Witch Hunter Robin

Director
Shuko Murase
Production
Bandai, Sunrise, TV Tokyo
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
26 episodes
Year
2002

Witch Hunter Robin Volume 4

By Joseph (Joe) Wood
2nd Nov 05

Witch Hunter Robin in its first episode presented a number of interesting plot points that look set to make it a potential favourite. Unfortunately after the initial episode the show was stuck into a rather boring formula, not delving on the promises seemingly presented in that first episode. After three volumes, and another 11 episodes Robin just did not deliver the punches. Course they cannot keep this up into a fourth volume can they?

Presenting another four episodes, I thought I’d be letting myself in for another rather humdrum affair. Thankfully, I was wrong. Episode 13 “The Eyes of the Truth” starts out differently from the previous episodes, with the arrival of an Inquisitor from Solomon HQ. The Inquisitor arrives in Japan to test a witch who could potentially become a hunter; however, this episode does fall back into the formulaic plot of the previous episodes rather disappointingly. Episodes 14 and 15 however do finally move on, in fact we’re presented our first glimpse of an overall plot since episode one. It seems someone is using Witch Hunting weapons to capture Robin and the members of the STN-J have to try to figure out who is hunting Robin and why before it’s too late.

These two episodes quickly spiral into the most impressive so far in terms of development, plot and action. Also, they are rather emotional; I was rather taken aback by how theses two episodes got me rather worked up. This proves what Robin’s creators are capable of, giving a feeling of fresh hope that maybe this series may turn out to be better than it looked set to be based on the past volumes. Yet these episodes also caused a great deal of disappointment, as knowing that the creators are capable of something of this scale makes the past episodes look even worse than they already did. Theirs some concern on my part that they may have raised the bar too high and leaving fans for a great disappointment with the final two volumes and remaining episodes.

This feeling that Robin has reached its best is doubled by the slowness of the remaining episode. “Heal the Pain” takes place eight months after the end of episode 15, and sees the STN-J start getting back to business as usual despite several of it’s members missing and some of the others injured, the remaining members are having great difficulty even completing the most basic operations. While this episode still stays away from heading into the same predictable patterns as the episode featured in the last three volumes, it seems as if the creators had to go to have a lay down somewhere in order to recover from the excitement of the last two episodes. If Robin’s earlier episodes weren’t so repetitive, then maybe this would be acceptable, but that isn’t the case.

Volume 4 of Witch Hunter Robin is unquestionably the best volume of the series so far, and hopefully is a sign that the remaining two volumes will be even better. I don’t hold to much hope for this however, before this Robin could be called average at its best, and frankly even if the next two volumes do improve it might not make up for the incredible poorness of the first three volumes.

I liked the ideas of Robin, the characters, the world it presents and I honestly want the next two volumes to be brilliant and make this a must have title…I don’t think it will still hope springs eternal eh?

R2 DVD Notes

Features: English/French/Japanese Audio, English/French/Netherlands Subtitles, Clean Opening and Closing animation, "Karoke" version Opening and Closing animation. Interview with Soundtrack Composer and Singer, Interview with Japanese Voice of Robin. Charcter Profiles.

Release information: Publisher: BEEZ Relase Date: October 24th 2005 Classification: 12 Running Time: 100mins

Notes: The Charcter profiles are the same as the past three volumes as are the clean opeing and closing animations so the less said there the better. The Karoke version of the titles is just what you would expect although it may not be a good idea to sing unless you can speak Japanese. The interviews are a nice touch but they don't seem to tell you anything.

-- Joseph (Joe) Wood 2nd Nov 05

Witch Hunter Robin Images