Impressions:

Ah, I finally bothered to watch the final episodes of Innocent Venus. It’s not that I force myself to watch the series, but since so many of the new shows are more entertaining, I couldn’t find the energy to open up my media player and watch. Buuut, now that I have, I have to say that the ending was a lot better than some other finales I’ve seen. The only problem was the pacing, as the last episode was far too rushed. A lot of insight was given into the character’s past and such, but they weren’t expanded nearly enough. The producers definitely know how to animate war and destruction and I commend them for that. I liked a lot of the diverse angles and shot types used, as well as the clever use of lighting. Mechas using shunpo is pretty cool as well. Some nice commando moves were pulled off by Shiba and Renee too. I’ve seen a few so-called action anime where soldiers and officers only know how to stand, run and crouch (and maybe salute too). The ending does leave me wanting to see another episode to show the aftermath of everything. Maybe a few years in the future (or more), Sana grown up, the civilisations rebuilt, Jo’s long-awaited reunion with Sana etc.

The series really could have done with another episode. Jin’s downfall was expected so that was okay, but Drake’s defeat by Sana was completely lame. It would have been heaps better if Drake went berserk on Jo for a good minute or so before he finally snaps. I didn’t like how they made Sana resolve everything, but that was something that had to be done as it was the entire focus of the story. Jin’s and Jo’s past were explored a bit but not nearly enough. Jo’s lack of emotion still hasn’t been explained. Is he just ‘that type of person’? I kind of liked Jin a bit more in the end even though he was entirely ‘bad’, or at least he’s supposed to be. He should’ve got a more decent fight too. A bout between Drake, Shiba, Jin and Jo would’ve been entertaining, but that would’ve screwed the whole story up. The producers clearly wanted isolated one on one fights. Still, more action on foot would’ve done the show a lot more good. Shiba’s quick performance with his sword was awesome (now why can’t more scenes be like that?) I also thought that Shiba didn’t have enough relevance to everyone else apart from being a former Phantom pilot.

As opposed to a lot of the negative aspects about the last two episodes, I thought the music was really well inputted into the sequence of things. I also said before that the use of lighting was excellent. Although some of those really keen quality-drop-catchers might have interpreted this as a way to save money, the silhouetting gave the show that much more feeling and diversity. I also like how the running is drawn, even though ‘escape’ type running is a lot easier to draw than ‘race’ type running. Once again, the big war scenes were very well done, though I was hoping Shiba’s fleet could’ve done a helluva lot more damage to the cities. There wasn’t even an opposing force for them to play with (by that I mean drop bombs on). However, of course the show can’t be all good. While in the end, I have to say the quality was as good as I hoped, some of the characters are really useless. Apart from Renee who didn’t really do anything spectacular, there’s Gora, who might be a good scout an’ all, he’s just plain annoying. He was probably just thrown into the fray of things by the scriptwriters to make the anime seem less ‘lonely’. All in all, good show, watch it and don’t think too much about it!

Plot Outline:

- Episode 11
- Shiba gets ready for the retaliation attack on Drake
- Jin reveals everything to Sana regarding her and the other children
- It seems that the other children’s nerves were used to control the Phantoms and Sana’s purpose is to allow for mass production of those children
- Sana also learns that they were genetically engineered to suit the Phantom’s needs and were created in labs
- Jin escapes when fighting breaks out
- The next day, Sana and Gora run out to find the other children, if they’re still alive
- Gora moves ahead by himself to prowl the seemingly empty complex
- However, they get caught pretty easily by Jin and taken away by a helicopter

- Jin takes them to a building where he had stashed the information regarding Sana
- Drake catches him and reveals that he had already figured out the key to the nerves’ activation
- By using the notes from the piano that Sana could detect and testing it with a recovered nervous system from a destroyed Phantom
- Drake is about to kill Jin but he persuades him to allow him to live to fight Jo in order to get some more information
- Jo makes his way to a secret stash of weaponry where Jin is waiting

- Episode 12
- After some revealing talk about Jin’s first meeting with Jo and how he hated him from the very beginning, the two start fighting with both limiters removed
- Meanwhile, Shiba and co. make there way to Drake’s headquarters on foot
- After a bit of fighting, Jin breaks down from the fear that the Phantoms cause

