Freezing – 4

Whatever happened to all the gore in Freezing?

Where’s all the gore?  The first episode spoiled us with its brutality and bloodshed.  It surprised and delighted me.  However, since that first episode, the amount of gore has decreased while the numbers of battles have remained the same.  But that’s not the full story.

Censoring is at fault here, too.  During the flashback of the Nova fight, there were optimal scenes for showing off the blood and cruelty of this world.  Instead, we were treated to the typical darkness censors which typically only appear in fanservicy animes.  Still, the point of those censors which block out all the ecchi moments are embedded in the idea that people will buy the DVDs for those few frames of whatever.  Here, the ecchi moments go uncensored, yet the gore is left in the dark.  Do they think it will have the same effect as those ecchi anime?  But the first episode was wonderfully bloody.Was the first episode purposely bloodied and not censored to hook us on the show quickly?  I certainly am enjoying the show but I wish the bloodshed would go uncensored for all of us to enjoy.  The gore certainly isn’t the selling factor of Freezing and neither is the ecchiness, but they undoubtedly help.  The battles would be rather boring without the high levels of fanservice that I came to expect from Freezing after the first episode.

Aside from the missing carnage, I’m a little worried about the path Freezing is taking.  Freezing hasn’t really excited me at all since the first episode.  But it’s not like every anime needs to do that every episode, either.

The overall animation wasn’t a strong point in this episode and I didn’t care for how dark the whole second half was, although the fight animation was solid.  The character development has been steady for Satellizer and Aoi and the introductions have been worthwhile for the other Pandoras.  I’m looking forward to Rana’s introduction next episode.  The plot has been non-existent unless the whole point of the story is having everyone in the academy destined to fight Satellizer.  The ecchi-ness has stayed pretty constant.  There just hasn’t been anything to excite me in the past 3 episodes.  What’s even more worrisome is that I don’t know what would excite me either.  I like the fights and the characters but there isn’t much more then that.  I’m just hoping there’s something that jumps out at me in the next episode that will leave me more inspired and more hopeful for the anime.