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Innocent Venus – Anime First Impressions

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Innocent Venus is an anime that falls into an ill-fated genre: Mecha. I’m not too big of a fan of mecha anime and the crappy cg that usually follows it. So is Innocent Venus guilty of such crimes, or does it successfully defend itself in the court of anime law?

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Innocent Venus is an anime that falls into an ill-fated genre: Mecha. I’m not too big of a fan of mecha anime and the crappy cg that usually follows it. So is Innocent Venus guilty of such crimes, or does it successfully defend itself in the court of anime law?

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Innocent Venus takes place in a future world where environmental disaster has split humans up into two classes. The upper class, called the Logos, control the technology and live in a shiny city. The poor are called Revenus, and live in slums outside of the city. See the evils of mecha?

The anime follows a bunch of Revenus who are hiding from the Logos for some yet unknown reason. Sana is a little girl who seems to be the key to some kind of secret. Jin is the overly protective siscon onii-chan figure for Sana, and Jo is the badass fighter. He has both a powered suit as well as a full fledged mecha. There’s also an annoying kid named Gora who I hope is squashed by a mecha very soon.

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There’s also another armed group who looks like they’re working to overthrow the Logos. They crash a Logos party and shoot up the place. There’s no explanation to who they are, either. They’re probably looking for Sana, too.

Despite being a mecha, the first episode of this anime was actually pretty good. It did a nice job of introducing the characters and setting up the storyline for the rest of the series. There was plenty of action with the powered suit fight in the beginning, the party shoot up in the middle, and the mecha battle at the end. It still remains to be seen where the plot will lead, but I’m remaining cautiously optimistic.

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Character designs are a mix between super generic and somewhat original. Jo and Jin are about as generic as you can get in anime protagonists. Sana is really cute, which makes up for the previous two characters. She reminds me of Franca from Coyote Ragtime Show and Yuuna from Kage Kara Mamoru. The group of ex-military types seems cool, though they might have tried a little too hard to make them seem unique. They resemble Shinigami rejects from Bleach.

The animation quality for Innocent Venus is really good. The fighting scenes are all sweet, especially the first one where Jo is wearing the powered suit. However, this anime suffers from BCGS – Bad CG Syndrome. The CG mecha look terrible compared to the rest of the animation around them. I really wish animators would stop resorting to shiny CG mecha. Other than that, I’d say the animation is excellent.

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The first episode didn’t have an OP, though I heard it from the single and it’s sweet. The ED is a mellow electronic sounding piece. It’s somewhat forgettable, but it works well with the actual ED sequence: a giant painting that gets panned around. It reminds me of the first Blood+ ED sequence.

Download the ED: “Brand New Reason” by FLEET

Overall, I’d say Innocent Venus is worth watching. The setting is interesting, and there’s potential here for a good story. If they keep the bad CG to a minimum (which they probably won’t), I’ll probably be able to withstand a few more episodes of this anime.

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20 replies on “Innocent Venus – Anime First Impressions”

Why do you watch mecha when you hate it? Anyway the CG for this really isn’t that good. The battles are so fast paced you have to slomo it to see its full sequence. I hope you did! It’s sort of Jackie-Chanish but more brutal when you see the first scene in slomo.

And the girl’s name is Sana. Which is a bad name.

Oops, I guess I was thinking too much of Saya from blood plus. Sayas have been turned back into Sanas. Thanks for the heads up!

Also, I’ll watch any anime at least once. Even if it’s Gakuen Heaven…

He’s doing us all a favour by watching crappy anime and informing us so that we don’t have to torture ourselves in the same way.

I salute his slowly deteriorating sanity.

Thank you. Your sacrifice is appreciated.

I liked it too when i watched the first episode althought i watched it raw and didn’t understand much…

The whole plot seems reek of DT Eightron or Wonderful Days to me. (And yes, the latter wasn’t even Japanese.)

Oh, and good to hear your next podcast coming.

The armed group that crashed the party are actually working for the government. The people they killed were terrorists( rebels, freedom fighters, whatever you want to call them) that had infiltrated the party. Although apparently one of them had killed an armed civilian by mistake( the one with a Derringer).

Finally got around to watching episode one the other night, it wasn’t bad but it didn’t stand out either- all the way through I was thinking “this has been done better in Kurau/Wolf’s Rain/Last Exile/etc”, and the CG mecha were definitely on the unimpressive side. Since I’m hoping it will pick up, however, I’ll watch at least the next episode.

i saw the episode and i really think its great
i even dreamed of it…:p but it kinda reminded me of the serise dark angel
really looking farward for the next episode

Well, I didnt think the show was that great but that little girl is exceptionally cute. Btw did anyone notice that on the Death card the naked girl looked like Sana(maybe my imagination?) Anyways I want to see more of her(preferably naked)!

when i saw Innocent Venus on Wowow, i immediately downloaded the series, and i realized, the synopsis is very much similar to the synopsis of the college thesis. ^_^ cool. anyway, i hope the story develops more, and for the CGs to be better.

It reminded me very much of Dark Angel as well, mecho. (All the more amusing, considering Dark Angel itself was based off Battle Angel Alita) That may be why I’ve really enjoyed this series.

Great story with a killer twist around episode 8-9… story is a little slow in the first half put quickly picks up pace as more of the plot line is revealed.

I thought this anime was the best one I have ever seen=D. It blew me away actually lol.The story line was really good as well as the characters. I hope the author decides to make a second series sooner or later…plz and thank you=) i’ll be waiting=)

laterz

Hmm.. interesting. Anyway, people who bash the author for watching a show they do not like need to shut the “eff” up. You don’t like it? Don’t watch it and don’t insult the author. By the way Jon, saying someone having a deteriating sanity is just plain stupid and it does not make you seem smart in any way either. It makes you seem plain arrogant and a “eff” up so shut up

wow!!
awsome
i really liked it
super sh*t CGI but other than that it was perfect exactly what i look for in an anime

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