- It seems that Jo is the only one who can take the immense fear that the Phantoms are meant to give
- Even outside the Phantom, Jin continues to lose his grip on reality and eventually dies of intense trauma
- Shiba finds a Phantom and uses it to reach Drake, who is in some master control Phantom
- Using Sana, Drake had managed to network all the unmanned Phantoms together to create one big killing unit
- A huge surge of energy is released, putting all the nearby ships and air units under the network’s control (meaning Shiba’s fleet is now under its control)
- Shiba stands no chance, but Jo comes to fight him
- Although it seems like Drake is invincible, he starts to lose his mind as well and gets out of the Phantom, where he is quickly killed
- Jo gets in the Phantom to try and stop the controlling of all the nearby control systems, but falls prey to the intensity of the Phantom
- Sana manages to reach into the nervous systems of her previous friends and calm them, saving everyone’s life by quelling the Phantom

Aftermath:

- Sana goes to stay with Shiba and co. while Jo sets off to wander the world
- Shiba plans to rebuild everything and become its ruler

Impressions:

Okay, Innocent Venus is now considered ‘good’ in my books. It started off being boring, then bad, boring, crap, interesting, average, exciting, average and finally, good! (Okay, I made that up, but you get it when I’m trying to show that the series had a very rocky start). Even when the series was interesting or exciting, they were just single aspects that didn’t add up to make the overall episode good, but now it has. Not only were these two episodes full of ground-shaking, blood-gushing action, the storyline has also become so incredibly intriguing that I actually want to see the next episode right now! That’s never happened before with this series. I had always been fine finishing the episode(s), sometimes even reluctant to watch it, but now I really want to see how things will turn out. Better yet, the previous ‘good guy’, Jin, who I didn’t like because he was to fatherly, has officially become a ‘bad guy’, and the previous ass-kicking ’sidekick’, Jo, has now become the real ‘good guy’. What a fascinating turn of events…

I’m glad Jo is now the protagonist. I was always to uninterested in the show to look too deeply into it that I never thought he could become the good guy in Jin’s place, and I didn’t see how he didn’t die in episode 8. I had also thought that him dying wouldn’t have been a big deal, and someone like Shiba could take the position of the good guy. However, Shiba still remains a side character and Jo has become Sana’s protector. Actually, he find out that Jo had always been Sana’s protector, at least partially, as he was the one who saved her while rescuing her from the plane. Sana’s sudden acceptance of these shocking betrayals when she learns that it was Jo who saved her is a bit unnatural, but I can only assume it’s because the show doesn’t have enough time to bother with little emotions and things like that. Hopefully the storyline becomes more interesting from here and a few extra twists are thrown in for fun. (Heh, I had been under the impression the series was 24 episodes long; must’ve read it wrong when browsing ANN).

As for the mystery and truth behind Sana, I wonder if the answers revealed in episode 8 are all there is to her. She is meant to bear the children who’s nerves are implemented into the Phantoms to allow the pilots to synch with them and control them. I’m not too sure on the details as I can’t really remember much from the past few episodes but hopefully things will clear up in the last two episodes. What does the ‘Unlimiter Device’ do again? I know it was sort of explained earlier in the series but my mind is blank. It was also the cause of Riki’s madness, but Jo was able to convert the overwhelming mental strain to his advantage and use it to synchronise with the Phantom so highly that his movements were superhuman. That moment was probably the coolest – Jo raging against everyone and doing a fantastic job of it too. I wonder if the Phantoms’ abilities are limited to their construction or if the pilot can push them past their mechanical limits to make them move and react far faster than possible. Well, looking forward to answers coming up…

Plot Outline:

Episode 9

- Shiba and his group break into the Phantom lab and gas the room where Sana is being kept
- They rescue Jo and Sana
- Renii/Lenny, who stayed behind but became intoxicated with the gas, is also taken back
- Jo undergoes surgery for his stab wound
- The surgery is successful and his condition becomes stable
- The Isshin is attacked by a vast fleet

- When things start looking bad, Shiba calls for abandon ship
- Jo manages to save himself and Sana from the sinking ship and meet up with the other crew members
- Shiba and Renii distract the enemy before fleeing in their ships and meeting up with the others
- Shiba and Renii seemed to have made up for some past fight

Episode 10

- Jin becomes the second-in-command of the Phantom troops or whatever they’re called
- The other Phantoms pilots are obviously pissed about this but obey him nonetheless
- Shiba agrees to take control of Satsuma’s fleet

- Jin orders for a search to find Shiba’s dead body
- The search yields no results, which is what Jin suspected
- Sana wishes to see Jin one more time so he can tell her the truth about herself
- Shiba allows Jo and Sana to go and retrieve Jo and appoints Hijin to guard them
- Jo infiltrates the Phantom base but gets trapped by the other Phantom members
- Jo manages to get inside a Phantom to fight, but it was a trap as the unlimiter device had been installed in it
- Jin activates the device, but instead of driving Jo insane, it makes his synch rate go higher
- Jo is able to defeat the other Phantoms with ease and drags Jin back to where Sana and Hijin are
- They tell Jin to reveal the truth, and it looks like he is about to, but…

