Cestvs: The Roman Fighter
Short Summery
Cestvs is a boy who is enslaved and put in a training school for boxers to compete in the Colosseum at the height of the Roman Empire.
Review
In principle, Cestvs is an anime that I could really get behind. I'm still up for a good martial arts brawl between emotionally scarred fighting boys, and I've grown to consider myself a history buff (I have plenty of podcasts to recommend to anyone interested in learning more about Roman history).
Despite having all the makings of an ideal mid-grade time-killer, Cestvs leaves just one lasting impression: how awkward it is to spell its hero's name with that anachronistic "v," even in the subtitles. Aside from that, this fighter was already connected before the first round started.
A lot of it boils down to how well you present yourself. To put it bluntly, Cestvs looks terrible, both in terms of its uninspired artwork and the fact that it is almost depressing to see in motion. I expected Cestvs' Achilles' heel to be poor 3D animation, given the shoddy CG work at the start of the show, but no. At least in this first episode, the show is mostly animated in traditional 2D, but I think the show would have been better off sticking to looking bad in 3D.About every scene in the 2D animation has a shot or three that looks off: mouths are lopsided, body proportions are off, some poor sap ends up looking like the Tin Man as he walks or tries a punch, and so on. When it comes to Cestvs' big fight with Gidon, the storyboarding and character animation are so messy that it's unintentionally funny to watch.
Given that this is a show about gladiatorial boxing and, finally, pankration mixed martial arts action, the fact that Cestvs' battle scenes are already too bad is a bad sign. The tale isn't nearly convincing enough to make up for the lapse. Between Cestvs, the young Emperor Nero, the aged warrior Zafar, the proud Roman soldier Demetrius, and Demetrius' able son, Ruska, the premiere tries to introduce us to a wide and diverse cast. The problem is that none of them seem to be even a smidgeon more nuanced or interesting than their cookie-cutter character designs and mediocre dialogue would imply.Given all of these flaws, I wouldn't recommend Cestvs to anyone but the most die-hard fans of history and fighting anime. Even so, I think we all know that this season only has space for one boxing anime, and the choice between Cestvs and Megalobox 2 isn't even close.
0 comments :
Post a Comment