Flag was actually one of the first anime to air for the Summer season. I didn’t see a raw until a while back, and the first episode just got subbed a few days ago. I really didn’t think much of the anime, but I only had a picture to base that opinion on (irony!).
Flag tells the story of Shirasu Saeko, a photographer who gains instant celebrity status after she snaps a cool photo of a flag being raised in a small war torn nation. The photo becomes a symbol of peace, and actually kickstarts the peace negotiations. Reminds me of that one time I took a picture of a clown at the state fair. That was awesome.
After gaining all kinds of fame, Saeko is asked to return to conduct a special mission. Apparently, terrorists stole the flag from the picture! The flag is so important that they send out a special mech unit just to retrieve it. Yes, this anime also contains mecha. It seems Saeko is not happy about the mech, however, as viewing the top secret mech footage reminds her of refugees of war.
The character designs lean more toward the realistic. Unless, of course, you don’t see giant hulking 9-foot tall men in real life. Saeko is (thankfully) much cuter than in the promo picture I had seen a while back.
The animation technique used for this anime is unique. Not Honoka unique, thankfully. The shading has an airbrushed feel to it. All of the characters move fluidly, so much that it almost looks like rotoscoping was done to fill in the animation.
I guess I should also mention that my sworn enemy, CG, makes an appearance. It isn’t as bad as most anime, but I still don’t care for it. I also noticed that they re-used a lot of scenes with the CG. Boo.
The anime didn’t have an OP this time around. It seems more artistic to leave the OP out these days. The ED fits well with the feel of the anime. It starts off soft, slowly gets louder, and ends up soft again. Pretty sweet.
Download the ED: “Lights” by Eri Nobuchika
Another thing I noticed about the anime is that it didn’t use much background music. This made it seem more like a documentary than a narrative. The lack of background music added a lot of realism where a grand score would’ve trivialized the serious events.
Flag is shaping out to be a very good anime. The story is really interesting, though I think it could have done without the whole mech aspect. I have a feeling that the mech stuff was thrown in there so that the anime would have more mass market appeal. Either way, I’ll continue to keep my eye on this one as long as someone keeps subbing it.
14 replies on “Flag – Anime First Impressions”
Seems like most of the series you weren’t looking forward to (for Hung-like reasons) you’re turning out to like. 😛
I watched this last night, and I found it pretty interesting. I especially thought it was a nice touch that it didn’t have background music. Definitely going to continue watching this one.
Yeah hung, CG is the win. But I actually thought the CG fit in well here. They could’ve used like normal weapon platforms like M1A2s, Apaches etc, but I guess HAVWCs would’ve been cooler.
Hmm I actually had a chance to watch this episode and I thought it was pretty awful, from a writer’s perspective. Ehh I’ll have something up on this later tonight.
I also liked the first episode. The art was refreshing and the CG wasn’t overly used. I do have a good felling for that show but they must try to rely a bit less on the camera POV. I think it’s a very original introduction but I can easily see myself getting fed up with it quite quickly as the episodes pass by. Nevertheless, I did like the narrative construction and the general premice of the show.
It should be noted that every single (more than 99%) of the shots/scenes in the first episode are seen through one camera or another. I mean camera as in an actual video or photo camera that one of the characters is holding. This I found to be a pretty interesting artistic choice, which fits in with the documentary theme they were going for.
Hehe, band nerd. ;P
I’ll be following your review per episode, but I’m not much of a mech fan either. :/ Or CG. x_x;
boring. constant flashes of the camera are annoying. only good point is the theme music playing.
i heard there were only 13 episodes and that the girl with the camera is going to retrieve the flag with the havwc
i aint looking forward to this
lmao, the clown picture is great!
It’s well animated and all. But it’s so many things they say and do that makes no sense at all. Like saying things just because it sounds cool;
Ep 6, armoured door.. he used a sticky bomb on it and said “class c, three point burst” and fired 1 grenade..
They couldn’t use Comanche helicopter and long range missiles because of the radar guided AA defense.(The Comanche is a stealth helicopter btw, designed have a very snall radar signature)
Therefore they had to parachute the HAVWCs in equipped with an untested cannon, knowing it was too powerful for the “foot dampers”
The HAVWC having no “metallic components” in it’s ceramic armor would make it invisible to radar…(probably not)
After a while I just stop reading the subtitles and enjoy the pretty pictures.
Good show though
I like it so far, only through the frist disk. The CG with the mech is nice, never can go wrong with that. The only thing is that gets tired-some is the first person view of the camera and the skipping around of sences.
To me when I watch it, it’s very parallel to the War on Iraq. And I think she has an interesting camera that records video at the same time as she could snap a picture. I would like one.
Oh, and I’m quite obsessed with the Anime, and just love it! Photo journalism part came out at a very good time when the RSS Feed blogs are in an uproar and the war.
Bandai please make the camera and the interface, hotness.