Preview:

Impressions:

What the hell??? How can you kill off Jo? He’s such an awesome character! It’s a lie – it has to be. He has to come back, he just has to…right? Damn I have no idea what to think. Jo is meant to be a main character so he can’t just die in the middle of the series can he? Although he didn’t really serve any important purpose regarding the grander scheme of things, so killing him is reasonable. And Jin turns out to be evil? I knew he was bent on his revenge but I didn’t know he would be so merciless as to stab Jo like that. I had begun to suspect he was being secretive at the end of episode 7, though I never suspected he was such a nasty character. So who’s the protagonist now? Maybe Shiba? Or could it be that Jin will remain the hero and turn good again or something? Eh…I dunno.

I said in some earlier entries that I like this series for its action, but now the storyline has become highly interesting especially with the revelations from Jin’s secret, as well as the answers to some questions posed earlier on. The military battles are very entertaining, though it would be more enjoyable if the opposing sides put more scheming into things to make it look more intense. Still, the mecha fights still suck bad, though the secret behind them does make things more interesting as the possibility of the pilot undergoing mental instability becomes known, thus I am now eagerly awaiting to see how screwed up pilots can become when they submit to the nerves in the mechas (they’re called Phantoms right? Or is that the name of the specialist group producing and using the mechas?)

Episode 7:

Episode 8:

Plot Outline:

Episode 7
- The Isshin attack a National Defence Force naval fleet to help the Satsuma mayor with his rebellion against the
- Jin, Jo and Sana are taken refuge by the mayor, Nakahira
- Jin tries to get Sana to play the piano again to determine who special abilities but goes to far, resulting in her fainting and developing a sever fever
- The National Defence Force are notified of this by the Phantoms (anonymously)
- The National Defence Force threatens Nakahira with their own fleet, but the Phantoms intervene and initiate a battle between them
- As Jo and Jin are trying to get Sana to a hospital, they are ambushed by the Phantoms and Sana is captured

Episode 8
- Jin and Jo infiltrate a Phantom lab with the help of Shiba to save Sana
- Sana’s past and the secret behind the Phatoms (the mecha) are revealed ~ the nervous system of special boys are implemented into the Phatoms to allow the pilot to control them. Sana is meant to act as the mother to these special boys, allowing larger scale production of the nervous systems and Phatoms
- After fighting a berserk Riki in the Phatoms, Jin and Jo are captured
- It is revealed that Jin killed Sana’s father (to everyone including Jo and Sana)
- Jin shows his evil side by stabbing Jo and saying he doesn’t have any use for him anymore
- Sana is completely devastated to discover Jin’s menacing personality

Impressions:

Well I can say this series has become far more interesting than previously, though it has turned out to be one of the less popular shows of summer. Still, I am not writing summaries because I never did with this show and I’m not starting now. Please check Anime Nano or AnimeBlogger.net Antenna for summaries.

Episodes 5 and 6 reveals the answers to a lot of questions, and the latter has a helluva lot of thrilling action scenes. I must admit, the animators do know how to make a good giant mecha/military type shootout, though the bad thing was it was too dark. The night setting is always a good choice for increased exhilaration, but it just brings the overall enjoyment down when you can’t make out what’s going on. However, I always love situations where the ex-’whatever’ who betrayed the ‘whatevers’ comes back and engages combat with the ‘whatevers’. In this case, it is Jo and the Phantoms. It’s fun to see such an even match (*thinking of Gundam Seed*).

Anyway, like I said earlier, many questions were answered in the two episodes, which brings the complexity of the story up. Jin and Jo’s past are explored further, as well as Jin’s relationship with Sana’s father. It is also revealed that Jin’s motive as of now is to avenge his father (a politician), who committed suicide after losing all of his political power. So who’s to blame for that? The ones who made his position…Another thing, we are given more material to work with when it comes to discovering why Sana’s so special.

