Anime: C

[C] had a lot of potential.
It criticizes the way modern society thinks, wanting short-term gratification in the present, while being willing to risk the future for it.
When one thinks about it, this doesn't just extend to the world of finances but also to society on a more individual basis.

But this potential is where it kind of really ends.
There is not much character development going on and if you don't know much about economics, a lot of the "rules" in the "financial district" don't click together very easily.
Additionally, when the anime ended, a lot of questions were still left unanswered by me.
Why does Msyu look like the "asset" used by Yoga's dad?
Will Yoga re-open the financial district?
How do the districts even come to be and how are they related beyond just their existence?
Will Yoga and Msyu meet again in some way?

The entire anime feels rushed and the part where Yoga went from "I have no clue what I'm doing" to beating the strongest "Entre" in the entire financial district in the span of what seems barely a few days at best doesn't help with it either.

Well, C ist roughly said an anime about money. But it ist probably the approach to this matter that makes it so special to me. C is presenting a parallel world which is called the "Financial District" where chosen players play against each other. Worst possible outcome is bankruptcy.

I know this may sound stupid to everyone who calls himself an adult, but there is a lot more to it than that. Every player called entrepreneur has a certain capital which is not only a plain number, but also one's own future. Addtionally the capital manifests as a living being which represents the battle partner. As you can see, C is often metaphorically and may sometimes appear to abstract, but nevertheless we also have some interesting characters, especially in respect of the "capital" as a symbol for an entrepreneur's future.
Regarding the battle scenes, don't expect some classical strategies behind the concept. On the one hand it concentrates on the aspect of deliberate use of the money they have. Behind this facade are of course economic problem, but thery are not that complicated and are probably only basics. On the other hand the battles demonstrate the bad sides of money/capitalism as well as individual actions of the special characters.

Let's move to the characters who play in an important role in this anime. Who else could be more influenced by money than humans? It is very pleasing that all important characters are adults. There are students, workers, company bosses etc. Main character is the student of economics Kimimaro Yoga, role model of this anime, who is about finding himself and finding solutions to his problems in society. The answer seems pretty clear considering the theme of C, so we can follow a quite interesting development - human values included.
The side characters are certainly not less interesting. We have charismatic Mikuni, manipulating Masakaki and several contrahents in the "Financial District". They all act quite plausible in my opinion except of Masakaki. He plays a different and more symbolic role and maybe personifcation of money itself with a mystery around him.

Animation is nothing to speak of. Average except for the last episode which was absolutely amazing. Many people of Star Driver #25 seem to be involved. But I really liked the design, the "Financial District" ist impressive, although there is too much CG.
I think the soundtrack is quite stunning and creates a very special atmosphere which fits perfectly. Highlight is definitely the song "High Heel Shoes in Pink".

So finally, why the heck is this anime called "C"? This isn't about the programming language, is it? Of course not, but... just watch this anime if you want to find out. And have fun interpreting. C is a bit deeper than most anime and it packs a lot of stuff in 11 episodes, so it feels pretty hasted and you won't get everything as themes in this anime are only broached more or less. Nontheless I like the result. If you like the theme of money and how it is presented, give it a try.

Would you be willing to trade your future in order to better your situation today? What about the future of an entire nation? C is an opinionated take on this political (and philosophical) topic that is on everyone's mind thanks to mass media.

I really had no idea what to expect from this series, a series about money and finance? Only minimally so. There exists a realm called the "financial district" in which people can bet their future as collateral in exchange for "black money", which looks like ordinary money to people not involved with the financial district. Members of the district, called entrepreneurs (or entre for short), take advantage of this money for reasons ranging from personal gain to utilitarian purposes. Money is "exchanged" between entre through "deals", which are really battles with black money as hit points and bank cards that remind me of the pokemon/yu-gi-oh days. What is the catch? The fine print is that if an entre loses all their black money, they become bankrupt and the chaos bank that runs the financial district takes its collateral, the entre's future. Depending on the individual, this could have a catastrophic chain effect on the real world, up to and including the disappearance of people and entire nations.

C is a funny watch, if just because of the ironic reference to the debt crisis of many nations today and the ridiculous usage of business terminology including attack names of assets (think a trainer's pokemon; and also a play on words). All in all, it was a fair watch that leads to some interesting philosophical questions, but also along with a lot of unanswered plot holes and questionable story elements. This is a fairly involved watch with a LOT of dialogue and concepts to digest. It's very fast paced but won't be of interest to everyone. There's some action, a touch of romance, and a lot of politics and internal character conflict. That being said, those looking for good action or deep romance will be thoroughly disappointed. Not much real comedy here either unless you count the irony behind the whole theme.

