GLEIPNIR

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA ActionGleipnir

REVIEWS

• 

  Razovy

  70/100
  Sure it's weird... But it's pretty darn entertaining!

  Written by [Razovy](https://anilist.co/user/Razovy/) Video by [Razovy](https://anilist.co/user/Razovy/)

  Gleipnir... It was a weird ride wasn't it? Don't get me wrong, it was a pretty darn awesome ride... but still, there were times where I scratched my head and wondered: what in the world am I watching!

  Gleipnir is one of those shows that screams "ANIME", don't you think so? It's over the top in both violence & tiddies, yet you can't help but enjoy everything that is being thrown at you! I remember weeks back when I first started watching Gleipnir and I couldn't help but laugh at the scene where Shuichi turns into a teddybear to save some hot chick he'd never seen before in his life. It's this over the top B.S. that I love about this show and if you've never seen Gleipnir yourself, I bet it'll hook you right in as well.

  The Good
  So let's start off with the good things about this show! Our main female protagonist is amazing! She's badass, hot and a little crazy. Not just that, but Gleipnir's story is one you won't be able to predict. It can go from 0 to a 100 in no time and there were times where I sat at the edge of my seat wondering what would happen next! The reason Gleipnir is able to surprise you is because of the extensive worldbuilding we get in the first couple of episodes. I was genuinely surprised about how much worldbuilding there was for a show that only ran for 13 episodes!!!

  The Bad
  Oh... My... God... Our male protagonist is truly horrible. This guy is the weakest, most douchy guy I've seen in quite a while and it's hard to watch this show when he's on screen. All is well if he's paired up with our female protagonist as she's his hard counter... but when he's alone... Hell naaaah!
  Besides a poorly written main character I'd also like to point out that the middle part of Gleipnir's story telling is rather weak. While the world building element of this anime was so freaking awesome, I couldn't say the same for the middle part. Naturally I won't be talking about the ending, that's for you to figure out yourself!
  Finally I'd like to talk a little bit about the supporting characters: Sayaka, for example, was in my opinion, a pretty cool supporting character, yet most of the others were rather lackluster in all honesty.

  Conclusion
  So... is Gleipnir any good? I mean... yeah pretty much. Look, what I'm getting at here is: it's not the next big thing. Gleipnir is not THE anime that everyone will talk about for the next couple of months. But that doesn't make it a bad anime. Like I said: it's an enjoyable ride and I reckon most people will really enjoy it's over the top story.

  It's nothing special, but I enjoyed it enough to give it a slightly above average score. It deserves it!

  Thank you for reading this review. Make sure to check out the video I provided. It'll give you some visuals and might help you decide whether or not you'll be watching this anime in the future.

  Continue on AniList
• 

  planetJane

  67/100
  Two years later, the gun-toting fursuit and his girlfriend return with a vengeance.

  *All of my reviews contain __spoilers __for the reviewed material. This is your only warning.*

  ---

  

  The messiest watch of the Spring 2020 season, (although only just) Gleipnir sounds promising on paper. He’s a disaffected loner who’s given a magic coin by an alien that grants him the superpower of turning into a fursuit with Hulk strength. She’s a wily femme fatale with a mind like a steel trap trying to find her sister--also her parents’ killer--and who has the guts to do what he doesn’t. Those coins are Gleipnir’s central plot tokens, as what people do with the powers the coins grant is the driving impetus behind the whole series, and behind Shuichi (He) and Claire (Her)’s quest to find the latter’s sister.

  Gleipnir’s problem, for a good chunk of its run, is that it struggles to feel particularly meaningful. It has its setting, and it has its themes: what it means to connect with other people, how normal people become killers, bygone innocence, depression. Things many entries in this genre deal with. Knitting them together is a more uneven proposition. There are places where it manages to do this, and places where it really does not. Much of the anime’s first few arcs are firmly in the second category. And the one that takes up the show’s middle third--about a bizarre stereotypical ‘evil homeless person’ named Madoka (no relation) and his gang of thugs is probably the series’ low point. In other areas, such as Shuichi and Claire’s relationship, the show performs much better. It really is rather up and down throughout. (Until the end, we’ll get to that.)

