Judge

Publisher
Manga Entertainment
Director
Hiroshi Negishi
Country of origin
Japan
Format
OVA
Running time
50 mins
Year
2000

Judge

By John Huxley
19th May 04

Judge isn't the Perry Mason kind of Judge...more the Judge Death from 2000AD kind. What runs here is a tale of the wrongful dead seeking revenge upon their killers. The dead can't exactly take them to court, so they turn to the Judge of Darkness for help. However, not every murder is laid wholly at the hands of their killer...some are instigated from much higher sources. Nobody can hide from the laws of darkness. The living can seek help at a hefty price, but more often than not this is merely a last resort and holds no real promise.

The plot is decent enough, with a couple of twists and a nice pacing to the whole thing, yet I can't help but feel like I'm watching an episode of The Twilight Zone or the X-Files. Everything seems so corny and inevitable, and the animation medium is hardly needed to realize most of the action served up here. The animation is fairly ropey in places, although it holds together in the less ambitious scenes. But here lies the main problem. I don't want to buy anime that mimics television shows aired many years ago (not unless they add something totally unique, like Angel Cop or Ghost in the Shell). I watch anime expecting to be entertained in ways that film can never hope to achieve. It might be the style, the action or the story, but anime needs something to hold it all together and separate it from the rest - otherwise it's just like any other movie.

It is too short, the animation isn't good enough, the plot is tired and the characters are un-notable to say the least. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh here. It does throw up some nice ideas, and I hardly found it offensive (unlike Digital Devil). Just keep in mind Judge's weaknesses when you next come across it. Unless, of course, you'd like an animated episode of The Twilight Zone. Even if that were so, Yoshiaki Kawajiri's films (Wicked City, for example) fill that role with a much higher degree of success. The sentence has been passed. Judge isn't up to any good, and must serve 30 hours community service (cleaning toilets in OAP homes) before resting atop a shop shelf where no-one will want to purchase you. Come to think of it, why did I buy this in the first place?

-- John Huxley 19th May 04

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