Animation:
The animation is quite well done, though not without flaws. There's an interesting contrast between the normal world and the eerie, red-colored financial district. The characters are well drawn though some of the assets can only be described as bizarre. And Mashyu, well, it's pretty hard to draw her wearing anything less w/o putting this as an H series. Facial expressions are average and the main character tends to hide under his hoodie. The action scenes need better choreography as certain scenes deteriorate to flashes of colors clashing against each other, which is disappointing. Battles are typically won through using attacks of mass destruction such as "overheated economy"(*chuckles*). There is considerable blood/dismemberment though assets (and the buildings in the district) apparently have very rapid regeneration. There's a lot of CGI used such as flowing black money and when people disappear but these are done well and aren't distracting. Finally, what was Yoga thinking when he bought those shoes?

Sound:
Neither the OP nor the ED impressed me. The OP is a rock-based piece whereas the ED is a more minimalistic light-rock piece. The BGM is also not very memorable, except for a piece in episode 10 after the OP. The most memorable part in this category would be the usage of English words and inclusion of English-speaking VAs (the kind I can understand w/o subs).

The VAs do a good job as this is a dialogue-heavy series. There are some scenes that require pausing as there is just too much sub to read/screen time. However, the secondary VA staff wasn't as convincing, though their performance is also less critical to the main plot.

Story:
The underlying theme in this series, and probably original concept, lies with money. What exactly is money? Is it a means to glory, a means to exert power, a form of trust? And underlying even money, what is really important in the world?

In essence,the world is in pretty poor shape with many countries on the verge of collapse. There are multiple groups trying to gain control of the financial district; most with reconcilable ideologies and means but an equivalent goal, to save the real world; not terribly off as a parallel to the US government as of July 2011. Yoga is thrown into this mess as a randomly-chosen entre. Whether by luck or some other unstated reason, he's saved by his strong asset and he soon is in contact with all the leaders of the multiple groups, all trying to influence him. What path will the college student, with a humble goal of an average life with an average family, choose?

While C successfully creates a compelling setting in the early episodes, it leaves too many unanswered questions and elements. Certain relationships and elements are used early on in the show but not later on, when they would have been useful. As others have noted, the second half of this show felt rushed; the series should have been a bit longer. I also get this feeling from characters that had more explication than they needed considering their usage in the rest of the series.

There are a lot of recycled elements from other shows used here leading to a predictable plot progression, which is not helped by an overly-revealing OP (skip it if you don't want to be spoiled). In all honesty the plot progression wasn't terribly good, and outright confusing at times near the end of the series. The climax is exactly what you'd expect it to be though calling the falling action brief is a huge understatement. It's not a very satisfying closure and leaves way too much unanswered.

Character:
Yoga is a poor guy. His parents are either dead or missing and he barely makes enough through two part time jobs to pay for his education and living expenses. Furthermore, his love interest has been stolen by a guy who has more money than him. Due to his past, he wants an average, secure life with an average family. However, unlike most average anime guys, he actually has guts and a willingness to take action. He's often suffering from internal conflict as he wrestles with multiple ideologies. While I wouldn't call this outright character growth, he eventually finds "a" path and sticks with it till the end. Assets are supposedly a personification of a person's future (not sure what it means when a person's future is a giant bee...), Yoga's asset Mashyu is unique in that she behaves much more like a human than other assets, to the extend of harboring feelings for her entre (though this aspect is underdeveloped).

The major shortfall in this series is the underdevelopment of the secondary characters; though it is true that many of them end up as victims of losses in the financial district, you never have a change to grow attached to them so their loss doesn't leave much of an impact. Finally, you don't get any final resolution as the falling action is just way too short.

Value:
This show is packed full of interesting political and philosophical questions, however the team should have paid a bit more attention to the actual execution. Certain elements are overused while other things are introduced but then never really utilized (stocks?). The plot line was predictable and supporting characters were beyond shallow. The show's primary redeeming characteristic is the irony of using "black money" to finance further debt and the concept that you can take something as unpredictable as the "future" as collateral, let me know if you find any bank that actually takes that. It is a decently enjoyable watch if you're willing to sift through the dialogue.

C.

