Series Review – El Cazador.

What could it have been?

How about an excellent dramatic show that delivers the promised action that Bee Train is really known for?

How about telling the back story of the characters early enough and not later in the show?

How about letting Nadie and Elis gel early through useful dialogs and save some cels using juxtaposed images, maybe even tell some back story using techniques used in “Lola Renne (Run Lola Run)?”

How about a deep and penetrating look into the darkness inside human hearts that lust for power, and the struggle of someone who harbors the potential for great power?

How about actually sealing the deal of the love between Nadie and Elis and take the dramatic level up to the point that they consummate their love and face great difficulties but triumph in the end?

How about…How about cutting this show mercifully short on episode 24?

We all know that this show wasn’t intended to be anything great. It was probably just another experiment by Bee Train to make a “Drama” anime. They probably think drama anime can’t have too much action.

Try John Woo films made in Hong Kong before making that assessment. And these films are at most 90 minutes each.

Bee Train wasted approx. 572 minutes total in a full 26 episode series to tell us just a few things:

1. Nadie and Elis love each other.

2. Rosenberg wants power.

3. Everyone grows up.

4. The secret organization wants to grow Elis.

5. LA loves Elis but his love would never be fulfilled.

I got one word here – DUH!!!!

Things gone wasted:

1. Who’s the masked man?

2. Elis’ internal struggles.

3. Nadie’s internal struggles.

4. What the council could have done (also, what Kotono-sama could have acted).

5. A really penetrating look into LA’s psyche and background, not in short segements.

6. The origin of the relationship between Ricardo and Lilio.

7. How does Nadie deal with Ricardo’s care and Elis’ feelings

8. Make her feelings for both conflict.

9. Jody’s story.

10. Just about everything else.

I got another word here: “sigh…”

Granted, by the end of the series there was not any doubts that Nadie and Elis really care for each other. No more suspicions, no more uncertainties about their partnership. However, to me, nothing they do when with each other really excites me, and I’m not even talking about anything sexual, it’s just that their relationship seems so plain and dull like water.

LA, on the other hand, obsessed or maybe even loved Elis with a fiery passion, that makes his demise so much more poignant, exactly because we all know his ways are wrong, but we all realize that he just doesn’t seem to have a complete choice over the matter. He was compelled to love and obsess over her. He’s flying into the fire but he can’t get himself out of it, and when [spoiler] Elis flatly rejects him [/spoiler], he almost becomes fully psychotic but he ends up still loving Elis in his own way; he can’t bear the thought of hating her.

To me, he is the best character in the show because his character shows depth beyond the superficial “crazy and obsessed villain” garbage that a lot of classic anime like to exhibit.

What a shame he didn’t get more screen time.

My Daily Anime Diet Recommendations:

Animation: Excellent moder-style animation (with computer help) with lively colors and beautiful and realistic scenery.

Music: A great soundtrack by Kajiura, all fits what this show could have done very well. As for the show we now got, the music fits at times and at other times, is much better.

Story: it feels like a travel show documenting sceneries in South America and parts of Canada. Too many useless side quests even in the last 6 episodes, and even in the last episode a useless “revenge” plot was executed.

Overall: sadly, I just can’t give it a higher score, biased or not – 67% recommended in total for your daily anime diet. For what it tried to do, it was loaded with extra fillers, and for what it should have done like displayed in OP and ED sequences, it did very little.