KarasThe human world exists in parallel with the eldritch world, both operating in synchronicity with the other. But when humanity forgets about the demons, the supernatural protector of humanity - Karas - turns on them, hatching a plan to destroy Tokyo and rebuild it as his own stronghold. The renegade Karas, Eko, finds forces beginning to rise against him. Chief among these is a new Karas, a man named Otoha, not to mention the two detectives who suspect there is more to the Shinjuku prefecture than meets the eye... Karas is a six-part OVA series, collected here by Madman/Manga into two movie-length DVDs. The voice cast for the English version includes Jay Hernandez (Hostel) and Matthew Lillard (all kinds of shit) as well as Piper Perabo (Coyote Ugly, The Cave) who gets replaced for the second half. But the real star of the show is the visual stylings - make no mistake, this is top-drawer animation. The artistic approach to Karas is primarily traditional anime for the most part, except for the major battle scenes involving Karas, at which point it all switches to CGI. The joins are noticeable, but rather than detract they are oddly thrilling. The feeling is that the main event has begun, and the improved rendering and textures of the CG sections elevate the action sequences into climactic occasions every time. The only drawback is that they are very choppy and can be disorienting at times. The character designs are great - the Karas armour is immediately iconic - and the mechanoid demons are terrific. Elsewhere, haunting images appear frequently, most notably a veritable forest of human bodies impaled on metallic tentacles looming over a ruined Tokyo. Unfortunately for Karas, the script fails to match the level of invention reserved for the visuals. The plot is a simple Evil Guy With Lieutenants who plots from his Evil Base and whose lieutenants are dealt with one by one until the Big Final Fight with Karas. Karas does try to mix this up by delivering the story in a piecemeal fashion with a deluge of seemingly unconnected vignettes and characters. These do come together, but only in such a way as to underline what a simple story it is, despite an irritatingly underdrawn mythos behind it all. Battling to save or avenge relatives is what counts for character development over the series. Virtually every character has a younger brother or daughter who is killed - and naturally one of the evil characters kills their own family because they're just so damn EVIL. The rapid-fire scenes and eye-candy may be sufficient to garner a solid pass mark for Karas, but it feels like material crammed into a six-part series when it would be better served on a larger timescale.
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