What an incredible mass of promises blown to the wind. Oh guys I really hoped for this show to be good. Nevertheless it failed hard.

This is a different kind of fail from the average train-wreck. Most of them hook you with a shining start and awesome animation/story. But this show doesn't even got past the first episodes without screwing something.
They took this story, a very interesting one, a story with some core concepts that are really missing from the anime world, and utterly destroyed it without even showing any kind of mercy.
I mean, I wasn't expecting something really deep about high finance and stuff, but the simple fact that they were approaching it, was really interesting. And I'm fairly sure the scripts were actually very interesting in the early stages of production. But they failed to deliver every inch of those good concept, of those ideas. They actually lost track of what they were producing under every single aspect, or better to say, they didn't care to develop and make more mature and complete the original scripts.

They cannot do proper drama, there is nothing to be dramatic about after all, what is happening is totally under control of the almighy God of Random, and the characters know this so badly so they do not give a single fuck. Nevertheless the show tries to put drama here and there to make viewers care, at least they might actually do.

They cannot deliver a good fighting anime, they cannot do this. The animation is not able to really catch up with what they wanted to do, so the result is sloppy at best, with an incredible low quality 3D to just ruin every sparkle of fun.
The almighty God of Random hits hard here too, and makes you unable to understand how the combat is going or what is the meaning of all what they are shouting. Also the rules of a fight bend/change/evolve to better support the plot, so the moment you handle them you actually lost the game.

They cannot deliver sci-fi. All the midas world is lol wut? a parallel dimension? compressed space? mind connection? INCEPTION? even the cars are something from the late 80' but they can fly and jump accros space and time, GREAT SCOTT.
The only sci-fiesque thing is the card with the asset inside, that is more like some sort magical item, and what is magic if not a kind of technology too advanced to be understood?...

I can go like this the whole day, because they were so unable to accomplish a single thing, that hardly there is a single category not disgraced by this show.
"But how is possible? the show is not so bad." Well if you pick every single single episode, and decide to watch it for its internal and unique potential, you may actually find some value, assuming that all what is failing in the episode, is actually explained or justified elsewhere in the series. The moment you start putting every piece together, you realize how bad the show is, and how easily all that potential was burnt by the holy flames of the almighty god of Random.

My english is bad and it is like one hour that I'm writing between 5 and 6 in the morning, so I'm just putting my hands forward to avoid hitting the floor too hard.

'C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control' is an obvious response to the current state of business, and the recent global financial crisis.

The main theme of this series is "present vs future", with the main antagonist on the "present" side of the argument vying for the control of the financial district against the protagonist's "future" argument. This could be a direct criticism to the banking industry for their irresponsible lending for short-term profits, which ultimately led to the subprime mortgage breakdown and Lehman Brothers declaring bankruptcy, subsequently causing economic disaster in Japan as well. Using a person's future as collateral for cash today is also an extreme representation of excessive lending.

The story begins in a generic shounen fashion, with the "ordinary but chosen" student suddenly gets an invitation to participate in something important, and given "powers" in the form of money and digimon "assets". The battle structure of this series is extremely weak, since it's based on an overly complicated battle system akin to 'Yu-Gi-Oh!' or 'Duel Masters', which relies on new rules and abilities introduced out of nowhere in the most deus ex machina manner imaginable to advance the battles. We are literally being told that the protagonist is "bless with a strong asset", and one minute the battle seems like who has the most money wins, the next minute they somehow manage to defeat the richer Sennoza without strategy (pure guts?).

This series is also plagued from the presence of too many characters. There is simply not enough time in an 11-episode series to develop 20+ characters, and many of their actions did not make sense. It was especially hard to identify the protagonist's motivation for rejecting the "present" view point, and his relationship with Hanabi, if she can even be called a heroine, since she is a non-presence in terms of screen time, and appears to be nothing more than a simple friend the protagonist has a little crush on. Every single opponent the protagonist faced are presented as honorable people fighting for a purpose, and extremely forgiving to the protagonist for destroying their lives.

The art and animation in this series is wonderful. The surreal alternative world, the dynamic presentation, the "wall" between the real life and financial district, the action sequence... all makes this series very fun to watch, visually. Character designs are pretty attractive, and other than slight sloppiness in the second half of the show, it was perfect.