  Let it be known though, that the anime goes to great lengths to try to rescue its own source material. The series’ main strength is that by simple virtue of being an adaptation, it makes Gleipnir feel a good deal less like a piece of media for no one but its author. A problem the original manga, or at least the portion that the show’s first two arcs are adapted from, struggled with to a degree rare even for action seinen (and mind you, this is a genre that also includes Murcielago).

  Production-wise, the visuals vary in quality but are often quite good. The series is consistently well-drawn when it matters and the animation ranges from competent to surprisingly good. It also has a real knack for striking visuals. Even the worst episodes generally have one or two shots that are exceptionally cool if nothing else.

  

  The soundtrack, also, is among the best parts of the whole thing, with a wide variety of stirring mood pieces and interesting riffs, later taking on a dark electronic character toward the series’ end. Granted, they’re sometimes deployed at the absolute weirdest of times (take a peek at the bizarre krautrock shakedown that plays during what’s presumably supposed to be a fanservice scene in the first episode for an example), but good music is good music.

  Speaking of; the show frequently indulges in noxiously sleazy sequences. Only intermittently does Gleipnir deliver what one might traditionally consider “fanservice”, instead, it chooses to coat shots of its mostly-nude female lead and the like in a thick layer of visual grease, covering her in whatever fluid sloshes around inside Shuichi’s fursuit form. Apparently under the belief that rendering this kind of thing viscerally unappealing by making it gross in the stepped-on-a-bug sense somehow absolves it of still very much putting a 15-year-old in fetish wear on screen. Which, even if you’re unfazed by any moral implications, is just kinda tactless. (Tellingly, in the show’s final fight, she’s fully clothed. Which feels like a tacit acknowledgement that this brushes up against the show’s more serious story in a jarring way.)

  Claire being in her skivvies (or later, a swimsuit) while inside Shuichi’s weird flesh-fursuit is not just a recurring visual, but an actual core part of their dynamic, and the anime cranks the already-gross depiction in the manga up to eleven, complete with gross squishing sounds whenever Claire gets into Shuichi. Honestly, the show’s bizarre fondness for grody visual metaphors is almost admirable in how strongly it sticks to its guns despite what I must imagine is the full knowledge that no one really wants to see this, and that it doesn’t add anything to the show’s already-dicey storytelling.

  

  Here’s the problem though with writing Gleipnir off wholesale, as tempting as that may be, on the surface, to do. At various points, the thematic underpinning it strives for and the strong parts of its aesthetic actually manage to interlock long enough for the show to do something insanely cool that also, crucially, actually feels like it matters. Shuichi and his new friend Chihiro being messily crushed into a paste in episode 7 is gratuitous, even silly. The two merging in a kind of grotesque fusion dance to form a monstrous “catgirl” is a relatively rare instance of the show’s “Shuichi needs someone else to complete him. Literally.” theme actually connecting the way it intends to, making it a highlight.

  *Even at its best, I don't think anyone would ever deign to call Gleipnir "subtle"*

  ---

  Later, in the tenth episode, an otherwise bum plotline is wrapped up in spectacular fashion by having Clair hatch the plan of setting a grove of poisonous flowers on fire. The strategy is unorthodox, the visuals striking, the narrative and thematic elements, actually welded together the way they’re meant to. This actually kicks off something of a trend, as the show’s latter half is stronger by an order of magnitude. The last two episodes in particular lean in to a more overt horror sensibility, and it will be about here that skeptics (including myself) might start to reevaluate Gleipnir on the whole. Here, Gleipnir seems to learn that it can’t have its cake and eat it too, and accordingly, its more obnoxious elements are greatly scaled back. The story is given room to breathe, and suddenly it’s like watching an entirely different show altogether. The finale contains what might be the most singularly inventive fight scene I’ve seen in an anime so far this year.

