Review of Casshern Sins

Casshern Sins is a thoughtful, violent, and dark reboot of the 1973 series Shinzou Ningen Casshern that examines the question of what give our lives value. The show begins with the amnesiac protagonist Casshern feeling depressed after being told that he caused "The Ruin," which created the post-apocalyptic world that this series takes place in and is the reason that robots, which were previously immortal, can now die. The first half of the series is largely composed of episodic stories of Casshern searching through the ruined world for robots who still live for something despite their impending death, and in each of these robots, Casshern findsbeauty. The problem with this is that the first half of the show feels very repetitive. Each episode focuses on a new character with a different life story, but Casshern ends up learning the same thing at the end of each episode, which is that there is still beauty in the world despite the ruin. It's incredibly simple and doesn't need to be stated more than once, but the entire first half of the show is spent tell that to the viewer again and again. The pacing is incredibly slow and despite lengthy conversations between characters, they say very little of substance. Because the entire first half of the show is incredibly slow, repetitive, and generally just lacking substance, it genuinely feels like the show is wasting your time.

With that said, the actual plot starts to pick up in the latter half of the series, and I think it does a decent job of synthesizing the ideas of the first half in a meaningful way to contribute to the show's over all themes, but that doesn't justify the fact the the beginning of the show outright wastes your time. By the end of the show Casshern, who was previously a blank slate, comes to have his own beliefs and ideals and concludes that the existence of death forces people to live their lives to the fullest. It isn't a particularly original idea, but it's executed competently through all of the different encounters Casshern has with dying robots. Despite that, this show really has no right being 26 episodes. I think the same story could have easily been told in 13 episodes without wasting any of the viewer's time.

The dialogue in Casshern Sins is another major problem in my opinion. Whenever Casshern meets a new robot, they basically just dispense their philosophies and motives to him in the most prosaic way possible. While I understand that this is done so a character's story can be told in a single episode, it's done in the most unrealistic and uninteresting way possible. Not only is the fact that these characters would be having such personal conversations with a complete stranger unbelievable, but the way that the characters speak also feel heavily scripted and unnatural. While I guess this is sufficient for simply divulging information about the character to the viewer, it lacks artistry and isn't engaging at all.

If there's any aspect of Casshern Sins that is wholly positive it is the soundtrack. Overall, it sounds more akin to something I would hear in a Hollywood movie than in a seasonal anime and there is no shortage of memorable tracks. Because so much of this show is just shots of characters standing around contemplatively staring at blue dirt, you really get to appreciate this anime's great OST.

Visually, I think this anime makes great use of its cold color palette to depict its dying, ruined world. In other a small handful of episodes the colors can be incredibly vibrant to emphasize that there is still beauty in the world in spite of the ruin. As is the case in a lot of shows made by Madhouse, the animation in the first episodes is of noticeably higher quality to hook the viewer in, but as the series goes on, it makes more use of still frames and stock footage to pad things out. Taken as a whole, the animation in this series is just fine.

Although I spent most of this review criticizing Casshern Sins, I rated it as highly as I did because of its great soundtrack and more focused latter half. Even though I enjoyed watching this show about as much as I enjoy getting my teeth pulled, I can't say that I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I think Casshern Sins would appeal to those who like similar atmospheric, philosophical, and slow-paced anime like Ergo Proxy and maybe Texhnolyze. While I typically enjoy shows like that, Casshern Sins missed the mark for me.