Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad

It's a classic story of a young group forming a band and wanting fame.

But it's much more. The music is great and the characters are very likable.

It's also an interesting look at the life of a teenager fitting into his culture/social environment in Japan.

When I was in my teens I had a dream of being in a successful band, and now being close to 50 BECK is a fun flashback as to what it might be like.

The pace of the series is slow, the story could have been told easily in half the number of episodes. it may take 5 or 6 to get you hooked. But the slow pace really adds to the texture of the story.

I do hope a DVD of the series is planned.

As a life long resident of Seattle the final episode is a real treat.

Boy, i could talk for days and days on end about Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad, but doing a review... that's a bit more of a challenge.

Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad is probably one of my favourite anime series. Despite having so many flaws... it's a very slow moving anime, some plot devices get lost, and the instrumentals of the songs sometimes don't match what is being played on the guitar... despite these flaws, i find myself watching Beck, and being in complete awe and amazement at the story of one band's struggle to make it big.

I could easily agree, that lovers of rock legends such as Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and even Radiohead and Rage Against the Machine, will love this anime.

One warning though, if you watch this anime, you will most likely want to learn how to play the guitar.

Based on a manga of the same this anime is all about Tanaka Yukio, better known by his nickname Koyuki is a 14 year old who feels disconnected from life in general. Through the act of saving a mismatched dog, he meets guitarist Minami Ryuusuke, and becomes involved in Ryuusuke's new band BECK. Koyuki's life starts to change as the band struggles towards fame.

Along the way he encounters many awkward and new situations, things he has never had to deal with before. If you've ever gone through things similar to what he's gone through, you'll immediately connect with this anime.

Beck relies heavily on this connection with it's viewers, so if you do not make the connection, you will probably not like the anime. It's not the standard slasher series, and focuses much on the viewers emotion.

So if you like music (Has an awesome rock soundtrack so good I even imported it) and storyline and want a break from the overplayed bloodshed scenario, this anime is for you

This is the most impressive anime-movie i've seen in my life. Perfect theme to write the script makes "Beck" the best between the youth and new generation of musicians. I've noticed that authors know a lot about rock-stage and music, in fact even about Guitars (Gibson Les Paul, Jaguar and Acoustic Guitars by Martinez are really good). Also they used really good songs, that have given some atmosphere to the project... The script is awesome, just because of its variety of mini-scenes, that makes serial more watchable. You will see romantics, some detective scenes, sports and of cource daily life of Rock Musicians! I've even heard that some people began to play the guitar after watching some series... Heh good luck to them ;)

Beck is overall an entertaining animation by Harold Sakuishi.

As everyone has felt and will feel, the story progresses on the slow side. This should not be an issue.

There are an array of diverse characters to enjoy throughout the series and much of the character development is done quite well. Or well enough so that you know the role they are suppose to play in the plot.

Some of the animation is a little on the skimpy side, but in animation you can play it off as to give the series atmosphere the art was rendered so (but if you read through the original work you can tell the animators for this anime were slacking or you'd question budgeting as the art work in some places drop big in quality). It is nice to see a real place get animated into this work (I.E CBGBs,-I was sad when they shut down-, other venues).

Guitar enthusiast, might love or hate the guitars that are show cased in this animation, I for one loved the idea that they used Gretsch (I love this company, sad they were bought out by fender)guitars instead of just sticking with Fenders and Gibsons. Harold Sakuishi also incorporates a "legendary" guitar or a well known guitar in the blues world, into the storyline which is entertaining in itself.

Music is great. I am a big fan of the Beat Crusaders and they did the most of the major musical work in Beck. The Husking Bees vocalist was used as the main singer, which wasn't too bad. I would venture to say that all the music used are quite "catchy." This is a great story told through a great medium.

Also, like one of the other reviewers noted, this anime will make you want to learn the guitar. I agree 100%.