X-Men Animated Series - The Anime Project

It really amazes me that the story of X-Men was also adapted in Anime. Marvel a western comics company and anime as an asian style of animation, merged. It is really like an East meets West kind of collaboration. To see 2 distinct ideas in a series is really a Marvel fan dream come true. 

A little bit of background there was a project called Marvel Anime. It is a four part anime television series and two films produced in collaboration with Marvel, Madhouse and Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan. With that four part anime with 12 episodes each, X-men is the first one that I will be reviewing. The other series includes Iron Man, Wolverine, and Blade.

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The Anime X-men series deals with The Inner Circle in Japan after the death of Jean Grey. The X-Men were reassembled by Professor X to get into a mission in Japan where they investigate the Inner Circle activities. They found that there is a high concentration of mutants in Japan but Professor X was not able to detect them. In the course of events I thought that this is about Cyclops dealing with the death of Jean. In the end it was really the story of Professor X on how the situation became what it is in the series.

The story is really a bit dragging that it could have been much simpler around 5 episodes tops. I've always believed Cyclops but it is a little bit annoying keeping the doubt over White Queen. It would be ok if there was a solid background why not to trust White Queen. Though White Queen is a very known character as a telepath and an enemy of X-Men however,  it was not established clearly in the series. They focused too much on the anger of Cyclops. The X-men has no proof or did not feel anything that White Queen is reading their heads of some sort. White Queen is on the cool area, and Cyclops remained on the anger area and it was just when Cyclops trained Armor that is where Cyclops shines. Though Cyclops is a little bit prick still he shows the inner leader to Armor.

The series lacks detail and Anime feel on the story telling. The series is in Anime but it did not feel like it. I am not sure if that is the objective but the storytelling is still on the Western side instead of giving it a real Anime experience.

They lack a twist and the story drags before making a point at least on the 4th to 6th episode. Anime creators as always have twists which makes any Anime series very interesting. The twist in the end that it was Professor X’ son is the omega level mutant, is pretty much obvious for a Marvel fan. This pretty much disappoints me, because in the end they did not save the boy.

If there is any good part in the series it is Beast and Wolverine. They are the authentic Wolverine and Beast characters that you see in any other series. The wittiness of Beast and the roughness of Wolverine brings the story a little bit more fun and exciting.

The little bit off with Wolverine is that he enters a berserker mode and he can not recognize anyone. He is fast and he really has a huge amount of strength that he can slice through any foe on his path. Though it is just a little bit insane and OP on that part.

Overall I did not see where the Anime and X-men meet. Sure it is Anime but for me Anime is not all about how the animated series is illustrated but Anime is the totality of how the story was presented. The awesomeness of X-Men and the wittiness of Anime is not seen in the series. I was a bit disappointed but the good thing about it is that Wolverine provides the action in this series.