Guardian of Rebirth Archives

Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ Series Review: Nowhere Near As Impressive As The Amount Of Punctuation in the Title Suggests

Posted on February 17, 2018February 17, 2018 by Karandi

Overview:

Set in the Victorian era, Cardia is alone in a tower when the military come for her. She’s then kidnapped by a thief. Turns out she has some weird poison in her that burns pretty much everything and there’s some terrorist plot to destroy London and then the world. However this is based on a game and at times that probably shows.

Review:

There’s a lot about Code: Realize that makes you think this anime feels it should be more epic in nature than it actually is. Firstly, the overly grandiose and punctuation filled title. Secondly, the scale of the conflict. Finally, the large and mostly under-realised cast of characters. Basically this story has a lot going for it but ultimately ends up pretty mediocre as it plods through introduction episodes of the cast of pretty-boys who seem to exist only in reference to source material before we finally get around to a fairly run-of-the-mill defeat the bad-guy kind of conclusion with a bit of romance thrown in.

That isn’t to say there is a single thing wrong with any of that. It actually works fairly well and as a story and an anime it remains highly functional. It is visually fairly appealing and while the sound track is forgettable it isn’t bad and even the characters work well enough even if none of them are particularly exceptional. And that’s where reviewing this show is challenge. Everything is there and works well enough and yet nothing stands out or makes you want to take note.

I would have liked more of Van and Drac’s story. Learning more about Fran rather than one episode of focus and then fade into the background would have been great too. Less of Nemo (and there wasn’t much) would have been fantastic. A narrative more focused just on Cardia and Lupin could have been amazing. Yet, what we get instead is superficial skimming over a range of characters’ and a plot that will get us from A to B but not make you want to remember the how or why of it.

I could continue but basically the end result is everything about this story was pretty average. The one complaint I will level at it is a personal one and that is Cardia’s personality. She starts almost completely blank and it takes about four episodes before she’s really exhibiting anything close to a personality and then she essentially stalls for the remainder of the series wavering between damsel in distress and tragic heroine. Neither is particularly appealing though her interactions with Lupin remained fairly entertaining.

All and all, if you really like this style of story with the girl who is loved by all the guys and you happen to be a fan of kind-of Victorian settings, than you will have some fun with this. If you are after a deep and meaningful story line or characters with some depth and substance, look elsewhere.

Affiliate Product Link:

Episode Reviews:

Thanks for reading.

Karandi James

If you enjoyed this post and would like to see more great content on this blog, consider becoming a patron for as little as $1 a month.

Another way you can support the content here is by buying a copy of ‘Thoughts on Anime 2017‘ as an ebook. It contains a selection of reviews, features and top 5 lists from 2017 and while the content is available free on the site, this is a great way to give a one off show of support for the blog. It is available for $3.99.

Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ Episode 12: A Neat Package

Posted on December 27, 2017December 24, 2017 by Karandi

Review:

I know I complain when things don’t resolve, but this was a very neat conclusion. Finis, father, Cardia’s poison, her relationship with Lupin, everything tied up in a pretty little bow. I guess that’s kind of been this show from start to finish though. It just kind of did its thing never particularly well but not making many mis-steps either.

The end result has been a fairly sterile viewing experience. Nothing really to complain about but nothing to be excited about and this final is no different from anything else in the series so far. All in all, not a terrible watch but nothing amazing. I’ll do a full series review soon.

And be sure to have your say in the reader’s poll for best and worst anime of the season. If you haven’t voted click here.

Thanks for reading.

If you enjoyed this post and like the blog, consider becoming a patron to support further growth and future content.

Thanks,

Karandi James.

Code Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ Episode 3: Well I Guess We Had To Expect Vampires

Posted on October 26, 2017October 26, 2017 by Karandi

Review:

It didn’t really click last week given the nature of this show but I guess when you introduce Van Helsing into your mix of characters, having vampires actually be real and show up in the story just makes sense. And then making Cardia see herself as the lonely monster reflected by the orphan vampire boy… Well, it all makes sense even if it does lead to a little bit of eye rolling.

They are also working to make Van seem like a tragic character given he has so little other personality at the moment. When all else fails, kill off his entire family after forcing him to kill innocent vampires. That will really hit the audience empathy button.

In fairness, it worked pretty well and by the final scene where Van is training Cardia for the upcoming mission against Twilight, you kind of do have a bit of sympathy for Van and his cause. What did bother me was that they set up this episode by planning to attack a train and the whole vampire story was just a training exercise for Cardia so it made this feel like filler while we delayed getting to the actual story. This story felt like it deserved better than to be squeezed in as training filler.

Thanks for reading.

If you enjoyed this post and like the blog, consider becoming a patron to support further growth and future content.

Thanks,

Karandi James.

Code Realise ~Guardian of Rebirth~ Episode 2: Keeping it Simple

Posted on October 16, 2017October 14, 2017 by Karandi

Review:

There’s something to be said for sticking to formula. It is like a well worn pair of shoes or jeans. You slip into them and you just feel comfortable. They may not look that great and depending on how worn they are you might end up not openly wearing them, but deep down you really love them.

Code Realise isn’t my old favourite pair of shoes, but it is still comfortable viewing because it isn’t doing anything unexpected but what it is doing it is doing well enough. Blank Slate protagonist it actually had a few lines of dialogue this week that weren’t purely turning statements back into questions (though she still did that a lot – does this count as development), and the pretty boys in the mansion take her on a field trip (as you do when you’ve stolen something and are now trying to protect it). The schemers seem evil because they are, the pretty boys are all very good people with just that one black spot in their past to make them seem a little bit damaged and all and all this show isn’t treading one foot off of the very predictable path laid before it.

Even the start where we had a quick scene of running followed by a guy pointing a gun at the main two before flashing back to how we got to that point is pretty much the oldest trick in the book for generating interest early in an episode where nothing actually happens at the start.

So after two episodes my verdict is that this relaxing to watch but I’ll forget it more or less instantly because so far it hasn’t done a thing to distinguish itself. Still, it works and looks good so if it is more your genre you will probably have a great time with this.

Thanks for reading.

If you enjoyed this post and like the blog, consider becoming a patron to support further growth and future content.

Thanks,

Karandi James.