Witch Hunter Robin

This series is good, but considering the direction it came from, I say it was a failed project. You've got a secret commando style governmental organization like Section 9 in the Ghost in the Shell SAC series, but they fight people that discover their "witch" powers and use them for bad purposes, kinda like in Hellsing. Leave it to the Japanese to make a show about Genome X :)

Anyway, the things that made the named series good are missing or trimmed in this one. The violence is completely censored, like it was supposed to be a children's show. The content, though, with people switching sides from one organization to another, with betrayals and complex decisions, are not suited for a child. So what's with the non-violence thing? The way everything seemed to crumble beneath a gigantic gray force of state, the thing that made anyone really scared in the last episodes of Ghost in the Shell, it's present here, but also trimmed down, as if the show was made for heart patients. They start one direction and when the tension gets high enough to get interesting, the whole thing stalls. The interesting dialogs and ideas from GITS are missing, the true threats from Hellsing are not there...

In conclusion, this could have been a great, even if a clone, series, but it's not. Somehow, somebody made the decision to strip it down to a minimum. Add to it the fact that the whole series ends when things get more interesting and you have a failure. Sorry.

Witch Hunter Robin is an interesting show which has an X Files feel to it. It focuses more on characters and investigation than it does on high concept storytelling. Though it deals with cases on an episodic level, subplots dealing with the characters continue through out the series and it's not a good idea to watch the out of sequence.

That said it has great character design and storytelling and makes good use of limited animation. Pace is a little slow and the viewer is kept at a certain distance from the story, giving it a sort of detached but suspenseful atmosphere. Like Cowboy Bebop, which comes from the same studio, WHR is more like live action shows than animated cartoons.

It's a good show, I just wonder why it seems like it never got as big here as Cowboy Bebop or Evangelion, which have become household names. This show hit the US a little too late. Now that Western Countries have become Anime Saturated, shows like this only get noticed by lucky accident (as with me) or by word of mouth. And while it has its devoted fans, I think it deserves better recognition than it has.

It may not be for everyone, but it is definitely worth checking out.

I actually took the time to submit this series to IMDB.. though in retrospect I'm not sure why.

I sat through all 26 Episodes as they aired on the cartoon network, and barring some major stuff being edited out, this series suffers from some terrible pacing. The episodes aren't that hard to follow, even though the dialog is pretty darn weak at times, but it builds very little tension, and my interest in the charachters *which there really seemed to be a bit to many of* wasn't that high.

There were a couple of standout episodes, the one with the Shootout and Escape in the STNJ actually gave Robin and Amon some slight chemistry and also exhibited some good overall story and suspense. However episodes like that seemed few and far between.

While I don't think Witch Hunter Robin is a total waste of time, I wouldn't put it up in my must see category. More of the.. if its on I might watch it if nothing else holds my interest.

4 out of 10 bleh

Those of you who like "Cowboy Bebop" are sure to be pleased with "Witch Hunter Robin". I do believe that the same people who did "CB" also did "WHR". The animation is absolutely wonderful! It's dark, but nothing too graphic. The character designs are skillfully drawn and their scripts are written so well that it pulls the viewer into their world so we can't escape! The plot has depth and continues moving throughout all twenty-six episodes. The series does leave you hanging till the very end and even then there are still some questions, but all in all, it is a defenite show to see! The art is gorgeous and the story is great! If anything, see it once on television. I highly recommend it!

I've only seen about half the series so far because there is annoyingly little anime airing in the UK currently, DVD being the most accessible media for it.

What I've seen, I like. WHR is a dark and atmospheric series. A nice simple idea, a sort of modern inquisition hunts the supernatural "bad guys" with some very dirty grey morality underpinning the story (Are there really any "good guys"?) It's got a quite a few of the usual anime themes and devices, but has a wonderfully subdued and underplayed pace to it.

A welcome change!