NEEDLESS DVD Review

(Any series featuring the sentence "Shut up, you child-loving priest!" cannot be all bad, right?)

Lately I've been reviewing all kinds of cerebral Japanese animation series released on DVD by Siren Visual over in Australia, most notably the series which aired in the "noitaminA" slot of Fuji television. Based on these you'd almost think Siren Visual only releases titles for the highbrow art-loving community, but they actually have a far larger catalogue than that. Case in point: their recent release of the first 12 episodes of "Needless". For it's hard to come up with an anime that is less highbrow than this one.

A violent hotchpotch of different anime-tropes from other titles, "Needless" plays out like a cross between "Akira", "FullMetal Alchemist" and several beat-em-up videogames, with an insane amount of panty-shots thrown into the mix.

Still, not all entertainment has to be restrained or subtle. How does this title perform as enjoyment? Read on!


The Story:

It's decades after a global nuclear war and the world has rebuilt itself back into normalcy, with the exception of Tokyo. That city's center was hit by a really weird sort-of bomb and is now an undeveloped wasteland called the "Black Spot".

Adventurers keep entering the Black Spot because it's a lawless no-man's-land where anything goes, but the DNA-shuffling abilities of the crater gives some people limited, very specific superpowers called "fragments". People who possess a fragment are called "Needless" (probably because humanity would be better off without them).

When the Simeon company builds its corporate headquarters in the Black Spot, several Needless start to disappear left and right. A resistance movement blames Simeon and starts a fight, but they are massacred by a team of special superstrong Needless working for Simeon. Sole survivor is the young boy Cruz, who finds shelter with a band of really weird Needless operating from a church. When Simeon's Needless start hunting Cruz to finish the resistance once and for all, it turns into a chaotic fight of Needless against Needless...


The Series:

Make no mistake: "Needless" is silly fare. It looks silly, its story is silly and all protagonists are silly. Maybe this is why director Masayuki Sakoi departed a bit from the mood in the manga which was quite dark and unrelentingly gory. In the anime people still bash each other over the head with fireballs, hugely oversized swords and meat-grinders, but the focus is more on providing fun, and naughty fun.

Because for those with an allergy to rampant fanservice of the ecchi-variety, I think we can safely issue a "pantsu"-alert for this title. After years of using different colors for people's hair to be able to distinguish different same-looking characters from each other, the creators of "Needless" go the extra mile and make sure you can distinguish all the girls by their differing undies. The badguy corporation Simeon has an army of uniformed Needless girls at their disposal and whenever you're in doubt which one of the girls is on screen, their sheer force of ehm... needlessness will lift their miniskirts enough so you can tell them apart. Just how over-the-top this gets is underscored (literally) by the end-credits song. It's a fast and catchy ditty accompanied by visuals showing the Simeon Girl Squad prancing around in their underwear, making sure even the male-centric episodes will be "flashy" enough.

Clothes (or indeed the lack thereof) are an important part of the series anyway. In fact, "Needless" has become quite popular with the "cosplay" crowd for its outrageously garish costumes. Just look at what priests apparently wear post-nuclear war and try to keep from rolling over from laughing.

At first it seems that this is the only thing in which "Needless" is unique, as you've probably seen everything else in it done before, and often done better. But somehow the total turns out to be more than the sum of its parts. Over the course of several episodes, jokes that seem too silly for words turn into running gags, and later even into character traits. The way people use their fragment superpowers is a bit more intricate than it seems to be at first, when all you get to see is people yelling out their signature move followed by a few slides showing the damage. It looks cheap and tacky but instead of hiding that, "Needless" revels in it and incorporates the trashiness as part of its style. After a while it stopped being annoying and won me over.

There is also something addictive to the political incorrectness this series wallows in. The "heroes" are all seriously flawed, egotistical, often incredibly stupid or borderline evil. The group's strongest Needless, a gothic-looking dandy capable of copying other people's fragments, is a priest with pedophile tendencies but this is mostly overlooked because he... well, he is their strongest ally and they need him. Thankfully his appetite seems to stem from "moe" (the feeling of protectiveness you'd also feel towards your little sister) rather than "lolicon" (sexual arousal by underaged girls) so this running gag is not as off-putting as it sounds. Then again, his drooling is somewhat disconcerting. Others in the group openly seek world domination or join up for monetary gain, making them no better than the villains.

With characters this wild there is no real plot worth mentioning at first, as any interesting development is overshadowed by the outlandish behavior or videogame carnage whenever two people meet. But in later episodes things turn surprisingly personal, and the general funny mean-spiritedness gets replaced by a MEAN mean-spiritedness. This adds some tension and urgency to the silly proceedings (finally justifying the fast pace of the series) and I was very sorry to arrive at the huge cliff-hanger with which episode 12 ends.

That's right: despite all misgivings I had at first, I seriously want to know what happens next. That certainly counts for something.

On the technical side, "Needless" will not turn many heads. It is a pretty straightforward anime, and often it uses the hyper cheap tactic of showing a shaky still of a screaming character rather than true animation. But pay attention to the few scenes where people are traveling through a landscape and you can often notice some trickery. One shot featuring a car emerging from a garage briefly even reminded me of "RedLine". And indeed Studio Madhouse is responsible for the animation here so that should maybe not surprise me.


Conclusion:

With its hyper visuals, asinine characters and excessive focus on adolescent fanservice it would be easy to simply write "Needless" off as garbage. Yet I would be lying if I said I did not enjoy it. By consistently adhering to its own weird style and crazy speed the series grew on me and I'm eagerly awaiting the second half of this tale.


About the DVDs:

Siren Visual has released the first half of the series in a two-disc edition. Unlike their American colleagues there is no BluRay planned but this style of animation is thick-lined and rough enough for DVD to basically suffice for all of your video needs. There are different tools for different purposes, and for this series DVD is (in my opinion) a good enough tool.
Note that the discs are region 4 specific (Australia - New Zealand), meaning you either need to live there or have a regionfree player. A fault on the packaging says the discs are regionfree, but thankfully the slipcase has it right (although it has the number of discs wrong).

As with the other recent Siren Visual releases I have no problems whatsoever with either video or audio quality. "Needless" looks and sounds great, and taking screenshots was a pleasure. Interestingly, while there are soundtracks for both the Japanese and the English language, the discs default to Japanese with English subtitles! Cool, I've never seen that before.

Extras are limited to a number of promos for the Japanese discs and trailers for several other Siren Visual titles. Not totally barebones but close. Still, this is a very decent release for a fun (if often indecent) series.



Check out Siren Visual's anime catalogue here (link).