Sands of Destruction Review

          This week I'm reviewing Sands of Destruction. Here we have an anime, mostly for children and young teens. It’s only 13 episodes long, but I would have liked more. The story mostly revolves around three young adventurers in their travels to reveal the secretes of the mythical device known as the destruct code.  All three have different reasons for traveling together, but the end result is the same.

            Some of the subject matter might be a bit too heavy for younger kids to understand. The show’s universe revolves around a war between humans and beast men. Humans have been enslaved after centuries of fighting, thus being seen as less than human. One of the main characters is a victim of this war, losing her brother and father in battles. Because of her past and seeing the history of the world, she has decided that the world is too evil and full of suffering, and that it would be better if everything was destroyed. This is where the destruct code comes in.

            The show begins with her already having acquired the destruct code, and there is a warrant out for her arrest. While in a tavern she gets into a scuffle with The World Salvation Committee, and ends up fleeing with a human waiter that was posing as a beast man. They run into a little bear with super strength and get struck in an ocean of sand. I forgot to mention that all the oceans are made of sand.

            Some of the messages that can be learned from this series are, the importance of friendship and team work, overcoming prejudice, and not losing hope that good will overcome evil. The story lines of each episode are usually pretty simple and easy to understand. The violence doesn’t get to rowdy, but towards the end parents of younger kids, that might have an aversion to letting them see violence, might want to prescreen the episodes before letting their children watch. There is also some light cursing from the bad guys, and to be quite honest I’m not sure how bad it gets due to the fact that swear words tend to blend right into normal speech, so watch out if that might be an issue.

            For the most part the voice acting in the English dub is good. Although, it can get a little mellow dramatic. There is one character that can get pretty annoying at first. The cute miniature yellow bear can’t finish a sentence without saying the word “kuma”. After about episode 5 you get used to this, and might even find it endearing of the little guy.

            All in all I would have to say this wasn’t a bad show, but I couldn’t say that is was a great show. I’m sure kids will love it, but adults might find it a bit childish. I myself get caught up into stories and like to see how they end, so I’ll sit through them for the long hull, but most of you guys might want to skip this show if you want something with more substance. I give this show 6 pikachu thunder bolts out of 10.  

Chrome Shelled Regios Review

            This is a show about a young man with incredible powers and combat skills who was expelled from an order of special warriors for miss conduct. It’s set on a desert planet with poisonous air. The people must live in giant mobile cities called Regios. The show begins with our young protagonist coming to a city created for the soul purpose of education. Through series of events he ends up getting put in a military arts group, even though he had sworn to stop fighting after he was expelled from his order.

            The show mostly revolves around Layfon our hero and his platoon. You learn about all the members of his platoon over the course of the show, and see them all become more knit together. The platoon’s purpose is to protect the regios from contaminoid attack. Contaminoids are gross looking moster alien things. This show is packed full of action and emotion. There is at least one battle per episode and they spent a lot of time on character building. Along with having action, the show also has a harem aspect. For those of you that aren’t familiar with anime themes, harem is a show in which the main character has multiple members of the opposite sex that are either attracted or close to the protagonist. There are four girls that have feeling for Layfon and you get to watch as they awkwardly fight for his affections. The best part is that he’s completely clueless.

            I personally like the story as it flowed along. There was very little filler. I didn’t like the fact that for no reason they would cut to a brief seen where you might see the characters standing in the shower or in a hot spring naked while contemplating. There wasn’t any actual nudity, though. I personally find things like this in anime quite comical. The proper title of this is fan service, and this show likes to find a way to slip it in at least once an episode. The voice acting is mostly good, with the occasional over/under acting; so no problem there. I’m a big fan of Funimation’s newer dubbed series. The older stuff they used to do weren’t as accurate, but anything after 2000 is a pretty high quality translation. I remember watching Gundam Wing in English with the subtitles on and I saw two almost completely different stories going on, but they seem to have gotten over that issue.

             

            I found the ending of the show to be quite lacking, and it left me wanting more (Which isn’t a bad thing). The show was so good and captivating that I didn’t want to leave the characters behind. And the universe was so interesting, although they didn’t explain too much. This is one of the parts that I didn’t like about it ending after only 24 episodes. You can tell they left it open for a second season, but for some reason it never picked up. The ending of the series is sufficient enough for me though. There’s a long fight scene and enough emotional resolution for the characters. I dare people to not be rooting for at least one of the girls to end up with Layfon. I personally was a sucker for Felli. She was just way to cute with her not knowing how to deal with her emotions, and constantly getting jealous. But enough about being an otaku nerd.

            There are some really good lessons in this show about going out of your way to help others, and learning when it’s time to rest. You see these people that are so driven by many different reasons but they all come together and get over their personal issues to accomplish one goal. There is also a theme of fate. Not fighting your fate but embracing your gifts and talents to be used to fight for a better future. I use the term fate here rather loosely. There seems to be a trend in anime to honor ones own born-into calling. This is a very Japanese message. Many American have a, you can do what ever you want and no one can stop me mentality, where as, from what I know, the traditional Japanese view has more of a cast system like approach to what you can or should do. There is also another trend going against this traditional view, but I’ll save that for another show.

 I would highly suggest this show to anyone looking for some action with a good story. Once again beware of the fan service if you have a problem with that sort of thing. But if you can get past that, and some brief moments of poor voice acting, you’ll love the show. I give this show 8.5 kamehameha waves out of 10.