And the show is fucking fantastic. Actually, fantastic might be a bit much for the anime along, but the continued narrative and development in the manga really puts this over the line of "pretty good" for me. I suppose this could be considered a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. It really muddies the water of what a "good" anime is by my standards. With that out of the way, let's get into it.
Plot: Ummm...well...there's a bloke called Adam. He's dressed like a priest. He has superpowers. There are a lot of people with superpowers, all called "fragments", as they all have only part of the infinite powers which belonged to a bloke who was essentially God. Spoilers start here, just as an aside. Adam is a clone of this bloke. There is another bloke who doesn't like him, also called Adam.
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| Pretty solid advice for this entire review...although perhaps you should be a little afraid. And yes, the schoolgirls will be explained later. |
Yes, there's a shit load more but a) it's fucking pointless b) it's pointlessly elaborate c) it's really stupid and d) it differs radically between the anime and manga, and I only want to talk about the anime, so I'm not sure I'll be able to remember which is which.
Basically, there is a wasteland called the "Black Spot" which is inhabited by those with superpowered "fragments". These people are the titular Needless. The second bloke called Adam is trying to take control of the area, and the inhabitants, using his pharmaceutical company. The first Adam is trying to stop him. That's all we're going to cover for now. Because I'm not fucking digging into the goddamn Needless mythos. The story is NOT the hook.
Characters:
Cruz:
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| Sure, he looks cool here, but don't be fooled. He's an incompetent idiot. |
Cruz may be the shitiest main character I've ever encountered in anime as a genre. He does NOTHING. He contributes NOTHING. He's EVERYWHERE. At least he has a fucking arc in the manga, even if it's not a great one, where he undergoes...changes. Here he goes from being dead weight to still being dead weight, but feeling better about it. Not even having a mysteriously (and never explained) Hispanic name can make up for Cruz's all round lack of presence. He's smaller, weaker and dumber than every other character in the show and I honestly don't understand why he is the main character. I get why there has to be characters like him - there has to be a butt to jokes, a character to be exposition'd at and a general everyman...boy. FINE. That is FINE. But having him as the character which we see the world through is like selling a meal on the bread sticks or selling a game on a loading screen. Sure, I understand it has to be a part of the experience SOMEWHERE, but why front and centre?
Cruz is the only un-fragmented cast member, having no superpowers and being a weight around everyone's neck. He is the last surviving member of the "Resistance", the most pathetic guerrilla group that I've ever seen. Yes, crappier than Code Geass's crapshoot of a rebellion. His sister apparently gave her life to save his life, and he is mourning over her. OK, I'm not stopping the "I'll spoil the shit out of everything" angle, but saying his sister is fine is NOT a spoiler. I knew it the moment she ran offscreen. Her ACTUAL identity is interesting, but we'll get there later.
Cruz is treated horribly by the group he ends up with, and that's not good, but I don't feel particularly bad about it. He is kinda useless other than being an unpaid intern, so having him used as such hardly makes me feel he's horribly hard done by. Cruz is a really lousy character, and is one of my biggest problems with the show. Most of the issues I have with Needless I excuse with its utter insane zaniness. The over-sexualisation, the Lolita fetishisation and weird pseudo-sci-fi setting are just part of the insanity. Not to say I'm a fan of these elements, but I'll live with them and keep watching. Cruz is the opposite. In a slower, more grounded show, Cruz would be a minor sin. A lousy character in a real-world. But Cruz clashes so much harder in this setting than any other. He's a really boring little boy, by any standard, and in a show which is, in absence of any other term REALLY FUN, he grinds against the gears.
Adam Blade:
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| Context: Adam is being beaten up by the three girls who are in the top picture. |
At first he appears a strong and somewhat traditional hero, masculine and imbued with superpowers. Think Japanese Superman, dressed as a priest (which I am 100% Superman has done in the past). Within the first episode, you start to see him as a leader of a ragtag group, designating him in another role altogether, although the inability of his underlings to coordinate makes him seem a valuable member of the group. Slowly, after the first few episodes, cracks start to show. He treats Cruz like shit (which I have little problem with), but he's also lazy, macho, easily provoked and amazingly stupid.
