Beck: Episode 01

While Harold Sakuishi’s Beck could possibly one of the best mangas around in terms of storytelling and character development, hearing the announcement of an animated adaptation caused me major apprehension and doubts.

Beck’s strength comes from the relatively realistic take on the cutthroat world of the music industry, the surprisingly charismatic cast, and the web of intrigue surrounding a few subplots. If the title remains faithful to the core of the series, I’m positive it will win audiences’ support. However, my sole concern lies on the music to be used later on as singles. Since a loyal reader may already formed a distinct opinion on what kind of style and feel of the music ought to be, an error on choice tracks may create an entirely unwanted atmosphere. Quite frankly, I’m hoping for the band’s style to be similar to the grunge sounds that pervaded the early nineties: raw, ansgty, a lot of heart. Err…keep in mind, my taste in music may tend to deviate from the norm. But if the OP/ED themes are any indication of the direction of future cuts, my worries might be unwarranted.

Beat Crusaders’ Hit in the USA had a music video vibe with band members mouthing off the lyrics. If I only hadn’t seen Otogi’s new OP sequence, I might’ve appreciated this more. The way the vocalist sang the lyrics caught me a little bit off guard but hitting the rewind button a couple of times made a happy customer out of me. Honestly, I’m more partial to the ED theme, My World Down by Meister. It seemed more solid than its OP counterpart. On top of that, we get to see an array of excellent artwork. Yet again, I tend to like EDs more often than not.

The pilot followed the first chapters of the manga with minor omission on select scenes. For now, I have no major complaints on the character designs nor the VAs. Heck, I love the character designs and I know I’ll get used to the Engrish, although I would’ve thought Ryuusuke would’ve been more natural in his pronunciations… Koyuki manage to tease us with a couple of bars but it’s not sufficient enough to hand a verdict.

BTW, I wonder if twenty six episodes would be enough to conclude the series.