S-Cry-ed - Anime Legends Complete Collection

Twenty-two years before this 2001 sci-fi adventure opens, the Kanagawa region of Japan was devastated by a major earthquake; the "Lost Ground" suffered the most serious damage. A small percentage of the inhabitants who cling to life amid the devastation are Alter Users, whose psychic abilities enable them to create mecha forms of themselves. Hot-tempered, red-haired Kazuma is a powerful Alter who defies all authority. His obstreperous attitude brings him into conflict with Ryuho, a dedicated officer in HOLY, the special police force recruited from the Alters. They command so much power, their battle reconfigures the topography of the Lost Ground.

What sets s-CRY-ed apart from formulaic mutant good guys vs. sinister military-industrial cabal series is the relationship between Ryuho and Kazuma. Like evenly matched high school athletes, they pursue a rivalry tinged with admiration and even grudging affection. Ryuho's bond with the brilliant physician Mimori and Kazuma's almost fraternal romance with the eerily puissant Kamani can't compete with the heroes' need to establish who's the strongest, once and for all. s-CRY-ed ends not with the defeat of the screeching Kyoi Mujo and his evil plot, but weeks later, as Kazuma and Ryuho pound the wasabi out of each other, because neither one can bring himself to stop fighting. Like cagey boxers, screenwriter Yosuke Kuroda and director Goro Taniguchi feint and weave, keeping the audience slightly off-balance with their characters' unexpected actions. (Rated 13 and older: violence, mild profanity, grotesque imagery, tobacco use) --Charles Solomon Amazon.com

Average at best

When adult swim put this on for a while. I was kind of curious I just decided "what the heck I'll give it a shot." My impressions? Well, it neither good or bad, it's just average. While it does have a story line that might or might not keep you interested (depending on what episode you're on), most of the "action" is sometimes way too repetitive, that it becomes rather boring after a while; and because of this, I just completely lost interest in by the 12th episode. It didn't really make a difference to me whether Kazuma or Ryuhou won...I was just like is that pretty much it? While there were a few moments of unexpected (and welcomed) surprises, the show pretty much never really took off. I can't complain about the animation, as it wasn't too bad, neither were the voice actors, they did an ok job, the music was ok, but still it wasn't good enough. 3 stars. August 18, 2008

A Nice Action Anime Decent Storyplot But Not The Greatest

The first thing seeing how they did the storyline for the part about the Alter-users and how they are treated reminded me a lot of the X-men comics and movie being the alters are shunned,hated,and feared for their powers and what they are much like the way mutants are in the X-men universe. The main characters Kazuma and Ryuhou are also reminiscent of a lot of anime series two hero's,villains,friends,or rivals who have either a grudge against each other or a need two fight each other to see who is better and of course the lady love interest who loves them both or theres another woman who loves the same man as the first woman does which this scenario is also in the series as well. The action scenes are pretty good as well as the fight scenes between different Alter-Users
also some of the secondary characters are killed in the show so that the main two characters now have a resonable reason to continue their quest
of vengeance or justice depending on the points of views of the characters. The English and Japanese voice actors did a pretty good job in the series and the video is very clear and sharp the audio is also
very clean as well. All in All the series is good but might not appeal
to many mecha anime or sci-fi anime fans but still a series worth checking out.... August 6, 2008

manga is better but still good anime

though I watched the anime series in fansub before I read the manga is was impressed with both formats. The story differs greatly between the two formats and after reading the manga I would have to say I feel the anime was somewhat rushed. Though still good and full of mind numbing action and very good charactor development. Highly suggest to watch. July 15, 2008

The contents are exciting but...

I would recommend this anime for any action anime fans. Totally, it has a lot of fightings and battlings in this anime. Generally, it is very exciting and draw my curiosity to the finale. As I refuse to expose the details, I can say I was excited while watching it. However, the finale might be a little disappointing, not about the result. It is about how it wraps up the stuff May 1, 2008

Accomplished what it set out to do.

S-Cry-Ed is a barely average anime that is dead set on being a non stop action series. It makes no secret about that whatsoever. It does take a later turn in it's plot that actually helped the series and kept it from being just another beat em' up title. But for the most part, it's nothing but a beat em' up title.

The story is, there is a group of people born with a special gift. Similar to the mutants from Marvel Comics. And like them, their power is very interesting. They are called "alters". They have the ability to alter matter and energy, then reshape it into sometype of weapon. Such as creating mechas and metallic body parts. These people are segragated from the normal people in the city but they also live around normal people outside of the city. Living their own lawless lives. There is an organization called "HOLD" that has a sub organization under them called "HOLY" that consist of Alters working to capture their renegade kind.

The main character named Kazuma who takes on jobs for money. Crosses paths with a HOLY warrior during one of his jobs. From here a rivalry begins and several plot twist take place that delivers a decent story.

Now, S-Cry-ed is not a series I was compelled too. It never won me over to the point where I had to see what happens next. This was mostly due to the main character Kazuma. He has a very limited amount of attacks that gets boring very very fast. His macho attitude is seen that before and is reminiscent of so many dozens of other characters. If it wasn't for the introduction of a second hero and other characters with interesting powers. This series would have fell flat on it's face. Because it was heading there fast to me. The beginning of the second half began to lose me. A new cast of villians was introduced and they were very uninteresting in both skills and personalities. The last four to five episodes is clearly what helped this series but didn't save it. I thought the ending worked out very well.

The action scenes is S-Cry-ed's bread and butter. They are highly exaggerated and the battles are something you would see from the likes of shows Naruto related. It sometimes looks cool but seeing the exact same attacks gets very stale after awhile. To be honest, I was bored very fast.

Animation is something that rarely bothers me. But this series looked too much like a saturday morning cartoon. The animation isn't good at all. The character designs for the alters counterparts sometimes looks cool but alot of the time just plain goofy. The soundtrack didn't really do this anime any justice at all and is one the biggest flaws in this series.

This is a very hard series to recommend I would give it a 2.5. People who are looking for a deep character driven story should avoid this. If DBZ & Naruto is your thing then check this out. I don't mean that in an insulting way. It just reminds me of that simply because of its style. The series is 26 episodes.

March 25, 2008

More reviews at Amazon.com ...