*Semi-spoilers*
Darkside Blues starts off with a fairly good plot, a cast of rebels wage a rebellion with a corporation so vast, that it owns 90% of the world and has governmental control. An original concept, what with corporations playing a titanic role in today's world. You are given the impression a true struggle as the corporation battles the only area of the world they do not own, and it all occurs within the first ten minutes.
However, this is when the movie falls flat on it's face. The movie has too many "main characters" and all of them never resolve anything throughout the story, as the movie delves into awkward fighting scenes that are sometimes enjoying, and at other times just weird - especially when one of the "main characters", Darkside, battles huge villains with psychological attacks that sometimes defeat the enemy and at other times do not.
This darkside character, who seems to have come from some other planet or something (they really don't explain or even hint and all other possibilities are non-existent) is viewed as an all powerful... errr... psychic fighter or sorts who rarely does anything in the movie. Why does he never fight the evil corporation despite having the power to actually compete with them? Why hasn't he ever done anything before? Where did he gain his powers from? These questions are never answered.
One of the other characters, a girl who is considered the leader of the free territory, is the main fighter against the corporation, along with a secret member of a rebel alliance. But even these characters do very little and more or less talk about their "darkside" and being "renewed" - these two topics make no sense to the viewer, as they are never explained and you never actually see them happen - despite being heavily talked about throughout the movie. How will a "renewal" save the planet from domination? We never know.
Even worse the villains in the movie do little as much, we see some scenes indicating their evil ways, but that is it. They are never confronted or encountered by the heroes until the end of the movie, where still nothing occurs or is settled.
The last qualm I had with the movie was that despite the word "Blues" being in the title, the soundtrack was pretty bland, and only at the beginning was there really any blues music. A major flaw, but only because the movie suggests that quality blues music would be played from the title.
You'll be left scratching your head, unless you, like many others, decide that the movie was never finished, for whatever reason (possibly a sequel?), but that doesn't appear to be the case since one was never released (as far as I have checked). Non-sensual action scenes, a plot that goes nowhere, and a lame soundtrack... if it wasn't for the style of animation, it would hardly be called an anime.
1/10
Darkside Blues starts off with a fairly good plot, a cast of rebels wage a rebellion with a corporation so vast, that it owns 90% of the world and has governmental control. An original concept, what with corporations playing a titanic role in today's world. You are given the impression a true struggle as the corporation battles the only area of the world they do not own, and it all occurs within the first ten minutes.
However, this is when the movie falls flat on it's face. The movie has too many "main characters" and all of them never resolve anything throughout the story, as the movie delves into awkward fighting scenes that are sometimes enjoying, and at other times just weird - especially when one of the "main characters", Darkside, battles huge villains with psychological attacks that sometimes defeat the enemy and at other times do not.
This darkside character, who seems to have come from some other planet or something (they really don't explain or even hint and all other possibilities are non-existent) is viewed as an all powerful... errr... psychic fighter or sorts who rarely does anything in the movie. Why does he never fight the evil corporation despite having the power to actually compete with them? Why hasn't he ever done anything before? Where did he gain his powers from? These questions are never answered.
One of the other characters, a girl who is considered the leader of the free territory, is the main fighter against the corporation, along with a secret member of a rebel alliance. But even these characters do very little and more or less talk about their "darkside" and being "renewed" - these two topics make no sense to the viewer, as they are never explained and you never actually see them happen - despite being heavily talked about throughout the movie. How will a "renewal" save the planet from domination? We never know.
Even worse the villains in the movie do little as much, we see some scenes indicating their evil ways, but that is it. They are never confronted or encountered by the heroes until the end of the movie, where still nothing occurs or is settled.
The last qualm I had with the movie was that despite the word "Blues" being in the title, the soundtrack was pretty bland, and only at the beginning was there really any blues music. A major flaw, but only because the movie suggests that quality blues music would be played from the title.
You'll be left scratching your head, unless you, like many others, decide that the movie was never finished, for whatever reason (possibly a sequel?), but that doesn't appear to be the case since one was never released (as far as I have checked). Non-sensual action scenes, a plot that goes nowhere, and a lame soundtrack... if it wasn't for the style of animation, it would hardly be called an anime.
1/10