‘Spriggan’ Anime Series Review: Fails To Capture The Magic Of The Manga

Games ‘Spriggan’ Anime Series Review: Fails To Capture The Magic Of The Manga Ollie Barder Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I cover gaming in Japan as well as the pop-culture here. New! Follow this author to improve your content experience.

Got it! Jul 4, 2022, 04:05am EDT | Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin This new ‘Spriggan’ anime series fails to hit its mark. Netflix One of the most popular manga of the late 80s was that of Spriggan . Chronicling the life of a titular Spriggan agent in his task to seal away ancient technology, it spawned an anime movie and now a new anime series, but this newer iteration doesn’t quite make the cut.

The original manga for Spriggan was a fun premise. Teenager Yuu Ominae leads a double life as a high school student and a high-ranking agent at a secretive corporation called Arcam . Arcam’s purpose is to seal away ancient and potentially dangerous technology from people that would misuse it, namely the military arms of various world governments.

Arcam’s field agents, known as Spriggans, are tasked with this undertaking, often by any means necessary. The manga then hit all the right 80s spots, from the relatable Japanese high schooler who is actually a super secret agent with amazing physical powers, to uncovering mysterious ancient technology called OOParts (or just “out of place artifacts). The use of the word “ spriggan ” also wasn’t an accidental one.

An old English word, it describes magical and powerful beings that protect places of power or hidden treasure. MORE FOR YOU ‘Demon Slayer’ Season 2 Finally Has An Actual 2021 Release Date Netflix’s ‘Squid Game’ Season 2 Not A Sure Thing, Says Director ‘Genshin Impact’ Still Refuses To Increase Anniversary Rewards, Despite Fan Outcry Over the course of the manga’s seven-year run, it covered a bunch of specific story arcs and found a suitably massive audience in the process. Naturally, an anime adaptation was inevitable but it’s here where the Spriggan curse started to kick in.

Adapting any long running manga is no easy feat, even one with separate and distinct story arcs. However, the Noah’s Ark story from the manga was picked for a movie and was intended to be helmed by Katsuhiro Otomo . ‘Spriggan’ does have a few moments of levity.

Netflix Suffering long production delays, it looked like the movie would never get made. However, with some changes in the production and Otomo stepping aside to more of a supporting role, resulted in a decent movie but one that didn’t really represent the manga very well. To be fair, this kind of thing happened before with the first anime film adaptation of Ghost in the Shell by Mamoru Oshii .

That was far more in-line with Oshii’s past work, rather than the original manga that was its source material. Admittedly, Oshii felt he failed in adapting Ghost in the Shell , but the resultant movie was still a remarkable one. Maybe the reasoning with Spriggan was that Otomo was a creator of manga himself, so adapting Spriggan would be more straightforward under his guidance, but it didn’t work out that way.

Don’t get me wrong, the 1998 movie of Spriggan is not at all bad and captures most of the manga’s main story beats, but it lacked much of the 80’s action vibes and attitude from the manga. We then had the Spriggan game on the original PlayStation. Called Lunar Verse and developed by FromSoftware, it was an awkward and clunky mess.

Yet again, the curse of Spriggan had struck another adaptation. Why mention all of this? Well, it’s pertinent in how this new anime series adaptation of Spriggan has approached the source material and tried to be more faithful as a result. Set across six episodes, each episode covers a separate story arc from the manga, including the Noah’s Ark story that the movie adapted, but I will get to that later.

Each story is faithfully recreated from the manga but with most of the emphasis on the gory action scenes, which leads to the main issue with this series. While the characterization is more accurate, this ‘Spriggan’ series rushes through each of its . .

. [+] episodic stories. Spriggan The whole problem the movie had with its story was that it had to be rushed.

The manga took its time with the build-up and setting for each story, so when the OOParts were revealed and the action kicked off, the slower pacing made the pay-off worth it. With this series, we barely get any time to comprehend what’s happening because Yuu is eviscerating whatever shady government forces have gotten in his way before the story has truly sunk in. To make matters worse, the animation approach is a weird mix of 2D and 3D.

Normally, with hybrid animation setups like this, the 2D side handles the characters the 3D covers the hardware. In this instance, the 2D and 3D both cover the characters, with the 3D used in more complex action sequences. The overall result for each episode is that each story is truncated and rushed with the gory action sequences just looking wonky, as they badly shift between 2D and 3D.

It was also a mistake to cover the Noah’s Ark story in this new series format, as it results in obvious comparisons to the previous movie. While the series version of the story is arguably more faithful and handles the characterisation better, as well as a far more convincing depiction of the Ark, its shorter runtime and off key animation doesn’t do the series version any favors. Much like the Spriggan agents trying to seal away ancient technology, it feels like the Spriggan manga should be treated similarly.

From the movie to now this new series, it seems that the magic that made the original Spriggan manga so special is beyond the means of modern understanding. Spriggan is currently available to watch on Netflix . Follow me on Twitter , Facebook and YouTube .

I also manage Mecha Damashii and do toy reviews over at hobbylink. tv . Read my Forbes blog here .

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