Wolverine Anime: "Asano" Review

We're back in the Omega Red thread, and the first few minutes are just more of the same boring stuff we saw before. But the action does pick up a bit when Logan starts fighting back, and by the end of the episode I was actually somewhat excited to see what the next episode has in store.

Initially, the battle between Omega Red and Wolverine is just more of the same old stuff. Lots of grunting, and panting, and slow panning shots. But there's a scene where Yukio tries to help Logan out and Omega Red uses his hair to deflect the attack. I couldn't help but laugh, and Willow Smith's "Whip My Hair" started playing in my head. Sad that the most amusing part of this episode had to be something so silly.

Anyways, with Yukio's help, Logan takes Omega Red down. The end of the fight is kind of anticlimactic for a sequence that really didn't have much of a climax to begin with, but it's still the best fight we've seen in the show so far, and Wolverine actually won a battle for once. Hooray for that.

Kikyo shows up again to finish what he and Logan started a while ago. The buildup to this fight is quite slow – I suppose to build up dramatic tension. But this just ends up being a lot of empty space before the action starts. Still, once the action does get going things are kind of interesting. The battle between Kikyo and Logan was actually fairly interesting until Omega Red shows up again, only to get promptly served an ass-whooping (although it's about damn time Wolverine brought the pain). On a separate note, once Wolverine serves up the coup de grace, Omega Red falls backwards, but in the next shot he's lying face down. WTF? This is basic animation continuity here, people. It's not that hard to get right. Yes, it's a small critique, but this kind of stuff is indicative of the rampant lack of attention to detail that makes this series unbearably bad at times.

The episode ends with a stunning appearance by Cyclops in the Blackbird. Oddly enough, I'm pretty stoked about this. I like what the animators have done with Cyclops, and he could be just the kind of interesting addition this story needs, especially with his combative history with Logan. The two have been at best frenemies, and at worst bitter adversaries, so I'm intrigued to see how things will play out with Cyclops in this version. Hopefully this incarnation of Cyclops isn't as poorly handled as Wolverine was. I'm crossing my fingers.

But I have to say this episode did give me hope that the series isn't doomed to be completely horrible. This wasn't a great story, but it wasn't that bad either, and it had some memorable moments. I think it's clear we can't expect this series to be an amazing entry in the Wolverine franchise, but if it can somehow turn things around and end up at least "okay", I'll be satisfied.

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