Episode 5:

Episode 6:

Impressions:

If Innocent Venus had been a full 24 or 26 episode series, I would drop it right now. I really have no interest in the show and only continue to watch it in hope that some aspect might get my attention and turn out to be interesting. Mecha is a genre that I like quite a lot, but the CG in this series really ruins it. Even if the CG is good, I would prefer it not be used as it doesn’t fit in with the animation style, although Innocent Venus may be an exception as the backgrounds are quite detailed. I’d also prefer the protagonists to be teenagers, as they are usually more energetic and fun to watch. The nature displayed by Jin and Jo are extremely boring. Also, if the heroine was of similar age to the protagonists, it would allow for the opportunity for romances to develop, which is always a good thing in my views. So far, the only interesting thing may be the plot, but that’s about it. Nothing else appeals to me, and the plot alone won’t satisfy at all. When I watch an Anime just to see if something interesting happens, I don’t pay too much attention and the information usuallty does not get absorbed too well. That’s okay though, as I am following plenty others and the autumn season is going to start soon anyway (some early this month).

Episode 3:

Episode 4:

Impressions:

This show is proving to be quite popular due to the number blogs about this series. Of course, that’s only an assumption. I personally prefer lighter, more comedic Anime with characters I can relate to more. The post-apocalyptic setting of Innocent Venus is pretty engaging and the unveiling storyline, I think, will prove to be interesting. However, I don’t like the characters at all. That Gora guy is so annoying! What’s he got to do with anything anyway? Oh, right … the pirates. Jin is too nice and soft. Jo is pretty cool but too quite. In the end, it’s only Sana and Gora fighting over pointless things. The other parties in the story prove to be much more interesting. At least there’s some good dialogue with them. The next episode’s battle should prove to be fun. I hope it actually lasts a decent while. And I also hope the CG is better. Between shows with CG and those without, I’d prefer the ones without. But right now, the CG is not what’s putting me off; it’s all the stuff I’ve just complained about.

イノセント・ヴィーナス

Release: 7/2006
Episodes: 12
Genre: Mecha, Science-Fiction, Action
OP: “Noble Roar” by Yousei Teikoku
ED: “Brand New Reason” by FLEET

Impressions:

Firstly, I am not going to write the summary for this episode as I don’t think I’ll be summarising every episode (plus I am too lazy and don’t have much time). There are plenty of good blogs about Innocent Venus. Try searching Anime Blogger or Anime Nano. Anyways, Innocent Venus had a pretty good first episode, with loads of good action scenes. It’s meant to be mecha but so far it doesn’t feel like one. This is probably because most mecha will have shots of the pilots inside the mecha, controlling it. I like mecha, though I’d prefer this show stick with using guns and artillery than turn into some cheap Gundam rip off. The animation quality is very high, but the style of drawing that was used for the characters did not appeal to me, though I’m sure I can get used to it. So far, the action is the major thing that will keep me watching for now. I also like the music a lot. Whether I follow this series or not will depend on the stroyline, which hopefully will be revealed more during the next few episodes. A complicated, slightly bleak plot would suit this series best and would be the most interesting. So if you’re reading this and saying, “Well, should I try it or not?” I say definitely try it. Even if you don’t like mecha, as there’s loads of action. If you don’t like action, hopefully the sci-fi side will appeal to you. If you don’t like mecha, action or sci-fi, watch it anyway (yes, my logic is very logical).

Series Overview:

Innocent Venus is set in the future, where the world has been devastated by multiple hyper hurricanes that occurred simultaneously. Almost a third of the world’s population was lost. Both economic and military balances between the nations were greatly disrupted. North America, Russia and northern Europe became encased in ice. Japan manage to create a self-supporting economic state. ‘Powered-assist technology’ has played a vital role in the rebuilding of the globe. People living outside the major economy zone became poor; their housing turning to slums. The higher class called themselves ‘Logos’ and used powered-assist tech in their military. The poor were named ‘Revenus’ (not ‘Revenues’, but ‘ReveNUS’) and were restricted from entering the wealthy part of the city. In order to control Japan’s increasing power, the countries of Asia formed together in an alliance, called the Asian Union, or AU. This force invaded Japan’s most southern island, Kyuushu. The attack force was met by a defensive line consisting of ‘Heavy Warriors’, like mechas, led by ‘Gladiators’ or the ‘Phantom’ elite unit. The AU offensive failed, but the Japanese government decided to sign a temporary truce with the AU. Since then, these forces are used to counter against rebellions against the Logos. Guards constantly patrol Logos-Revenus borders and do not hesitate to punish misbehaving Revenus.

From what I can tell from the first episode, there is a girl called Sana (codename Venus) who is in the centre of everything. The Logos are after her and two men, Jin and Jo, fight to protect her. Jin is the comforting, gentle type who cares for Sana like a father/brother, while Jo is the silent but deadly type who does all the fighting. There also seems to be a third party in all this – terrorists perhaps – who are also searching for Sana.

Preview: