Majin Bone The best childrens card game anime Ive ever watched
So, Majin Bone. A childrens anime based off a card game. When you hear those words, your mind probably immediately thinks: What, you mean like Yu-Gi-Oh, Cardfight Vanguard, or something like that? I take a look at the poster and clips of the show and I see CG dudes in armour duking it out with other CG dudes in armour. The plot description on MAL seems about as standard youd expect. A small group of teenagers banding together against a dark force but maybe humanity was the bad ones all along? Been there, done that. So what does Majin Bone do differently that makes it different from all the other ones to make it worth a watch? In short: nearly everything.
Majin Bone has the best use of CG Ive ever seen in an anime.
I normally dont care for CG in the anime I watch. Not unless its
really well done and blends well with the show. Fortunately, Majin Bone not only has good CG, but I feel like the show wouldnt be the same without it.
Majin Bones fights mainly take place in a CG environment. Every time an enemy shows up the heroes warp themselves into a big blue dimension with giant blue obstacles. From that point, a big, fast-paced, well-choreographed fight scene breaks out. Right there a key major complaint I usually have with CG things in anime is alleviated. Many other shows with CG (particularly most modern mecha anime) have 3D objects on 2D backgrounds, and they almost always end up coming off as weightless, floating things that dont blend in well with the show, which ends up coming off as jarring. Majin Bones approach is seamless and well-integrated, and works in regards to the shows plot. They make it so that without the CG environment, the heroes cant fight.
Speaking of the fight scenes, theyre fun. Like, really fun. There is just so much movement and energy to them and they all feel so fluid. The combat in the show basically emulates the kind of fast-paced hand-to-hand combat you mostly find in live-action tokusatsu shows like Kamen Rider. I don't know if motion-capture was used for the fight-scenes or not, but the choreography and camera-work made me feel like I was watching real people in those suits duking it out.
Majin Bone is 100% consistent with its writing.
I was honestly kind of stunned at this. Like, there was never an episode I could say is outright bad or filler (with the exception of one clip-show episode but even that one is still worth watching). Every episode provided significant details to the plot to move things along and always focused on giving the shows characters meaningful development to keep me invested.
Most childrens anime I know of have a few episodes of plot at the beginning before going into MOTW or slice-of-life mode (usually both) for a while. While Majin Bone makes sure to have a fight in almost every episode, it never wastes time and it never gets to a point where it feels obligatory. New developments are constantly being made and the show makes sure to make them as engaging as possible.
The show never once falls into a lull, and thats mostly helped by how good its characters are. Speaking of which:
Majin Bones characters are well-written and human.
So, Ryuujin Shougo. At first glance in the early episodes, hes pretty normal for a shounen kids show protagonist. Hes got a female childhood friend, tough older sister, goes to high school, gets super confused when he gets his powers and gets attacked by aliens, etc. Hes your average anime teenage boy.
But as the show went on, I began to notice how seriously he began to take everything around him. As the enemys attacks grow more destructive and violent, its never forgotten and shoved off to the side. He sees whats happening around him and how his life and family are in danger, and his actions show it as well. He starts to treasure every day of his life as if it could be his last, because it very well could be his last. It never gets to a point where he becomes super melodramatic about it either. This is something Ive never seen a childrens anime with a toy/game tie-in do. They always seem to just shrug it off to the side as a mere annoyance. Oh look, a new enemy. Business as usual I guess. Majin Bone is set up with the fact that one big defeat would instantly lead to Earths destruction, and they take it very seriously, but not so much as to give the show a depressing atmosphere.
Also, dont let that make you believe that the he and the other main characters always win. In fact, they actually end up losing quite a bit in this show and there are a lot of close calls! This in turn, makes their victories feel more worthwhile and not formulaic. Seeing each character grow stronger is an immensely satisfying experience because each power-up never feels undeserved or out-of-nowhere. You can tell when some are coming, and they all tie into each characters strengths and their own internal struggles.
All the main characters are likeable in their own right and have a defined character. Theres nobody there to serve as a joke character. You've got Luke as the serious, but wise leader, Antonio as the playful jester, Tyrone is the gentle big-brother figure of the group, and Gilbert as the young but strong-willed soldier. Their backstories are not necessarily all that complex or deep, but they dont need to be. Everyones personality plays off each other in a meaningful way that makes the comradery between them feel genuine.
But here I am, talking so much about the main characters when I should be focusing on the real stars of the show, the villains.
I dont want to give too much away, but this show has probably one of the greyest moral areas in terms of conflict for a childrens show. The villains may seem like your standard dark, brooding, forces of evil from the beginning, but as the show goes on you start to see what theyre fighting for, and the conflict at hand becomes much larger than youd initially imagine it to be. The key thing to realize is that the villains all feel human as well. More human than many other anime villains youd get from many other shows aimed towards adults. Theyre all people whose motives tie into the shows central conflict and nothing about them feels forced. Nobody is a bad guy just for the sake of being the bad guy and the show goes to great lengths regarding this. It doesnt do a half-hearted job and try and make the villains sympathetic at the last second, either.
I realize I'm gushing all over this and I may be sounding like a broken-record, but really, I couldn't find anything particularly negative about the show and I really cant stress enough about how much this show should be watched. This is a show that I'd say is more adult than 90% of all "adult" anime made today. By the time I finished Majin Bone, I could barely believe just how perfect its ending was. Again, I dont want to say much about it, and this may sound like a repeat of everything I've said above, but its one of the most genuinely human things I've ever seen come out of this medium.
There is nothing about the ending that's unsatisfying in any way. Theres no loose ends, no post-credits scene cliffhanger, no go read-the-manga, LN, or play the card game garbage. Its just a message thats good for both children and adults, which is something you dont usually find in the average childrens toy/card game anime.
I've gone on about Majin Bone long enough, so go see it on Crunchyroll already. This is a show that deserves far more attention than it has.
, while Miyamoto is credited as チーフ演出, which I think usually gets translated as Chief Episode Director. Tatsuwa does some storyboarding while Miyamoto does mostly episode direction; they are both listed as co-Opening Directors.
