And aside from the visual thing and the creepy pedo vibe, I guess I found it okay. I've also never read the book, so that might have something to do with it. For me it was different in that I've never seen the Count portrayed as such a complete bastard - usually he's portrayed as somewhat sympathetic. The soundtrack is also kind of good. This actually just barely makes my favorites list.
My review:
Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo
(24 episode series)
This is probably the umpteenth adaptation of Alexandre Dumas's classic novel, so to try to stand out a little more, this animated series changes the setting to something decidedly more sci-fi. Yet, despite taking place in the far future (something like the 5050s if certain headstones are to be believed), this adaptation tries to keep its roots firmly in the original story by presenting us with an odd mix of both futuristic technology and visual design and other technology and visual design which looks more appropriate to the early 19th century and the early 20th century while still trying to look futuristic. Oh, and they do manage to work mechas into the story briefly, because it wouldn't be a sci-fi anime without mechas, apparently.
That being said, it wasn't all bad, and it did succeed at making things a bit more visually interesting, except for the mecha part, that was just gratuitous. No, the thing that bothered me the most visually was the odd use of simple photoshop-like textures for almost everything on screen. Characters' clothing and hair, furniture, various buildings – all of them used this odd masking technique which sets a pattern as a background while an unmasked opening allows it to be seen through. So while clothing and the like were animated, the backgrounds didn't move, and overall everything just tended to stand out because of this look, which was almost as if someone had used patterned paper and photographs to cut shapes out of, not unlike South Park's early look. And, it should say a lot about how distracting this was, because I dove right into it as the first thing, rather than making a note of it later, after I talked about the actual story and everything.
The story itself was quite good. I have to admit that I've never read the original novel, so I can't say one way or another how good this adaptation is. I've heard that the Count isn't nearly as sympathetic as most adaptations portray him, so I guess in that way this adaptation is somewhat similar, because the Count wasn't portrayed in a much better light than the people who betrayed him and sent him up the river. This especially stand out, because while the other adaptations I've seen tell the story solely from the Count's perspective, this series focuses primarily on the son of the best friend and former fiancé who had betrayed Edmund Dantes. That does give it a somewhat interesting angle, though it is essentially doing the same as a lot of other anime that focuses on youth.
Albert de Morcerf is on Luna with his best friend, Franz d'Epinay for a carnival there. As it so happens, the mysterious Count of Monte Cristo is at an opera the two go to. Not long afterwards, Albert has one of his many fits with Franz (who I think is a bit more into Albert than Albert is to him, if you catch my drift), and wanders off on his own. This is all over the fact that Albert has a straight crush on the Count after he has the two boys partake in a rather morbid game which involves pardoning one of three men to be publically guillotined as the final part of the carnival. Naturally the one to get pardoned is the remorseless killer, and as it happens this man also has a part in kidnapping Albert after he wanders off on his own. The Count is the only one to come to Franz's aid and so rescues Albert. This widens the rift between Franz and Albert and draws Albert closer to the Count. Even at this early point, the Count hints that this is no accident, though naturally he tells Albert that it's fate. Of course his true plan is eventually revealed, and anyone familiar with the story really just knows that it's a matter of time before the bad things start happening.
By focusing on the children of the people who wronged Edmund, who conveniently form a group of friends so they all know each other, it also gives the series a bit of a chance to flesh out the families of these people a bit more. Naturally there is more than a little soap opera to it, since pretty much all of them are messed up in some way. For example, two of these people had an affair which produced a child, which they buried alive in order to hide. As it turns out, the infant was rescued, and the Count uses him as part of his plan for revenge. Apparently this includes having sex with his own mother, and sexually assaulting his half sister just before he's supposed to marry her. So as messed up as pretty much all of the grown-ups are, the teenaged friends give us some characters to sympathize with when it all goes down. People die or are otherwise ruined, and this naturally effects all of the friends. The main weakness here is actually Albert, because he's a bit of a whiny bastard, who has the unfortunate distinction of reminding me of Shinji from Evangelion. He does grow a pair at one point, but in my opinion it wasn't really enough to make me like him. His friend Franz and his fiancé Eugénie de Danglars come off as way more sympathetic just due to how much they actually care for their friends, and how they react to what's going on around them. Key thing is that they pretty much keep it together while Albert freaks out and does stupid things.
That all being said, I was drawn in by the story and I found most of the characters at least somewhat interesting. Not all of them were really given much of a chance to be fleshed out, unfortunately, but other than that it was all fairly good. It's true that this is an adaptation, but I have to say that it's one of the better ones I've seen, and I never really got bored. It was a little slow picking up, but that was just to get all the pieces of the puzzle set up before the Count started making his move to get his revenge. And since he's a bit of a bastard, essentially doing the same thing to some others that he is taking his revenge for, I think it was a good move to focus on another protagonist rather than making the Count the protagonist. I'd say this series is worth a watch. 8/10.
