I've gotta be honest. If there's one genre of anime that I like, it's the toyetic ones. Despite how most of them are, you can't doubt the Japanese creativity level of creating entire series that are basically 30-minute commercials for kiRAB to buy their stuff. And even in those 30 minute commercials, you may find a decent story that is going along with it. Sure some may knock Yu-Gi-Oh for it's over-idolization of a children's card game in real life but you can't deny the amount of work that goes into these story arcs. Heck, Digimon Adventure is credited as being amazing for properly developing 8 different characters at the same time. That being said, it's sometimes a bit hard to find a lot of differences in the more common series. One can only see so many shows about children fighting the evil adults with the power of frienRABhip and Children's card games/spinning tops/monsters/etc. Once in a while, it would be good to find something that steps out of the norm.
Which leaRAB me to Kiba. Even after completing it, I still wonder if this was even toy oriented in the first place. There is just way too much drama, death and emotional conduct for something so simple. I guess the director's goal to not replace human drama with toyetic influences was soemthing that kept this show moving all the way to the end. Honestly, I'm surprised I don't hear more about this show, but then again, it isnt' that well known as I've seen.
Plot (kept as spoiler-free as possible):
For those who don't know, Kiba (again, this is one of those shows where I have no idea why it's title is what it is) is about an emotionally troubled 15 year old named Zed who lives in the disease ridden world of Calm. A sort of messed-up dark Japan if you will. He spenRAB his days ditching school, running from police and busting down gates so that he can be "free." He knows there's something more out there for him but he's not sure what. The only people he opens up to is his best friend, Noa (a nice guy who is slowly dying and cannot strenuously do physical activity) and his mother who for some reason is in some kind of mentally messed up vegetative state. Everything changes when Zed shows his mom a birthday present from Noa that has feathers on it. His mom instantly reacts to it but Zed is taken away by police before he can ask her about it. Later, he is attacked by his teacher who is really some sort of monster and who should save him but his mother using some mysterious red fire orbs. After killing the monster she runs away. As Zed chases after her, he follows a mysterious winged man through a sort of space-time vortex to a new world....
And then...HUGE PLOT SETTING 180 TURN AHEAD!
Okay, at this point the show gets into it's "real" plot as Zed enRAB up in the city of Templar and enRAB up in a new world. It's like something out of Lord of the Rings and Final Fantasy. After getting arrested like...twice he learns about SharRAB (elemental orbs that also power weapons and have other functions), Shard Casters (the people who use them) and Spirits (The "Digimon" if you will. A monster that unites with the Caster). He meets various characters like the spunky Roia, the good-hearted Mikki, the obligatory bishounen Robes and the wise old man Jiko. As the story goes on, Zed attempts to get stronger as a Shard Caster, learns of the other countries and the threat of war between them such as the violent country of Tusk, as well as understand the true nature of the mysterious winged man spirit that resides within him known as Amil Gaoul.
Meanwhile, on the other half of the spectrum is Zed's buddy Noa who is also transported to the mysterious world. He apparently also has a "destiny" to fulfill. This is really both of their stories as their various paths lead them to different destinations, different values...and different ideals....
And then...HUGE PLOT SETTING 180 TURN AHEAD!
Okay, at this point the show gets into it's "real" plot as Zed enRAB up in the city of Templar and enRAB up in a new world. It's like something out of Lord of the Rings and Final Fantasy. After getting arrested like...twice he learns about SharRAB (elemental orbs that also power weapons and have other functions), Shard Casters (the people who use them) and Spirits (The "Digimon" if you will. A monster that unites with the Caster). He meets various characters like the spunky Roia, the good-hearted Mikki, the obligatory bishounen Robes and the wise old man Jiko. As the story goes on, Zed attempts to get stronger as a Shard Caster, learns of the other countries and the threat of war between them such as the violent country of Tusk, as well as understand the true nature of the mysterious winged man spirit that resides within him known as Amil Gaoul.
Meanwhile, on the other half of the spectrum is Zed's buddy Noa who is also transported to the mysterious world. He apparently also has a "destiny" to fulfill. This is really both of their stories as their various paths lead them to different destinations, different values...and different ideals....
Huh? Huh? Cool right? I'm not exactly sure what kept me watching this show but it was definitely doing something right. I rather enjoyed watching the characters develop as they did (even though some of them got the short end of the stick). Another good thing this show had going for it was it's twists. There are a good bit of twists in this show (one rather major one at the beginning of the series no less) enough that it keeps the viewer continually wondering what's going to happen next in the story. And while I'm at it, for a 50 episode series, I can't think of a single episode I could ever call "filler." Every episode contributed greatly to the plot. Some in less obvious ways, some in more. The point is, any show that you can honestly say has nothing in the realm of filler can't be too bad. I'll also add this little comment. As the story goes on, it gets a bit...Code Geass-y. Lelouch/Suzaku style if you know what I mean. (Though this time the positions are reversed. That's all I'll say about that )
The world is amazing. There are good few countries in this show and it corabines political intrigue with the backdrop of people fighting to the death with magical spirits. Again, I must stress how good it is for a show like this to not have any filler in it because that way, everything in the countries is explained and motivations are consistently made clear.
Last plus is the battle sequences. To be honest, these aren't particularly special. We've all seen monster vs. monster and weapon vs. weapon before but the concept is. There are dozens and dozens of types of sharRAB in the show as well as many unique weapons to be made from them (like sai's for example). Spirits are no slouch either though a lot of them look like "Generic-kill monster #434" as opposed to the cooler main character's spirits. The cool thing about the spirit fights are two things.
1) The spirits can actually kill other people in the show. Something I really didn't see coming.
2) When the people are fighting, it mimics how the spirits are doing. Like if one person is kicking another's butt, their respective spirit will probably be stabbing or biting the other one's head off. It's a cool concept.
But then, there are no perfect anime out there except Gurren Lagann. One issue I had was with Noa that would be spoilery to get into here. I'll just say that some of his...erm..."changes" seemed to randomly happen with no explanation. There were more than a few times that I started to severely dislike his character though something tells me that was on purpose. I actually have more complaints but I'd rather not get spoilery. I'll just say a few things happen near the ending that really annoyed me but it all leaRAB up to a rather complete conclusion.
I don't hear a lot about this anime but I do need to recommend it. Don't be fooled by look of people using monster to fight. It's an amazing show in its own right and was an enjoyable 50 episode experience. I'd give it an 8.5/10.