  

  Thus, the basic “well, is it good or not?” question is going to come down to how forgiving you are of the show’s flaws. At its outset, and coming off of having read a chunk of the manga that only covers about the first half of the anime back when it was new, I was not inclined to give it the benefit of a doubt. At season’s end, I’m forced to admit that the series is much stronger than I gave it credit for. That does not, by any means, excuse some of its more serious issues, but it goes a long way toward making Gleipnir feel less like a bad anime with bright spots and more like a good anime that simply has some very real, but fixable, problems.

  I didn’t imagine, starting this season, that I’d think much of Gleipnir, much less be genuinely hoping for a second season. That I am here now, admittedly somewhat reluctantly, praising it is a testament to the leaps and bounds it improves by. Admittedly, that’s not a reason to watch in of itself, but if you like this sort of thing, you could do a lot worse.

  Two, nearly three years ago, I said in the review blurb for my (brief, amateurish) overview of the ongoing Gleipnir manga that it could do better. As strange as it may sound, I am happy to report that it very much has.

  

  ---

  And if you liked this review, why not check out some of my others here on Anilist?

  Continue on AniList
• 

  DmitriFearthian

  59/100
  Gleipnir: The anime that could've, but kinda didn't. Glimmers of hope and beauty within a fragmented mess.

  ---

  __Obligatory Spoiler Information__

  While I'm leaving any explicit reference to any plot elements out of this review, I do go into quite a lot of depth on many other things that may colour your experience of Gleipnir if you've not watched it yet.
  I have tried to write this as to not bias your initial expectations of Gleipnir more than I need to. Jump to the verdict if you're worried.

  __This is your only warning.__

  ---

  (To start, I did not read the manga beforehand. This is a review of just Gleipnir's anime adaptation.)

  After hearing about Gleipnir in early April, its summary and poster art really caught my eye. I love stories that that make you think and that put characters into morally questionable scenarios. I eat this stuff up.

  Gleipnir, though... well, hmm.
  It had potential, but didn't always live up to it.

  ---

  __Plot - 6.5/10__

  Lord, it seemed pretty compelling in theory.
  Gleipnir's plot is structured in a way that reminds me a lot of Oryx and Crake (one of my favourite novels): bouncing between different points in time to reveal information in carefully constructed batches, forcing you to put the pieces together yourself.

  If you don't like that, just run. If you do, stick around.

  There were moments where I caught myself getting real deep into thought about where Gleipnir was going to go next, but an equal amount of time also feeling like I watched an episode that did nothing and went nowhere. It ended up being less of a rewarding puzzle and more like a boring scavenger hunt.

  While I did get really interested in where it was going by the end, and was definitely interested the whole way through, I can't get behind this show's reasoning for dumping exposition on us for an entire 23 minutes in the second last episode, just for the final episode to leave us on a cliffhanger and drop just as many plot threads as it tied up. The ending is the strongest part of this anime, but that's not saying much. It's like an ice cream cone at the end of a rocky date: makes you feel better, but doesn't make what you went through any less frustrating.
  (and I know how this feels first hand)

  All this being said, I can't restate how much I loved the premise of this plot and how it could have been executed. By the end, I was starving for information but had no way to properly digest all of it, and the mental gymnastics I had to do to fill in all those plot holes didn't help.

  The plot, as a whole, was average, but really aches for some more love.

  ---

  __Writing - 4/10__

  Rough, inconsistent, and sometimes way too serious/pretentious for its own good.
  The thorn in the plot's side.

  I know Gleipnir is supposed to have a dark, mysterious, uncertain tone, but this show needs to stop taking itself so seriously sometimes. It's 13 episodes of dark all the way through, and they decided to spend all their MP on "comic relief" within the first episode. Otherwise, maybe any jokes that did exist elsewhere didn't land for me.

