Zetma

By: Robert Murphy

It had been awhile since I sat down to watch any type of anime and I frankly felt that that was wrong and so I set out to find a new one to watch and found Zetman. The show is something that gets many of it's ideas from the noble act of being a hero and wanting to help those in need. This is a great idea on paper and something to wish about as a child but sadly we all grow up and realize that this can't happen, unless you were born or rather created with the power to do so. The main story follows Jin Kanzaki who has incredible strength and abilities hidden inside of him which were meant for the use in destroying creatures called EVOL. EVOL are monstrous creatures that were created for humanities amusement as they fought each other to the death, that is until they achieved consciousness and tried to blend with regular society. While this seems okay, what will it hurt if they just want to be left alone, well not all EVOL stay so nice and they return to the creatures they were and it's up to Zetman or Zet to stop them.  

As I started Zetman, I was really intrigued by the overall setup to the story as it unfolded. Not only does Jin fight to protect humanity but he also befriends a man named Kouga who wants to do the same just like the heroes he's watched in anime and just like a favorite hero of mine, Batman, he has the money to do it. However, the two end up facing down different paths in their pursuit of whats right and end up become enemies rather than friends. While it all sounds like it'd get interesting and fun to watch, it really ends up being the opposite. Kouga is a childish character who really is just looking to be admired like the characters in his shows, he isn't doing it for anyone but himself and is often jealous of Jin for his abilities. Jin himself was initially interesting for me but the confusion behind his story bothered me, he becomes a very muddled character with too much conflicting ideals being thrown on him and you as you watch the show. 

The other major issue to come from Zetman is how it progresses you through the story. The show is based of a manga like many other anime to come before it and in the books you get much more of the story that is left out here in the show. Episodes connect to each other in the flimsiest of ways and where one minute Jin is a young boy fighting crime with his young friend and the next he's working for a shady organization that's trying to stop the rouge EVOL. The story is very much all over the place and once you think you've gotten a grasp on the situation it jumps away from you again. For a twelve episode series, it has a lot going on and not enough time to explain itself, maybe if it had taken a step back to tell the story right and not rush you through it it could have been better. 

The action of the show is somewhat solid, although many of the EVOL are very unoriginal in the forms that they come in where most are just a lizard man looking creature or a shrimp monster. All of the fighting reminds me a lot of Casshern Sins and in fact Zet reminds me quite a bit of the main character from the series in the way he transforms and fights. Kouga himself later gets a unique outfit that makes me think back to Tiger and Bunny and he often acts like one of the characters from the show always professing about justice and it really gets old super quick. 

In the end, Zetman is a very sub par show when you look at the following that the manga has acquired and was probably a big let down for them. The setup as I said led me to believe that there really could have been solid potential for Zetman as a show but it just doesn't follow through with any of it. Many characters end up just getting dropped and their a plenty of plot holes that are just very jarring to the narrative in the story. I would that maybe a second season could straighten things out for the show but with how badly the first part did I won't hold my breathe.

Good:

- Decent action scenes

- Had a good setup but doesn't follow through

Bad:

- The story is very poor

- Massive plot holes and time skips that jar the viewer

- There's no sense of rhyme or reason to what you're watching

- Kouga and Jin start out solid but end up very muddled characters

Scully Rating: 4.0 out of 10