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Beast Wars
 Genre: Anime/Computer Generated
Rated: For All Audiences Lets get started, Beast Wars, is the next step up from the all lovable, and original anime show Transformers. Transformers is where is all started, and is where the idea of one thing transforming, or changing shape into something else, at will, or at command got popular. But this review is not about Transformers. I might do one on it later, but for now this is all i'm doing. The idea behind Beast wars, is baisically another Good VS evil story. Where there is a team on the good side, fighting for good rights, and motives, and then there is the traditional Opposition which always goes against what the good side has to try and do. The two sides in this anime are usually led by a strong leader, who for each one of their beliefs, is always a prime example for what the team stands for. Other then for some episodes that they must ally to defeat a common foe. But for most of the time, the one side is hoping that something will destroy the other side. In this particular anime, since the 2 sides are stuck on an unknown planet, their bodies must be transformed so that they can cope with the harsh conditions of energon. Energon is a harmful crystalite substance which is fictional, so don't go out and start looking for some. When the characters are in their robot forms, which enable them to fight, and attack with energy weaponds, it also gives them more versatility. They robot forms can only be exposed to the energon for a limited amount of time. Once they have been in robot form too long, their bodies will start to rust up, and freeze, this is probably the time for them to transform back into their original beast forms, which protect them from the energon, and allows their robot forms to repair themselves until they are able to battle again. The only place that they can be in their transformed form for as long as they want is inside their ships (bases). They have a sheilding program called sentinal which can protect them from the harmful energon rays. But the only disadvantage is, which was deminstrated in one episode, is that if they stay in their beast forms for days at a time, without transforming, after a few days they will start acting like the beast. The beast will take over, in order to get over this, they must transform, and stay that way for a bit. Thats why being inside their base is so important. Since the 2 ships (bases) contsining the people inside crashed on the planet, they cannot lift off. When one of the ships crashed they released a bunch or pods containing others of their force in there. So throughout the series, we see a continous introduction of new characters, and new stratagies. The first side to retrieve the pods that crash, gets a new recruit for their team. But there is also another twist. Beast wars is not the same the whole time, after a few seasons the characters change, and get (upgraded) from an accident explosion, and they now have 3 forms. A beast mode, a transportation mode, and a robot mode. These new upgrades if you would call them, are made from a finer class of metal, and are much stronger then the others who did not get upgraded. At the very end, the 2 bosses find a nice little secret, and they too get upgraded a third time, this time to ultimate robots, which have an uncountable amount or forms, (i think it's like 6 or 7) and they are much bigger then the rest of the characters. There are also wierd characters, they were created when pods came down and malfunctioned, the pods accidentally scanned 2 animals instead of one, and made a fusion between 2 beasts. So there is things like a scorpion with a snake tail, and a wolf with falcom wings on it's back. These were called Fuzors. Near the ending also the evil team discovers a technology to create a new breed of robot beasts. Called transmetal 2. there are two new beasts that are crated. One being a true transmetal, eternally destined to share his spark or life with another. And the other being non other than Cheetor, he went in and got mutated into a super, form or himself, which wasn't really that much metal than it was biological. Animation -- 9/10
The animation in this is of corse, awesome, nothing beats it, it's made by using computer graphics, and if you know anything about digital graphics editing, then you will know that nothing gets better then this. Even though you would think that things like Reboot, and other computer edited art, where the joints make the character look like they are stiff, and barley bend. In think, since they are robots, they have no limits to their movements. Which makes it look pretty good when it comes to computer edited art. The pixelization is also above average, and Has much better quality then a regular anime. Some people would argue that since it is made on a computer is is technically not an anime. But others would argue that since it evolved from Transformers, it technically is still considered and anime even though America made it. The perciseness, and the perfection of the way that the characters transform is mind boggoling. When they transform, it is perfectly timed, and it is made to look natural, They also me it so that once they transform, they are immobile, so that in the iddle of a transformation...which might last about 1 second, if someone shoots them, they are gone. But whats interesting is that when they are in beast mode you can't tell that they are a robot. They totally look normal. They graphics animators also took the time to add things taht most people take for granted. Things like, shadows, and lighting effects, when the characters are in their robot forms, they took the time to add glare to the metal, and they took the time to actually make it look 3 dimentional. This could also be another thing that some people argue, they could say that animes aren't supposed to look 3 dimentional. But as i said before, there is also the thing where it evolved from an Anime. In beast wars everything goes against being an anime, but just because of the simple fact that it evolved from an anime, makes it a legal anime. Even though it wasn't even made by Japanese. I'm not trying to promote anything, i'm just stating what most people think. I just made it sound like and amazing animated anime, but the fact is, that not everything looks amazing, things like the lava, and some plantlife are still a bit fake looking. Thats why this anime didn't recieve perfect animation marks, but overall it is more than what is expected of a general anime. Story -- 9/10