  Gleipnir also has a problem of saying so little and expecting so much of you at the same time. I found myself just groaning at overly pretentious dialogue and at how our cast never really showed any emotions other than these few:

  • sad
  • flat
  • angry, or
  • a perverted form of pleasure.

  A lot of the conversations our characters have with each other don't feel natural or human. They feel very, well, off-kilter and unpolished. It rips you out of any sense of immersion and landed me squarely into the "sorry, I gotta go back and listen to that again" territory.

  The exposition dump further highlights the inconsistent stream of exposition that prefaced it. I got frustrated trying to put together the few threads the writers gave me, and felt worse when all of it just got shoved in my face at the last second.
  Gleipnir is good at building tension, don't get me wrong, but is horrible at giving satisfying payoffs. They either fall flat on their face, or build tension between episodes that gets cut off by a shift in timeline or narrative pacing.

  Gleipnir sucks at subtlety.

  ---

  __Characters and Character Development - 5/10__

  I liked that the characters were not perfect. This is one of those glimmers of hope: having characters that are flawed. It really supports a mysterious, dark tone, and they can be great vectors for storytelling.
  Unfortunately, you have to get through the entire anime to feel this for a fair bit of the cast. By then, I bet a lot of viewers will have left, which is unfortunate.

  Gleipnir's characters do have depth if you're looking for it, but not a lot of it. Much of the cast is quite one-note until something forces them to change on a dime to fit a plot point. Much of the cast that is crucial understanding to the overarching story isn't expanded (hell, mentioned really) upon until the exposition dump, which really sours the mood. I can't get invested in characters that I've only heard about once, and much too late at that. I want to chew on their character profiles and use those to predict what's going to happen, even if they don't get much screen time.

  Another issue that Gleipnir has is that it too often gives you a character and takes them away just as fast. This happens more in the first half and within the first couple arcs, but it's not any less annoying. The two characters I'm thinking of also have no real apparent weight to the plot: they're filler and treated poorly because they are treated as filler. It's unfortunate, because I think they could be pretty cool to see more of.

  Our reappearing main and supporting cast gets developed okay, I guess, but they still stay pretty flat until the end. The supporting cast that you'll spend quite a bit of time with does function well as good vectors for the plot, and show off the writer's potential for storytelling.

  By the end, though, it's almost too late for me to care, even though I still do care. Confused? Yeah, that's how I feel.

  ---

  __Presentation - 6.5/10__

  There are some beautiful shots and scenes in Gleipnir.

  There definitely are. One of them comes in about midway through Episode 12, and I paused the episode to admire it.
  It was drawn, composed, and coloured so well. I just couldn't get enough of it. The monster designs were also really unique and pretty damn cool. The opening and ending really show off the talent of the visual artists at PINE JAM too.

  Again, and this is kind of a theme with Gleipnir, is inconsistency.
  In my opinion, the majority of the fight scenes are bland. A couple are really sick, but most of them are slow, dull, poorly choreographed, and sometimes choppily animated. All this really takes me out of the mood. They're peppered with dialogue that stops the combat outright, and impacts often have very little weight.

  One more thing: composing your shots to show butts gets aggravating after the 20th time.
  This show rides the line of hentai territory a couple times, and it weirds me out a bit because I think it has no reason to. There's nothing wrong with ecchi elements in shows, but Gleipnir handles them weirdly in my opinion. I have a note on my phone that I made while watching that says this:

  "chill out broski, we need some breaks from the dark that aren't just softcore porn or what is just a hop skip and a jump to hentai"

  Maybe that's too gutteral a reaction, but take it for what you will. I like boobies and butts, but not when I'm trying to focus on a serious moment or a character that, because of boobies and butts, now only has 30% of the frame to stand in.

  Just respect the boobs and the butts better, and we'll be good, okay?

  ---

  __Music - 7.5/10__

  My pride and joy, and hey, what I think is the best part of Gleipnir.

