Weiss Kreuz Glühen

a.k.a. Weiß Kreuz Glühen

a.k.a. White Cross Glowing

Genre: Action
Company: Studio DEEN/Animate Film
Format: 13 episodes
Dates: 11/28/2002 to 2/20/2003

Koua Academy is a school where the leaders of the future are trained…. or so one would think. In reality, a sinister plot involving global terrorism is being hatched, and the students of Koua Academy are the guinea pigs. Who will stop this evil scheme? The dashing defenders of the night themselves, the Backstree… err, Weiss!

summary by Ender

 

Reviewed: 07/11/2005 by
Grade: 51% 

Highs: Slightly improved animation; linear story; plot starts off all right…

Lows: … but falls apart drastically; nothing makes sense; useless melodrama

I should have known better. I should have known that after watching Fushigi Yuugi it would be hard for me to find a good bishounen anime. I had hopes for Weiss Kreuz, and that disappointed me. But I’m a fair, unbiased critic, so I decided to give this sequel a chance, and I will admit this anime is better than its predecessor… but not by much.

Weiss Kreuz Glühen started off just fine. The animation and art were much cleaner than in the first Weiss Kreuz (no more bouncing cels or hard-scratched character designs), and that made the series go down a bit smoother; nothing astounding, but definitely a step in the right direction. After the second episode, I was very much impressed that this series did not go the road of the original, which was episodic and consequently dull. It possesses a very interesting story concept, and I was hoping that more of the nature of the Weiss boys would be brought out. But by the 4th episode, all of my hopes had been dashed against some very jagged rocks.

Everyone in the cast acts irrational and starts playing the clichéd hero/villain cards; they drone on about “world domination” and “justice shall triumph.” New characters die as quickly as they appear, old characters materialize out of thin air and intriguing plot points are brought up but get dropped in three seconds. By the time the psychics showed up, I was more than ready to eject the tape. Also, the heroes seem obsessed in sacrificing themselves for no other reason than to have a inner monologue. This series should have been titled People Do Stupid Things. This is a very bad attempt at drama, drama that has been done better in other anime. The entire time I was wondering who these people are and why I should care.

It is sad that every time I venture into the world of “pretty boys and their pretty weapons,” I always end up finding nothing of value from Fushigi Yuugi, Gundam Wing, and now the Weiss Kreuz franchise. There was so much emphasis put into the look that it wound up being hollow. I will keep searching, though, and if there’s one thing I learned from this is that there’s always going to be a lot of dirt covering up the real treasure. But as it stands, Weiss Kreuz Glühen belongs with the dirt.