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"Era of darkness... The everlasting days of darkness surrounded by fear which were brought by the Devil Vandel.... who plans to exterminate the human world... But... There is a light of hope that fights against this darkness. Warriors that fight bravely against the Vandel... They are called- Vandel Busters!"
And so begins the opening for Beet the Vandel Buster. What is Beet the Vandel Buster? Beet the Vandel Buster is a shonen show which currently is running on Japanese television. It has 17 episodes subbed (20 total counting any groups both subbing the same episode) of about 36+ and it's designed by Toei.
Beet the Vandel Buster fits into the relatively small genre of anime known as "RPG Animes", animes which are similar to games where you fight monsters, cast spells, get experience money, etc., and level up. In this world the monsters are all creatures bought and bred by "Vandels", creatures that act as the "Boss" of all the monsters they control. The humans get money and experience for the numbers of monsters and Vandels they kill. Only a small number of humans are strong enough to do this, and they are called Vandel Busters or simply Busters. Busters use money to buy supplies, weapons, food, shelter, or to give away or do with as they please. Their strongest weapons are called "saiga" which exist inside them but can only be unlocked with intense and powerful training, creating a weapon that represents and reflects on the soul of a Buster. However, humans aren't the only ones competing for power.
Vandels fight to kill humans, expand their territories, weaken/torture the human race and to also kill highly experienced busters. They're given money for the amount of destruction they cause and the busters they kill, which they can then use to buy more monsters. Different Vandels buy different monsters depending on the situation and which kind they prefer, (and what kinds they can afford) and use them to prey on humans. They're also given "stars", which are special rankings and are a way of determining the "level" of monsters. Generally Vandels with more stars are much stronger than those with less just as humans are who have higher levels, but levels and stars don't always determine who's strongest.
In this world Beet is born. He grows up idolizing Vandel Busters, particularly Zenon and the Zenon Warriors, having a strong sense of justice and righteousness in what they do. Beet believes strongly that what they do is noble and right and worthy and hopes to one day be a part of them. But he's still just a weak little kid who can barely fight. However, after the Zenon warriors kill a Vandel near Beet's hometown this attracts the attention of Beltoze, King of the Vandels and the strongest of them all who comes for the fun of a good fight and to get the large bounty on the Zenon Warrior's heads. When Beltoze attacks Beet almost gets killed until all 5 of the Zenon Warriors sacrifice their saigas to heal Beet, then fight to hold Beltoze back.
After the fight's done Beet returns home and promises to end the Dark Century as he cries for the last time. The day after he leaves town to become a Buster leaving his female friend Poala behind to protect the village, and then 3 years pass. So far this is just a description of the first 2 episodes. Beyond it? Well, to be honest Beet starts out kind of slow-paced and a little generic. However, the tv team at Toei soon makes it funny and more exciting and more action-packed, and by the time episode 10 ends it gets to point where it becomes interesting enough to really become curious about knowing what happens next. I even wound up watching the last 8 episodes 4 at a time for 2 days, which generally isn't something I do unless a series has gotten really interesting or I'm just bored. The last time I watched 4 episodes a day was just because it was really interesting was when I was watching Naruto. Usually if I'm watching an anime I only watch 2 episodes a day.
Overall what do I think? Well, the music and animation is pretty spectacular and exciting and Toei does a great job with it. The voice actors do the characters justice, and at least one famous voice actor even show up in the show. Ryusei Nakao (voice of Freeza) even plays one of the Vandels, an evil-looking humanoid white rabbit in a white tuxedo-style outfit. It is kind of funny since he used to play the Japanese VA for Buster Bunny, an American character who was anything but evil. His voice sounds a lot like Freeza's and it makes for a creepy effect, ultimately making him probably the most popular Vandel among fans of the show. While there are lot of other great voices I don't think there's anyone famous/special enough also worth mentioning in the cast, except possibly for the VA who does Jiego. (I'm not sure if that's how his name is spelled, but it's something close to that) It's kind of funny that I initially hated the voice because it was a girl's voice and Jiego looked too masculine for it, but when I realized it sounded like the Japanese VA for Ruroni Kenshin (Mayo Suzukaze) I didn't mind as much. I'm not sure if it's her or not, but if anybody could tell me I'd really appreciate it.
Now to address the one main piece of criticism I've heard about this show. I've heard a lot of complaints about it that, "oh, they're just copying Akira Toriyama." However- the two manga authors who made this once said in a Shonen Jump interview that they originally got their big break working on the (or at least one of the, not sure how many there are) Dragon Quest manga. Dragon Quest (called Dragon Warrior in America due to copyright issues) is an rpg series big in Japan that had character designs made by... yup, you guessed it, Akira Toriyama. On a side note Toriyama even remarked at the end of one of his weekly Shonen Jump Dragon Ball comics that his wife had to pull him away from playing Dragon Quest 1 on the Famicon. ("Family Computer"- the Japanese name for the NES)
So anyway, the two authors from Beet got their first big shot working on the Dragon Quest manga.
Author 1- "Hey alright, we get to work on the Dragon Quest manga!" Author 2- "Really? Doesn't that famous Toriyama do the character designs for it?" Author 1- "Well, looks like we're going to have to work hard to keep the same style so fans of the series will enjoy the manga." Author 2- "Alright! Let's make sure we copy Toriyama-sensei's style as much as possible, so our manga will look a lot like the game series."