  There is a lot of love put into this soundtrack. Songs are usually episode-specific, and often do a good job of helping out the weight of the scene they're paired with. Not always, but often.
  I also love how the composer in charge of Gleipnir's score was willing to be creative and experimental while maintaining a dark, powerful aesthetic. The OST bounces through many different tones, usually staying under the umbrella what I'd describe as electro-orchestral, isn't afraid to change up the instrumentation, and is pretty fun to listen to.

  Why though is the opening so close to being a literal banger? I think this comes from sparse orchestration at the climax of the short version used for the opening, which really kills off what could be a powerful payoff for all the tension that was built up. It feels unfinished, and not in a finished way. That doesn't mean it isn't good, cause it is, but it could be amazing. It did grow on me over time.

  My favourite track is Gleipnir's ending track. It really captures the mood of the show, but also falls victim to the issues of the opening.

  After listening to these two tracks' full versions, these issues are ironed out, but how they're edited for the Gleipnir's opening and ending hurts them. H-el-ical and Mili do great jobs performing the opening and ending (respectively), can't forget about them.

  Honestly, I didn't sit down and watch this for the music, so I didn't pick up on things like leitmotifs and more specific musical elements that could assist the show narratively (great technique by the way, try to tell your story or foreshadow not with words, but with music - trust your composer and fill us in! ?), but I enjoyed it regardless.
  Some moments, like I mentioned, are ruined by poor musical choices, but I don't recall this being the norm.
  Hey, nothing's perfect!

  Maybe I was too harsh, but I still think the music was good. Don't kill me.

  ---

  __Verdict__ __Gleipnir is confusing, frustrating, and honestly makes me cry. At times, it's painfully average. At times, it's frustrating. And finally, at times, it shows glimmers of hope, giving you good moments to hold onto for dear life. With a fairly strong soundtrack and some beautiful, yet inconsistent, art both trying to keep an otherwise rocky show on its feet, I'm left conflicted and disappointed.__

  By the end, I wanted to really like this, but I couldn't, and that made me sad. I enjoyed Gleipnir's premise and held out for its potential, but didn't like its execution. PINE JAM's ability to weave a good narrative does come through, but in a manner so inconsistent that it just becomes frustrating, and much too late for many watchers to probably care. This inconsistency bleeds into every aspect of the show and does such a disservice to what could have been a mighty fine anime.

  Is this utter trash? No.
  Did I personally enjoy it? Well, no, but not as hard of a no as the one above.
  Do I think there are people that will be able to look past its flaws? Definitely.

  I think PINE JAM should have waited for the manga to finish before working on this show, because I think the anime adaptation could have been so much better had they had complete source material.
  Personally, I cannot say "go watch Gleipnir right now!", but I can't stop you, reader of this review, nor do I want to. I'll just tell you to proceed with caution, and go in with as few expectations as possible. If you enjoy it, I'm glad to hear it. If you don't, that's okay too.
  And, hey, if you're someone who already watched Gleipnir and is reading this to see how someone else felt about it, the same applies. It's your opinion, after all! ?

  __Gleipnir is messy, but even a messy room has places you can sit. You can either leave, or vow to clean it and see it through till its end.__ __Final score: 59/100 - Painfully mediocre.__

  ---

  Hey, thanks for sticking it through till the end! I hope you enjoyed what will be the first of hopefully many more reviews of the anime I watch!

  If you liked my review and want to hear what I think about other anime, why don't you drop me a follow here on Anilist? Since my completion of Toradora!, I leave notes on my experiences for the anime I complete on my list, so you can kind of get a feel for the review before it's even complete!
  I'd also love to see what you have to say about the shows you've watched and make some more anime/manga-loving friends by dropping you a follow too!

  (I also make music, poetry, and other stuff, so maybe hit ya boi up and drop a follow on Instagram too?(@vladcmcreates)).

  Alright, shameless plug over. Dmitri, the anime noob, signing off. Be nice out there, friends.
  kweh.
  (sorry I love chocobos)

  Continue on AniList

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