D7 Peacemaker: Stage 1 Anime Review

Quick Review

• Reviewer: Marc
• Review Date: 2003-06-30 (updated 2010-09-24)
• 1.5 stars out of 5 (?)

This first OAV of an independently produced series by Dementia 7 Studios is polished and professional in its presentation, and the tack taken with the visuals--in essence, a comic book set to music--is a creative response to a low budget. Its strengths are its thumping techno-style soundtrack, laced with funky riffs and influences as diverse as vaguely Spanish acoustic guitar, and its slick technology-drenched style--practically a cyberpunk music video. Its weaknesses are its overly cerebral dialogue, unnecessarily confusing story, and the still-frame-based animation didn't simulate enough motion to make it feel dynamic enough.

At least as far as the first episode, the end result isn't bad, but unfortunately doesn't quite come together to live up to its potential.

Read the full-length review...

Full Review

• Reviewer: Marc
• Review Date: 2003-06-30 (updated 2010-09-24)
• 1.5 stars out of 5 (?)

D7 Peacemaker: Stage 1 is one of the handful of independently produced, non-Japanese anime productions to actually make it to a finished state. This first OAV of a planned series is polished and professional in its presentation, and the tack taken with the visuals--in essence, a comic book set to music--is a creative response to a low budget. Since things like this interest me, I'm going to go into some depth even though it's just a single episode at this point, but the bottom line is that, at least as far as the first episode, the end result isn't bad but unfortunately doesn't quite come together to live up to its potential.

I'll start with the good points. The first thing that caught my attention was the soundtrack (not surprising, considering that in lieu of animation the constant background music drives the mood and pace of the story). Most of the themes are percussion-heavy and techno-styled, but there's still a surprising amount of variety (including less synthesizer work than I was expecting) and a couple of appealingly funky pieces. My favorites were the lighter pieces on the soundtrack, but the pounding action theme and darker pieces are also quite nice. I'll add that if the music sounds like it might be your thing, the DVD includes the full soundtrack CD as a bonus.

The other thing that impressed me about D7 Peacemaker: It's got style. From the thumping soundtrack, to the slick visuals, to heavy use of heads-up-display-like text and graphic overlays, to the metaphysical-sounding cyberpunk plot, the production has the flavor of a Ghost in the Shell-themed, ultra-modern music video.

Unfortunately, that's pretty much it. In fact, the main problem I saw was that there was too much style--it MTVed itself to death. The story does a decent job of establishing the characters, setting up an action sequence, and asking more questions than it answers, but a few aspects seemed to be left unexplained for no particular reason other than to keep up the mood. Worse, it feels like less happened than the length should have allowed, particularly for a story that throws you into the middle of the action and leaves it up to you to figure out what's going on. The episode is supposed to be a hook, but the feeling I walked away with was less "I'm intrigued" and more "That made less sense than it should have."

I also felt like I was working harder than I should have been to figure out what was happening. It's partly because the style is laid on so thick, and partly because of some weak directing (or maybe bad editing)--several conversations seem to have long, unnecessary pauses. The largest share of the blame, however, falls on the dialogue; in an attempt to sound cerebral and deep, much of it comes across as pretentious and confusing.

One other thing that struck me as a bit odd about the story are the two un-serious characters, Sakura and Snow. It's odd enough that they randomly decide to follow D7 (into a building surrounded by police, no less), or that they manage to just walk into the middle of a huge hostage situation. Strangest of all is the simple fact that two characters this light are walking around in a series constructed entirely of dark cyberpunk style.

Part of the blame might, again, fall on the directing and editing, but the acting is also a little weak. D7 and most of the serious characters are good enough, and I like the casting (including a few fun Texas accents--this is supposed to be Austin, after all), but Sakura and Snow seem very stiff. Things do seem to smooth out somewhat toward the end.

I can't say that I was particularly satisfied with the way the production looked, either. Telling a story on video with still-frames rather than animation can work--it happens all the time in cheap animation, and the extra scene at the end of the Tenchi Muyo OAVs did the same thing. In this case, however, it didn't seem to be sufficient. To the series' credit, even though much of the animation was probably done in Flash, this definitely doesn't look like web animation--Macromedia's products were a tool, not a constraint. The individual frames are very nicely drawn, the tired-eyed character designs are distinctive (if not quite to my taste). Particularly noteworthy are the action images, which have a great sense of dynamic motion to them. There are also a few scenes with fluid CG animation--some flying police cars, mainly--that look very nice, and blend well with both the cel-style art and the slick visual style of the production.

But, for a series that seems to want to center on action scenes, there simply aren't enough still-frames in those parts to pull it off. Although most of the dialogue sequences have enough cuts, the more active scenes linger on frames, rather than punching through several to create the illusion of animation in the same way that comic books do. Using small pieces of animation--mouth movements, mainly--also would have helped the production feel more dynamic (the couple of times this was done were welcome).

In any case, my other issue with the visuals is the abstract and undetailed backgrounds. There are a few nice, or at least concrete, images--a church, a school computer lab--but the rest of it, in what seemed to be a symptom of style-itis, doesn't give nearly enough sense of space and location to satisfy me. This might just be my personal taste, but I felt like concrete backgrounds would have pulled the whole thing together visually.

Although I could imagine others thinking differently, to me D7 Peacemaker is an interesting experiment, with the potential to be something more in later episodes. Objectively, although it suffers from an overly vague plot, so much style it hurts itself, and some weak directing, it's still a passable setup for a series and a polished production. It might be worth a look by fans of darker cyberpunk-style stories if you don't think the unusual visual style will bother you. As an independent effort, it is very impressive and definitely worth a look for those interested in that sort of thing.

Have something to say about this anime? Join our newly-resurrected forums and speak your mind.

Related Recommendations

Aside from the much-improved sort-of-prequel Revelation, D7 Peacemaker probably has the most in common with Ghost in the Shell, although the characters are quite a bit different and that movie is more serious. Armitage III and Bubblegum Crisis 2040 also share some themes. If you like having to piece together the plot instead of having it explained to you, Boogiepop Phantom is a very different story, but does it much better. And, if you like independent productions, Shadowskin and Understanding Chaos are both somewhat similar.