Still, despite the slight change in prestige his image takes, he still appears to fulfil the traditional masculine role. He can be physically strong, will protect those around him, and is relatively normal. His flaws aren't particularly odd, at this point. Anyone can be lazy, aggressive and stupid, and still be fine. Hell, I'm at least two of those things at any given time. But then we meet Mio.
Mio, as well come to, is a prepubescent schoolgirl (and also supervillain, but we'll get there). She is the one in the middle in the top picture. She lures Blade into a honey trap, and at this point it becomes horribly clear that Blade has an extreme Lolita fetish. This isn't the end of Blades development, he wins some fights, regains some memories, is a big damn hero, etc., but I think this Lolita fetish is the most important part of the series as examined in Blade's arc.
Why is this important to the show? Well, it's important because its not just Adam who has this fetish. The show itself has this fetish. In many shows, this would be where I give up/cry a little/launch on a rant/do nothing because I have become attuned to the manner in which anime, media as a whole and society as a grander whole treat women as objects custom designed to bring pleasure to men and nothing else/take a nap. Needless made me take a different approach: I grimaced and kept going. Certainly, the hype my friends had bestowed upon it helped, but I have to say that despite having this uncomfortable stance, where women were designed to be sexual above most else, it actually managed to produce reasonably well rounded female characters.
Quick divergence: I don't have a problem with anyone with a Lolita fetish. There's nothing wrong with that compared to any other fetish. If ANY fetish dictates the way in which a show is made or progresses, I'm probably going to have a problem with in. Case in point: How common there is a correlation between Maid anime, which is clearly fetish fuel, and shitty anime. Lolita-inspired anime have the problem of encouraging the creation of extremely submissive female characters. That's kind of a problem when all women and girls in an anime behave the same way, particularly when that "way" is to rely on other people. Needless works around this: it creates female characters that are proactive, able and use the fact they are presumed to be weak as a strength. It's little things like that which make me love this show. I'll talk more about the girls (and I only use the term as they are all under 18 in my approximation) in a minute.
Returning to Blade, yes he is an utter pervert and a Lolita fetishist. Yes, the fact he is dressed as a priest and lives in a church DOES conjure very unfortunate connotations that I pray for the life of me were unintentional. Blade is a key figure to the plot which explains the state of the world and the creation of his rival, Adam Arclight. As I've already said, I don't really give a shit about the plot, so our discussion of Adam effectively ends here.
Although Blade is shown to be flawed in ways that go beyond mere humanisation, to the point of almost making him an anti-hero, he's still a well developed character. He has a multitude of "quirks" which undermine his position as leader of his group, but still manages to be friendly enough to retain the respect of the core members, and also the clingers on like Cruz. I can't say Blade is a favourite character of mine, and in a way I feel the show would be stronger without him, but for what he is, he isn't as bad as he could have been. Light praise, but it's true.
Eve:
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| Why yes, there WAS a reason I wanted to talk about fetishisation in this show before talking about the depiction of women. |
I have very mixed feelings about Eve, and I really want to try and let anyone who isn't familiar with the show why Eve can be seen as both Feminist and progressive or outdated and cliched, depending on how you look at it.
Let's start with the good or progressive way to look at Eve as a character: First of all, she is perfectly capable of taking care of herself. I mean this in several ways. Primarily, she is physically strong. She has a very powerful fragment, and with the "assistance" of Cruz manages to take down one of the major villains on her own, with a Cruz-shaped hand tied behind her back.
Her personality is also very independent. She makes it perfectly clear that she won't be fucked with, treating Cruz harsher than everyone else (I knew I liked her for a reason). When the plot inflicts..."unfortunate" situations upon her, she is constantly fighting back, and never submits to her subjugation.
Although she has a symbiotic relationship with Blade, this isn't dependence. She needs him as badly as he needs her when situations become particularly bad. In these ways, Eve could be seen as a Feminist figure in a universe that rather enjoys enforcing gender-norms.