This anime has an amazing story. Since it's not like a journey, each episode has it's own theme and it's own toatlly different endings. Most of the episodes, the theme is not even good vs bad. It's things that people are planning, and strategizing. Some episodes it's just the characters trying to get to a newly fallen pod that contains a new ally or , if the toher side gets to it first...foe, but what i think is the most amazing part of the sotry of this anime, is that you genuinley don't know whats going to happen at the end of the episode. Sometimes you are shut down because it says "co be continued..." but for the most part, the story is 2 sided, meaning it can tilt either way, in favor of the bad guys or the good guys. By the way i'm not sure if i mentioned this erlier but the "good guys" are called the Maximals, and the bad guys are calld the "Predacons". Anyways, continually throughout the sotryline, each episode mainly features either a big battle, or a specific day in the life of a certain character, or characters. Some episodes might just feature one of the teams trying to survive inthe new, and unknown terrain. But near the ending the storyline gets REALLY deep, and it unfolds the true meaning or the whole series, it actually includes some things, from the original transformers, like the old Optimal Primal. And the old megatron. There, are also some nice twists in the story which lead into the following series called beast machines, but i will talk about that later on, in another review. This story is pretty unique, because it's quite different in quite a lot of ways to the typical anime. Since there are a lot of different things going on at the same time. Between different characters, featuring the different conflicts, and lives or the groups. There are actually quite a few sub stories, or sub plots that run through the main storyline, there are some characters who live secret lives, and are planning to betray their leader, and then there are some characters who live away from the other group, they have their own section to protect, but are still part of the team, and occasionally are seen nagotiating battle strategies with the others. Most of the time there is always something new going on. I don' think that there is ever an episode that has baisically the same theme as any other. Each episode is quite different, and has a sense of individuality to it, it is unique. This section gets such a high rating because the story is very great, and it is filled with action and great dramatic situations also, it has some pretty nice twists in the plot, and some nice jokes. Heroes are born, and heroes die, but the story mainly shows the people the true meaning of the saying. "More then meets the eye" Sound -- 9/10
The sound in beast wars is unique, i won't lie to you on that. It is very different from anything i've heard before, and it has great beats. It is amazing with the show, and without the show, you can download it off the internet, and listen to it all you want, but i warn you, as every other song, it is bound to get boring after a while. Now getting in a bit further, the voices are pretty great, wach voice has it's own little tweak to it. Megatron's voice (leader of the predicons) has the greatest evil tone to it that i've ever heard. If i knew the actor who did his voice, i'd give him praise. The same goes with Optimus Prime's voice (leader of the Maximals) he has a nice bold voice, the kind of voice that a leader is to have. There are also a lot of different characters that have some nice voices that fir perfectly with their charactaristic destriptions. Once of the most amaizingly put together characters i would think is Black arachnia. Since she is a black widdow spider in beast form, she takes on the charactaristics of a black widdow, Beautiful, but expremley deadly. And thats exactly what a black widdow is, she also has a slight tone to her voice, that just doesn't let you trust it. Whatever she says you know that there is a whole different story behind it. Thats quite amazing since, both these things fit perfectly into each other, and i'm sure there is also something about the other characters that fit perfectly, into what seems to be an almost unimagenably perfectly planned out show. (i said perfectly too much didn't I?) Anyways, The intro, and the endings are quite nice there are some nice sound effects, and some nice themes. There are also the characters' trademark sound effects while they are fransforming, which i thought was a pretty nice touch, especially since they didn't have something like that in the original transformers. They had the same sound for all the transformers, which made it pretty plain, and boring to watch after a while. In here, there are traditional little sounds, for example, for one of the characters named Dinobot, whenever he transformed, there was a unique little screeching/roaring sound that sounded much like a vilociraptor. Which was what his beast form was. For another character there was a nice little Roaring sound and that was pretty appropriate since he was a rinocerous. Overall this is a pretty good anime, with a nice storyline, and great sound. The creators were very thoughtful when creating voices, and sound effects. High rating for sound. General Ratings
Blood: 2/10
Violence: 8/10
Language: 1/10
Recommended for: 9+
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