Sound was almost equally wonderful, with excellent voice acting that fits well for every character, especially that of Msyu by Tomatsu Haruka.
Exciting battle BGM, and even more impressive was the music in slow scenes with the nostalgic and poignant feeling that they invoke.
The OP was an ordinary rock song, but the ED 'RPG' by School Food Punishment was an overwhelmingly fitting song for this series, accompanied by arguably the most visually pleasing ED animation since 'Tatami Galaxy'.

I loved the atmosphere in this series. The narration and back-story for characters were also very enjoyable. However, they are too fragmented to make a huge impact to the main story. The single biggest flaw of this series is that the battles are far too superficial. Other money and life based series such as 'Death Note' and 'Liar Game' had clear introduction of rules and those rules are enforced throughout the 'game', and used strategy or suspense for entertainment. On the other hand, 'C' used action, which simply does not make sense for a series of this kind. The strategies were superficial, and the consequence of loss (bankruptcy) were extremely vague. It feels like we're being shown a game's replay, rather than playing along with the protagonist. The premise of this series was amazing, with the existence of an alternative market, the Midas money, and the effect of the virtual world to the real. Unfortunately, the battle system was unable to fully capitalize on the premise. Perhaps the protagonist should've just turned into a stock trader.

It also wasn't clear how the virtual world worked, and what the purposes they served. SEA financial district bankruptcy that destroyed Singapore's "shockwave" approaching other markets? It was literally depicted with graphical earthquake and tsunami approaching on screen rather actually showing how global businesses are affected by international markets. It got so bad that there was a big letter "C" moving across the ocean on a screen to represent the economic effect moving. In the end, nothing was explained, and what the protagonist had done had no effect whatsoever. The world turns as usual, and the corrupt financial district still exist.

The message of the series was also very conflicted. It started out as blatant criticism of the banking industry and questioning the importance of money, then it was the trust in the currency, and finally the big bad America? I did like how they attempted to show the futility of printing money to fix economic disaster (represents the futile Quantitative Easing?) , but it makes no sense to make losing face value of a currency as a crisis when Japan's recession today is mostly attributed to the strong yen. It also didn't really make sense for blaming the U.S. for the financial crisis, because well, if it wasn't trade relationship with America, they would not have had the money to lose in financial crisis in the first place. Not to mention it was the U.S. that suffered the most in this recession. Like it's mentioned in one episode, you prosper together in a network, fall together too.

Random business jargons were being thrown out throughout the series, with terms like "entrepreneur" (they would usually just say "Kigyouka" in Japanese for that), "collateral" ("future" as "collateral" should not be affected until failure of repayment, so why does printing more money using future as collateral instantly destroyed people's future?), and nonsense battle moves like "Macro/Mezzo/Micro-flation", "M&A", "Overheated Economy", and "Cannibalization" (this term in business means launching a new product that eats away the sales of existing product of your own company, not eating others) etc. just makes it obvious those terms were being used simply to sound cool and appear to be different from every other shounen battle anime.

'C' is a total failure in addressing real world issues. The setting, story, and character development are disastrous, but the visual and audio presentation are very pleasing with good pacing. It's an enjoyable series as long as you don't think too much about it, or take it too seriously. It is, after all, a show that has chosen style over substance.

C aims to manipulate our emotions around the economic crisis and does not bother to tell a good story. It’s not hard to see why many were mesmerized by its initial hook and not by its internal logic (or lack of it). Casual viewers who have money problems or study economics loved its artistic overtones. The colors are pretty and fool the superficial mind to believe what he is watching is far more important that what it actually is.

Also, the battles have a very complicated terminology based on stock market terms (http://i.imgur.com/7MLAL.jpg), again fooling the plebian brain to think what is going on is very elaborate, when in practice the names are just for flavor, and the battles feel like you are playing Pokemon. The monster with the bigger energy beam wins; that is all. The result is more comical and childish, instead of tactical and exciting. Add to that how the cards speak out their special attacks, most of which is in terrible Engrish, and you think you are watching a bad Kamen Rider season.

The concept is indeed interesting as it appears to be about how money affects the world and how the haves are forming it any way they like, while the not-haves are thrown to the side and take down with them all their supporters, friends and relatives. In theory, the show manages to get its message across. Making money the normal way is very hard, and many are desperate enough to do anything it takes to make lots of them. So they don’t think twice when they find an indirect way to get rich by taking part in fights in some pocket dimension created by a demonic bank. If you win, you get a shitload of money you can use in your life. Its center theme is a bright future, formed through wealth, and shown through how every monster in the series is a depiction of the favored future of its master. But if you lose… well, aside from being broke, reality itself changes to your disfavor and you end up losing your own life, loving relatives, or your company gets bankrupt and the whole world becomes a harsher place for all those you affect.

