(although admittedly bipedal machines are not particularly
practical, the ones presented here are not beyond
the realms of credulity). They’re realistic,
believable and fairly practical. |
 |
Similarly, the underlying plot of the show
is, although perhaps somewhat familiar, not
an entirely unreasonable concept. It’s
also pretty entertaining and does a good job
at putting in some neat little twists and
keeping you guessing as to where we’re
going next.
We also get some good character development
– the heroine, Mizaki, is well executed
and quite a sympathetic character, especially
when we get into the second series where great
effort has gone into fleshing out why everything
happens as it does and why she’s like
she is.
The key is it’s all surprisingly serious
and seriously presented. |
|
Which is, in actuality, slightly annoying. The
character designs just do not fit with this serious
tone. The designs on all the girls are very extreme
– with enormous, zeppelin-balloon shaped breasts,
thin waists and those huge cutesy-poo eyes.
Not that I have any problems with such deigns per
se, but the two just don’t gel – you
end up being slightly confused by the contradiction.
Also, the supporting “promo” type artwork,
such as the inner covers is right off the far end
of the fan-service scale. In fact, some series that
operate on a more traditional fan-service level
have less evocative artwork accompanying them. |
 |
However, as I say, it doesn’t quite work.
I would really like to say something about it being
the best of both worlds, but it just isn’t
– the two exist in separate worlds and they
just don’t work when put together here.
I think part of the problem may be the lack of
a proper young male character (or failing that,
lesbianism). As such, there’s nothing for
the sexuality to fire off against – if there
was a young male character for Mizaki to react to
in some way it would tie things together. |
Y’see on the fan-service side, there’s
actually quite a bit less than you might think.
Yes, the girls are sexy and the suits are
sexy figure-hugging designs so I guess you
could consider that constant fan-service,
but the actual “erotic” situations
they get into are few and far between –
there’re no hot springs eps, no shower
scenes or anything like that – and the
boobs don’t actually jiggle that much;
we don’t tend to end up looking up the
girls skirts that often, nothing like that.
In some ways I applaud this, as it means
things don’t fall into a predictable
trap; in others, it somehow undermines itself.
It’s a difficult thing to explain, but
it just sort of doesn’t work. |
 |
|
And speaking of things that don’t work,
there’s the CGI. When the series came to the
first bit of CG, I honestly had to check the case
credits to see how old the series was. The CGI is
really, really bad.
Now normally I would say something about how visual
stuff doesn’t really matter, but it’s
used too much and is too bad for me not to mention
it. I mean it’s awful. It’s cheap and
nasty and I’ve seen better stuff in anime
from the 80s.
So basically, again, the aesthetic elements of
the series are rather poor and mismatched with the
tight plot, but if you can get past those, what
lies underneath is definitely a compelling and interesting
tale. |
|
| back
to top |
|
| summary |
| The Summary: Very good Sci-Fi action anime,
but with perhaps the most inappropriate character
designs and worst CGI ever. |
| The Score: 4/5 |
| The Pictures:
(click for larger versions) |
| |
|
| back
to top |
|
home
| reviews | anime |
|
|
