Casshern Sins Episode One Impressions

I went into Casshern Sins with literally no prior knowledge other that the name of the show was Casshern Sins. As the second of the two new Toonami shows, I wanted to approach this show with a completely clear mind. I must admit, the intensity of Deadman Wonderland preceding it, made it hard to concentrate on the beginning of the show. So to be fair, I decided to re-watch the first episode to get a better understanding of the show. After watching the first episode of Casshern Sins, I can confirm that I did indeed watch a show.

Casshern Sins, to my understanding, is a reboot of Casshan, a series that aired in Japan back in the 1970’s. Visually, I really like the art style the show takes. Tatsunoko and Madhouse (as far as episode one is concerned) created some beautiful character and set designs. I especially enjoyed the lighting effects. The scene at the beach stands out for this episode. The way the light reflected off of the water was, simply put, beautiful. In addition, the character designs and darker set pieces featured a nice contract. This allows viewers to easily make out the characters while still making the night time seem believable. The fight scenes were pretty brutal as well. Casshern literally tears his opponents in a fashion that would easily gotten the show a TV MA rating had it been an organic being rather than a mechanical body.

I wish I could say I enjoyed the writing as much as I enjoyed the visuals.

My biggest issue is that the story didn’t feel very straightforward. One minute Casshern is fighting robots and talking to some woman, and next thing you know he’s talking to a random girl on the beach. It felt like there was a transition missing between those two scenes. From what I’ve gathered, robots on this planet have been plagued with “the ruin”. This condition is causing all robots, except for Casshern, to decay. This causes most robots to believe that Casshern somehow is the secret to curing “the ruin”. As far as backstory is concerned, that’s really all I can say for certain. It would have been nice to know more about what’s going on and exactly who some of these characters are. To be fair, Casshern doesn’t know anything about the backstory either. It feels like the show wants us to learn with him. Hopefully, all becomes clear within the remaining 23 episodes.

I will say this, as easily as I can say that I was disappointed by this first episode, and can also easily say that the show has me interested. It may not have given me everything I wanted, but it did cause me to desire more. I want to know more about this world. I want to know more about the characters. I want to know more about what happened in the past and if the future can be fixed. It wasn’t a perfect show, but it left me wanting to tune in to episode two. That’s what a show is supposed to do. That’s the foundation of a good show. Hopefully, Casshern Sins becomes a good show.