Iron Man – initial impressions

“So much for retirement…”

Carved in the figure of Adonis himself...

Let me get this straight: Iron Man has always been by far my favourite  Marvel comic character. In the comics he comes often across as an arrogant prick and genius, generally used to doing things his way (refer to the events leading to Captain America’s assassination in the comic books). He’s hardly a light character, known to be a heavy drinker at various periods of his life. I feel the Japanime rendition of this timeless character seems to get quite  a lot of things wrong with the character.

"Look at me! I'm AWESOME!"

This Iron Manime was supposed to draw the attention of Japanese viewers to Marvel media, both in regards to its extensive library of comics, and the many movie-renditions of its popular characters. However this series is quite painful to watch, not just for those acquainted with the character, but those new to the Man himself as well.

Imma chargin' mah lazerrrrrr~!

For starters, there is little introduction and back-story to Tony Stark. The OP clearly references his past and the birth of ‘Iron Man’ per se, but for those Japanese viewers who have no idea who he is, the start is a mere montage of what is to happen in the 13 episodes to come. Hopefully they better have some sort of flashback sequence later down the track.

High five bitches~

Tony Stark’s portrayal is also not really what I would have liked. In this, he’s just a wealthy playboy who hits on every pretty girl he encounters. I felt they could have added more intelligence and arrogance to the character, rather than just making him this idealistic, yet ‘loose’ guy, who yearns for world peace and a good lay. The chemistry between Pepper and Tony has also been substantially downgraded 😦

Pepper - just another side character?

As for the story, it’s pretty simplistic. The stolen uber-suit is a tried and tested motif which is simple enough to allow some sort of development down the track. Hopefully they do decide to give a face to Zodiac. Also, what the hell was it with Iron Man crashing onto a highway and just baling as if it were nothing…?! The acting was additionally poor in some areas, which only made the episode harder to watch.

Pwnd

Animation is usually where Madhouse performs fantastically, and this year they’ve produced a number of great-looking series such as Yojou-han Shinwa Takei, Highschool of the Dead and Rainbow. You can see they’ve tried their best in Iron Man, considering the attention to detail put in character design and expression. However the animation is inconsistent and there’s distortion here and there, which is pretty damn disappointing. Also the donning of the Iron Man suits is hardly awesome as compared to what they are in the movies. At least the fights so far have been ok.

Double high five - bring it!

Overall the Iron Manime doesn’t quite live up to expectations, and even if you didn’t have any to start off with, you’d be hard-pressed to find lots of enjoyment from this. If it doesn’t pick up soon, I’m dropping this.

OP: Uninspired montage of what will happen in the series. At least the song is fitting

ED: I actually liked what they did here. The orchestrated music here also works well.

Nice teeth