And there you go. Considering that I don't consider it that big of a deal that their style is so much like Toriyama's since they were required to have his style in their first big work, nor do I think it's really a worthy criticism for attacking the show. In any case if you're a fan of Toriyama's work chances are you'll probably enjoy the style even more.
As for the show itself... well, there isn't anything too objectionable. Poala's outfit has been changed from the manga to have far less cleavage and her panties are now just small black shorts. Most of the fighting isn't too violent/bloody and could be shown relatively intact on television. Despite a few curse words (kusos, shimattas) and one perverted joke about a large chested female buster (person- "What does the BB on her stand for?" Beet- "Boing-boing Buster?) most of the dialogue could come through intact. The only mannerism that might be censored would be some of the more aristocratic Vandels' habits of drinking wine frequently. Toei seems to have made a good show with strong potential for international appeal that could perhaps be shown "well" on American television.
I use the term "well" loosely because the chances of it being shown in such a good format seem slim to none. Recently Geneon purchased the rights to Viewtiful Joe. I remember when it was licensed that I got angry at the group that decided to keep subbing/distributing it and was proud of the group that stopped. "Man, I can't wait for those dvd's!" Then what do they do? They announce that they're replacing the music, censoring/altering the show and "transcreating it" (in addition to replacing the game VA's) for Kids WB.
So yeah, I'm a little bit jaded, especially since Geneon isn't a company that's supposed to be known for this kind of crap. Also lot of shows still get butchered today but just don't get much press about it from the mainstream anime press (Zatch Bell, Rave Master, Tokyo Mew Mew). Hell, even big shows like One Piece don't get the kind of attention they deserve or nearly as much from the bigger powers of the anime fandom world. For example, Anime Insider actually wrote about One Piece once that they hope it does well on Toonami, voicing only a semi-minor bit of criticism for the rap opening song- and nothing else! DBZ/DBGT didn't get the attention they deserved either. I know about the Psaros article there, but that was only a onetime thing. Plus Anime Insider later voted DBZ as "one of the best anime dubs on tv of all time," putting some little bible anime barely anyone's seen as one of the worst 5. (Afraid of offending their advertisers too much or the people they have to deal with for news/interviews?) So yeah, you can see why I'm jaded.
Fortunately 4Kids' image in Japan and their relationship with Toei are reportedly severely tarnished due to recent setbacks and a failure to make One Piece the next Pokemon/YGO (with 4Kids recently licensing a slew of foreign shows, and making some more domestic ones) so luckily they're an unlikely pick. I've heard that (somehow) One Piece might actually be doing somewhat well on Toonami unfortunately, but that's probably not enough to make up for the bad reputation in Japan 4Kids has been accumulating. Also unfortunately, Saban's still picking up stuff... although the series has barely any mention, Conan told me that Shinzo is being given the usual treatment too. (music changed, censorship, cutting, etc., edited/dub only dvd's if any at all)
I mean, if the show was shown on tv.....
1. With the original music. 2. Scenes completely intact. 3. Good voices. 4. The opening song and ending song in Japanese with subtitles (and given Teen Titans' ratings, I think we're at the point where it's safe to say that it's okay to leave songs in Japanese) in addition to Beet's, "Bokayo- Beeto!" (just because it sounds cool) 5. Little censorship, particularly since not much is needed.
They'd have a great show on the air with strong support from hardcore fans. Moreso than that though, I think showing it the show in this format (instead of pulling a One Piece with bad-neverending replacement music, reordered scenes, poor voices and rap openings/endings and excessive censorship) really would make it more appealing to little kids as well. I think too many children's companies in the dubbing industry think dubs have to be absolutely terrible to get any good ratings and that anything remotely similar to what was fine to Japanese children is too much for their brains to digest. Given Beet the Vandel Buster's style and type, it'll probably command a high licensing cost and be destined for daytime/morning television, in the manner most animes put in those time slots get treated.... But hey, who cares about that right now right? There aren't any shitty dubs of it out yet or edited/dub-only dvd's, so for now everyone can still enjoy their fansubs of it.
Right now there are 17 fansubbed episodes of Beet the Vandel Buster- the first 16 by Anime-Keep, episodes 18 by Shinen, and the first 3 episodes used to be up for download by Deathsquad. All are well-done with few problems. I have to say though, I wish san/sama/kun were retained more often and that kuso/shimatta were translated different most of the time, but again not too many problems.
I decided to review the series because- 1. I feel that it's underrated and, 2. I wanted to increase more interest in it among fans and, possibly, fansubbers. The recent breakup of part of Anime-Keep's staff (along with dropping a few shows) also probably put some of the fansubbing of Beet into further question. In any case, if shows like Mar, Mai-Hime, Bleach, Naruto all have or have had like 5-6 groups working on them, it just seems so incredibly unfair that a show as good as Beet only has so few groups working on it and so much of it left unsubbed. I mean, c'mon- there are enough shows with multiple groups working on them. Beet's great too, so why not show it some love too?
Overall I like Beet the Vandel Buster and I think it's a strong series. It starts slow but it builds up and continues to keep the viewer's interest. The action's good, the characters are well-developed and music, the story's interesting, and it's a nice show. Not only that but episode 16 makes for a great stopping point if you're worried that too few episodes have been subbed so far. I'd recommend watching at least the first 10 episodes to decide if you like the show or not by then. If not, it's not for you. But if so, you'll probably love it and maybe then you'll decide to post on animesuki.com's boards or email your favorite fansubbing group to try to get more people interested in this great but underappreciated show.
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