Gankutsuou: Series Review

Gankutsuou gives Alexander Dumas's classic novel, The Count of Monte Cristo, the anime treatment. As the book is one of my favorites in all of literature, I was predisposed to liking the story. As it turned out, despite the very strange art style and the weird supernatural / sci-fi / fantasy elements thrown in, I ended up quite liking the anime as well.

ART

The art in this anime was really, really strange, and unlike anything I have ever seen before. Reviews I have read indicate that the disarming part is the static nature of the textiles--the clothes on the characters are superimposed effects, or something, so they do not move as the character moves. They also glitter in really strange ways.

Once I got used to it, though, I thought the show was actually very visually interesting. In addition to the strange static textiles, the show was set in the future--5000+ AD, with space travel and all, instead of 1800s France. I quite liked how the setting was done, though--it was futuristic, but with the 1800s France feel. Quite lovely.

PLOT

The plot varied a little bit from the book, but for the most part, it hewed closely to the storyline, although almost everything was told from Albert Morcerf's POV instead of the Count's. But still, The Count of Monte Cristo is one of the greatest revenge tales of all time, so naturally I loved the anime, which largely lifted that plot. There were changes, of course, but that will happen with any adaptation, and it was done well enough that I didn't need to take offense.

CHARACTERS

My favorite characters were the Count, Albert, Peppo, and Franz. Some of the female characters were rather uninteresting (e.g., Valentine, Eugenie). But I thought the character development was generally very solid. I wish the series had had more time to flesh out the side stories, like how Bertuccio came to be in the Count's service, but... I suppose 24 episodes is long enough.

OVERALL

I really liked this anime overall. I wished that Gankutsuou hadn't been ... some weird supernatural malevolent entity and that Edmond Dantes had been taught by Abbe Faria, as in the novel, and had at least remained human. But ultimately, the malevolent entity took the anime to a far darker place, and I sort of liked that. It meant the themes were kind of hammered over your head (revenge takes away your humanity! REVENGE TAKES AWAY YOUR HUMANITY!), but ... no complaints here, really. Overall, worth watching, even though I really shouldn't have wasted so much time...

As usual.