The presentation of this cool idea sucks royally for many reasons, one of which is the very slow pacing. It is spending a lot of time in slice of nothing ever happens, while going over the important parts in a hurry; namely the resolution to problems and the showdowns with important opponents.

Also, there is no balance of power amongst the monsters since some are clearly far more powerful than others. Oh and what a coincidence, the strongest ones are in the hands of the main characters and thus they win all the time regardless of how much damage they have received.

Also, as much as the artstyle looks nice, the same can’t be said about the animation. The pocket dimension has a very interesting artwork but the animation is usually bad, especially when it comes to 3D models.

Also, although the characters appear interesting at first, they end up being distant and you are given very little reason to care about them. Their human drama feels completely hollow and rushed.

- The main lead Kimimaro for example is a typical self-insert teenager, which nothing special about him. He is the walking archetype of the underdog, overlooked by everybody, works hard, and wants to help people. It’s impossible to care about his money problems when most of the time is spent on passively taking part in battles, then listening to other players talking about their life issues rather than doing something about it, before he goes to have silly romcom moments with his loli monster and a random chick agent. As for that girl in his class he is so in love with? Beats me what he has done to win her affection. But of course we couldn’t have an average in everything protagonist, so for the sake of plot convenience, he is given the most powerful Pokemon fighter and the most broken credit card that makes him another Jesus-kun for no good reason. Oh, and he also looks like a girl.

- His monster companion Msyu is nothing more than the archetypical tsundere loli that is there purely as otaku bait. Her personality starts with her edgy temper and ends with her has-the-hots-for-the-main-lead-at-first-sight. She lacks characterization completely with the only thing that defines her is the constant depictions of her looking all cute, perky and naive, a thing commonplace in all anime girls that share her archetype, and again the reason you will forget her fast.

- The third important character is Mikuni, a man who tries to use money as power and as means to control the pocket dimension. He is not power hungry, as he really wants to negate the negative effects of the losers on reality. He is the most interesting character, especially because he is slowly turning into what he hates the most. He could easily make an ideal protagonist, if the writers weren’t idiots who chose to focus on those two boring ones. Even as such, Mikuni’s backdrop wasn’t known up until a flashback came out of nowhere late in the show. It felt out of place and as a poor attempt to flesh him out because we are running out of episodes. Also, his monster is another loli, one that likes to sniff and eat stuff. Again more otaku-bait for furry-lovers.

- All other characters are completely useless. They have no importance in the plot and are not developed or given enough focus for you to care. They end up being defined by minor quirks, like having golden teeth or eating hamburgers, instead of an actual personality or purpose in the story. The girl Kimimaro loves has absolutely no reason to exist, and the other players are shown for only one episode each, before losing in a battle and getting removed from the show, without ever complaining about the unfairness of the battles, since their monsters were clearly inferior. Why are they even becoming friends with Kimimaro afterwards for cheating and ruining their future? They should be furious, filled with murderous intent! Not only they don’t care, they also don’t give a shit when entire countries disappear forever. They are all drones who don’t try to make a stand. Only Kimimaro cares and he has the personality of a wooden plank.

It would be far more interesting if it was focused on showing money being just printed paper and not actual wealth, and how capitalism is now based on something that has no actual value, since the banks can make money out of plain paper and demand more than they offer, thus in the longrun leading to bankruptcy. Yet all we see is the Midas Bank using them as hit points in some videogame that magically affects the lives of those making transactions with them. Boring! And it doesn’t even matter in the end since the protagonist wins all the time and has broken powers that can undo the plot. Which by the way is what happens in the finale; we get a reset ending. Bullshit!

So down to it, this is not a good proxy battle series (since the battles are unfair), not a good social commentary (since the conflict is a superficial videogame), not a good romcom show (since the main duo is completely boring), and doesn’t even feel like something significant was achieved in the end (since everything was magically undone and nobody remembers a thing). That C in the title ends up meaning C production; far lower than B movies.

If the whole series was half as interesting as this Disturbed song, I could have given it some credit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV4oYkIeGJc&feature=relmfu
GAR hero, action, shameful politics, a shadow leadership, mass rebellion, havoc, death, destruction and rebirth! Why doesn’t C have any of that and it’s just retarded otaku-bait for brainless watchers? Plain horrible and for that mater NOT RECOMMENDED.

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