Fourteen years ago, the Capulet family was massacred by the Montague. Only their daughter Juliet survived. She was rescued by the family servants and lived in hiding. Fast forward to fourteen years later. Juliet has been forced for fourteen years to cross-dress as the boy “Odin” and she is a hero among the commonfolk as the rebel “Red Whirlwind” among the tyranny of the Montagues. However her life is still in chaos. The remaining Capulets have reformed around and have asked her to be their leader in their rebellion against the Montagues. Whereas the Montagues are focused on hunting down the “Red Whirlwind” and executing “him”. On top of all this, Juliet has fallen in love with the Montague’s son Romeo. Juliet is now trying to avoid the house and spend her time with Romeo even though she knows that he’s the son of her family enemy. Now Romeo has accidently found out that Juliet and “Red Whirlwind” are one and the same…..

When I first heard that an anime adaptation of Romeo and Juilet was coming out, I literally fell out of my chair. For the record, I HATE the original Romeo and Juliet play. Nevertheless, I decided to watch this series because of three reasons:

1. I had just finished reading the original play in school and I felt commited to checking it out.

2. I heard that Gonzo was the one producing it and I LOVE Gankutsuou (their take on the original book The Count of Monte Cristo).

3. I figured that nothing could get worse than this version.

So how does this version fare? Well it’s entertaining. I’ll give it that.

First of all, Gonzo is famous for putting their own creative spin. So if you’re expecting an accurate portrayal, this is not it. You know that Gonzo isn’t even trying to be accurate when they put William Shakespeare himself as one of the character and insert wings onto all the horses. This is really what makes the series fun and watchable. Oh and I really like all the complicatedness that Gonzo has added. It’s nice to actually be eager about what’s coming up next. Heck, I’m not even sure if Romeo and Juliet are going to even die in this version. It seems like a 50/50 shot at the moment but I won’t be surprised either way (or if one of them survives while the other dies).

The characters of this series are really what brings it down. While Juliet is undeniably awesome and makes this series that much better, it seems as if they forgot all about Romeo and the rest of the cast. As jpmeyer pointed out, “he’s now just some random bishie”. In other words, he’s a dull generic character that is not suited to Juliet at all. When I look at the picture above, I think “why did Juliet fall for him?” In the original version, it was lust. In this version, their relationship is completely forced by the producers. Speaking of their relationship, it compeltely sucks. Gonzo really abuses the blushing in the series. Seriously, every time I see watch this series I want to pass a law to make blushing illegal. Oh and did you notice how I haven’t mentioned the other characters? Well that’s because they hardly make a presence at all. It seems like the numerous cast is just there to fill in whenever Romeo and Juliet are apart. So they fall on characterization thus far. I’ll give them a chance to get some good character development down but with this pathetic pairing of Romeo x Juliet I’m not sure how far they can get.

The artwork is suprisingly not outstanding. That’s really a shame because unlike Kaze no Stigma, this series seems to lack talented artists rather than a budget (not that I can draw any better but I really except top-notch artwork here). Nothing is eye-catching (except for the flying horses) and the character designs are not that good. The backgrounds are not jaw dropping Gankutsuou style and I have already spotted some inconsistencies. I’m severly disappointed in Gonzo. Especially since their artwork (and everything else) is getting slaughtered by Seirei no Moribito at the moment.

So overall, this series definitely has it shares of up and downs. It’s not a classic masterpiece like Gankutsuou but it’s definitely a light fun watch. I’m probably going to stick with this to the end and we’ll see how it goes. For now, I’m going to relax and wait till next time.

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Category: Episode Synopsis

I believe myself~