Before I address how Eve could be seen as outright anti-Feminist in her treatment, there are two factors that could be read in multiple ways. Firstly is Eve's attire. The picture I included for her entry is less than she normally wears, but not by a lot. This can be seen as her dressing the way she desires, as an independent character, but it could also be seen as her objectification. Objectification tends to undermine any idea of "strength" or "independence", so that would be a bit of a bastard.
Eve also has a fucking terrible memory. She mixes words up, constantly miss-quotes common parables, and even completely renames Cruz because "Cruz" is too hard to remember. This could be seen as a humanising, comparable to the MANY faults displayed by Blade. On the other hand, you can see it as feeding into the narrative of women being dumber or in some way inferior to men. I mean, men are hardly brain surgeons in this show (well, bar Gido), but Eve is portrayed as particularly simple-minded.
For both Eve's memory and her appearance, I have to admit they look pretty bad, and stink of old sexist cliches and unashamed fanservice at the expense of her character, but I can see them being read in an alternate manner as well.
Let's talk about Eve as a sexist cliche. There's one key factor that frankly overwhelms me: she is kept captive by Adam Arclight for what feels like the majority of the anime. Yes. Eve is a damsel in distress for a long portion of the show. Sure she fights back, but only aids in Arclight's plan. After this she is magically brainwashed into fighting her friends. As much as I want to like Eve's established character, the fact the plot treats her as a modern day Princess Peach is a kick in the fucking pants. The show doesn't cleverly lampshade this like several other plot points. It straight-facedly establishes this plot point which continues until the end of the series.
Overall, I like Eve's character. She's well rounded and interesting. The goddamned problem is that the show treats her like an object to be passed from one character to another, and her personal sovereignty is never respected. I find her treatment to be lazy and cliched. To be fair, it's actually worse in the goddamn manga. Somehow. It's fucking ridiculous.
Adam Arclight:
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| I realise that due to the fact the Adams are identical clones, posting a picture of Arclight is somewhat pointless, but this article needs some colour. |
...
OK, fine. Arclight is a pathetic and underwhelming villain. All he does is stand around moustache-twirling, and looking surprised whenever Blade manages to do something he didn't expect. He is neck and neck with Vicious from Cowboy Bebop as the most generic anime villain ever created and I'm still not completely convinced they aren't the same person. I have nothing to say because he is such a weak non-character. That said, let's move along.
The Girl Squadron:
Mio:
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| Did someone Lolitah..ah...ah...ah *nabokov*. Sorry, hay fever. |
Mio also is the face of the group. She is significantly younger than the other members of her group, and her ability to charm is used to lure Blade & co. into danger. Mio is a fascinating character. Despite her strength and presumed body count, she still acts childish. I understand that this is to a degree the result of the Lolita fetish that pervades the series as a whole, but I also choose to read it as an acknowledgement that femininity is not inherently weak. Sure, it's an infantilised and fetishised form of femininity, but it's still there. For example, when trying to charm Blade and Cruz in particular, she isn't false. She doesn't attempt to be more childlike or feminine that she is normally. Her strength is that she is feminine, and that is never shown as a weakness.
In many ways Mio is a better example of the narrative that Cruz is intended to demonstrate. Finding the strength within who you already are, not attempting to change your personality to become stronger. The issue with Cruz is that he's always useless. Not some arbitrary measure of "weak", he just gets in the way. He is unnecessary and should never have become involved in the situation. He is overly emotional and is unable to contribute. That is why Cruz fails where Mio succeeds far more.
Stripes:
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| What this Screencap demonstrates: 1) How classy Needless is & 2) Why Stripes is called Stripes. I'm also having inexplicable Phoenix Wright flashbacks: just make the subtitle "Objection!" |
Stripes has the power of speed, and uses this to confuse the opponents, orchestrate elaborate movements with her squadmates and provide distractions. Stripes is the typical tomboy, and is the most militaristic of the squadron. She's down to Earth, cares about her companions and has a strong sense of duty. In a more serious or well considered anime she would almost certainly be the main character. Honestly, anything that wasn't Cruz would be an improvement.
