Orphen Black Magic: Orphen
Greetings ladies and gentlemen and
welcome back to another wonderful Sunday with an awesome review from yours
truly! This week, I decided to look at a
show that I think is a little obscure amongst anime fans, but has been a show
that I’ve enjoyed so far. I heard about
this show after binge watching countless videos of English voice over actor
panels at cons and was surprised to find a copy of the entire series for sale
while on my trip to MechaCon. From
there…well let’s get started with the review and go from there. So sit back, relax, and enjoy this week’s
review on Orphen (its actual name is Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, but I’m going
just going to call it Orphen for the
review).
In this mid to late 90’s anime
series, Orpehn is a sorcerer often known for being blunt and a bit cocky, but
is nonetheless very powerful and well versed.
He lives in a small town with his apprentice Majic where everything is
peaceful, until he meets Cleao Everlasting.
In possession of a magical sword, Orphen often watches the house along
with two other servants in the house to make sure the sword is guarded. Then one day, a fierce dragon called the
Bloody August appears and goes after the sword.
Orphen manages to hold the dragon back, but the fight reveals a
connection between him and the Bloody August.
What no one knows is that the Bloody August is in fact a close friend of
Orphen’s, a sorceress named Azalie who transformed herself into a dragon while
studying the Sword of Baltanders-the sword that Cleao’s family possesses. It is also revealed later that the Tower of
Fang-one of the most prestigious schools in the land- has been trying to cover
up the incident, which led to Orphen himself leaving the Tower. After this encounter with the Bloody August,
Orphen, Cleao, Majic, and the two house servants set off to find a way to
reverse the spell cast on the Bloody August and return Azalie to her former
self.
I had heard nothing about this show
before actually doing some research and actually watching the show, which makes
me think it’s one of those shows from the 90’s that gets swept under the
rug. And that’s kind of a shame, cause
this show is actually not bad. Overall,
I give Orphen a perfect 7 out of
10. Even though I’m admittedly a third
of the way through season one, everything for the most part has been pretty
fun. I thought the overall concept was
great and seemed like something a little outside the usual fantasy realm
box. The idea of going against authority
over a major scandal is something that you’d more often than not see in
something in a modern American drama, and I really liked it. And although this may sound like a downside,
I really would have liked for the show to expand on its world a little more; we
really don’t know that much about it besides the Tower of Fang. This was a cool world that had tons of
beautiful and fascinating locations, so it would have been nice to learn more
about it. But like I said, the locations
were beautiful and fascinating, so I just had to take the good from the
unexpanded. As far as animation goes, I’m
a bit of a sucker for the nostalgic non-digital animation style, which gives
the series that usual 90’s charm. It
wasn’t eye candy by any means, but it was nice to look at. Well, most of the time anyway…
This might be a strange problem to
focus on, but there were a few episodes that I felt like the creators didn’t
really care about the finished product.
I know that it was the nineties and the animation then wasn’t perfect,
but sometimes I wonder if the animation team cared at all. Since I’ve only gotten as far as season one
(out of two seasons), I’ll be focusing on two episodes from the season not only
because they’re from season one, but also because they have one thing in
common; they’re part 1/part 2 episodes, part 2 in particular. It seemed like somewhere the creators where
in such a hurry to finish the story that they botched the animation somewhere
along the line. I’ve seen some sloppy
animation in vintage anime, but this animation was bad, like almost painful to
watch…like sensory overload painful. The
stories seemed to maintain themselves fine, but again, it seemed like the
creators wanted the audience to be more invested with the story that they
forgot to make it look entertaining. And
again, these were split episodes, particularly concluding episodes; you’d think
they’d look good if not better than the first part. Still, despite that, this series is still a
fun fantasy adventure that definitely needs more attention. Besides, I’ve had this obsession with David
Matranga (the voice of Todoroki from My
Hero Academia and Wolf Daddy from Wolf
Children, both characters from anime I reviewed recently) for a while now, and this show satisfies that craving perfectly cause he
plays Orphen. Just another reason to
keep watching this show!
Sure, Orphen might have been a forgotten anime show of the 90’s, but take
my word for it, it’s a fun, entertaining, and of course magical adventure! I came upon a copy of the entire series by
chance, but I’m sure that there are places that sell older anime that could
offer it on DVD if you want to find a copy.
Again, it’s worth it! And so that
wraps up this week’s review! Tune in
next week when I take on a re-review of a show that I’ve already talked about
some time ago. Let’s just say it’s a
re-re-re-review. Anyways, stay tuned
till then!
-Hanime
on Anime
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