Socks:
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| Socks is the one who isn't Stripes nor Mio's foot. The Girl Squadron controls the end credits for some reason. |
When I say "outright stating", I don't quite mean that literally. Socks doesn't speak. She CAN speak, she just...doesn't. My reading is some form of shyness. For the Girl Squadron, everything is about stereotypical childish schoolgirl characteristics. They are characterised almost like some bizarre burlesque troupe, more about appearances and personas then efficiency. Not to say Burlesque performers aren't efficient. Mio is a little girl, regardless of her age and ability. Stripes is a tomboy and tactical, despite wearing a short skirt and school uniform. Socks is a silent, shy girl and for extra points is openly gay. I'm not sure if it actually comes up in the show (it sure as fuck comes up in the end credits), but it is made apparent in the manga.
Socks also shows the strength of femininity without it feeling as blatant as Mio. Mio acts like a child, while Socks is clearly a little older, and behaves appropriately. I just like that Socks has her shit together despite being in such a strange world. Also, she has the power of scent. I'm not even going to try and explain that.
Overall the Girl Squadron makes far better villain than the actual fucking villain. I want so very badly to know how they got where they are and where they come from. I want to know what inspires them to keep fighting, what their relationship between each other is and why they individually buy identical underwear in bulk. They kick Arclight's fucking arse.
As a spoiler for both the show and the manga: The Girl Squadron joins blade in the last fight in the anime, becoming good guys. In the manga, Mio joins the good guys but Socks and Stripes die a painful and horrible death, robbed of their independence, robbed of their personalities. This really pisses me off, and I feel it's a cheap and shitty way to write interesting and detailed characters out of the plot because they are untied plot threads. Fucking weak.
Aruka:
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| See the resemblance? |
She is utterly wasted in this series. She spent her entire childhood protecting Cruz, becomes involved with Arclight, becomes a double agent in the resistance against Arclight, returns to Arclight and then after his defeat goes walkabout. I mean, it's a fascinating character arc, but there's just one lingering question at the end:
WHY?
Seriously, WHY? It is NEVER explained in the anime why she joined any of these factions, nor why she hates Cruz (I mean, that's self explanatory, but why hide it?). She appears on paper to have an elaborate and fascinating motivation...but she doesn't have ANY motivation. She just...is there.
*Sigh*. Nevermind. Still better than her end in the manga. Oh, she has the power of heat. Not fire, just heat. It's technically the power to accelerate particles or some shit.
Conclusion:
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| I needed a little more Aruka. And I'm kinda glad I didn't go off about the costumes too much |
I have a very hard time explaining my feelings on Needless. It holds itself together by being so self-deprecating its offensive tones come across as meaningless. It piles so many cliches that they begin to become innovative. It takes a fetish and utilises it in a way that fights against the idea of this fetish being inherently misogynistic. At the same time, it leaves other characters to be fucking damsels in fucking distress. It's such a mish-mash that it can only end up really good or really bad. I honestly believe that it ended up both, and is at its core really interesting.
The plot is utterly pointless. If Arclight was replaced by a wooden board, no-one would have cared and few would have noticed. It is fanservicey. It lacks complete consideration of exactly where it wants to go. Overall, it doesn't have conscious moral.
I believe that all anime do have one. intentional or not (bar, perhaps, Kiddy Grade). Needless appears to argue that "Strength can only come from being who you truly are, not pretending to be someone else." Sure, it's cheesy, but it's also dark. Mio can be strong by being feminine in combat. Cruz cannot be useful in combat because that isn't who he is and there's nothing more to it.
Needless is a weird goddamn show.
Next week, I'll try and take a look at Chrono Crusade. I can't remember much, so expect a short review. My plan, for the record, it to regulate content so as to write at least SOMETHING to be released every Wednesday. If I write more, fine, but no less.
Cheers for reading,
H. Rourke
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