D7 Peacemaker: Stage 1

Original Title: D7 Peacemaker: Stage 1
Romanized: N/A
Literal:

Plot Synopsis

In the not too distant future, hostage negotiators have a new last-resort tool in their arsenal--the Peacemakers. When a situation at One American Center, Austin, Texas gets out of hand and a group of officers are mysteriously captured, Liaison Jynetik Lajiko calls in one of the best peacemakers there is--D7. Fate would have it, however, that no only will a couple of D7's classmates get caught up in the situation, but D7 will discover the door to a deeper mystery.

Review

Rating: 1.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2003-06-30

D7 Peacemaker: Stage 1 is one of the handful of independently produced, non-Japanese anime productions to actually make it to a finished state. This first OAV of a series is polished and professional in its presentation, and the tack taken with the visuals--in essence, a comic book set to music--is a creative response to a low budget. Since things like this interest me, I'm going to go into some depth even though it's just a single episode at this point, but the bottom line is that, at least as far as the first episode, the end result isn't bad but unfortunately doesn't quite come together to live up to its potential.

I'll start with the good points. The first thing that caught my attention was the soundtrack (not surprising, considering that in lieu of animation the constant background music drove the mood and pace of the story). Most of the themes are percussion-heavy and techno-styled, but there's still a surprising amount of variety (including less synthesizer work than I was expecting) and a couple of appealingly funky pieces. My two favorites were the lighter pieces on the soundtrack--in particular an acoustic guitar-heavy piece with a techno beat and a vaguely Spanish flair--but the pounding action theme and darker pieces were also quite nice. I'll add that if the music sounds worthwhile, the DVD includes the full soundtrack CD as a bonus.

One other thing impressed me: D7 Peacemaker has style. From the thumping soundtrack, to the slick visual style, to heavy use of heads-up display-like text and graphic overlays, to the metaphysical-sounding Cyberpunk plot, the production has the flavor of a Ghost in the Shell-themed, ultra-modern music video.

Unfortunately, that's pretty much it. In fact, the main problem I saw was that there was too much style--it MTVed itself to death. The story did do a decent job of establishing the characters, setting up an action sequence, and asking more questions than it answered, but a few aspects seemed to be left unexplained for no particular reason other than to keep up the mood. Worse, it felt like less happened than the length should have allowed, particularly for a story that throws you into the middle of the action and leaves it up to you to figure out what's going on. The episode was supposed to be a hook, but the feeling I walked away with was less "I'm intrigued" and more "That made less sense than it should have."

I also felt like I was working harder than I should have been to figure out what was happening--partly because the style was laid on so thick, partly because of some weak directing (or it could have been bad editing--in either case several conversations seemed to have long, unnecessary pauses), and partly because much of the dialogue, in an attempt to seem cerebral and deep, came across as pretentious and confusing.

One other thing that struck me as a bit odd about the story were the two lighter characters, Sakura and Snow. It was odd enough that they randomly decided to follow D7 (into a building surrounded by police, no less), or that they managed to just walk into the middle of a huge hostage situation, but the simple fact that two characters this light were walking around in a series that was constructed entirely of dark cyberpunk style seemed even stranger to me.

Part of the blame might be on the directing/editing I mentioned above, but the acting was also a little weak. D7 and most of the serious characters were good enough, and I liked the casting (including a few fun accents--this is supposed to be Austin), but Sakura and Snow seemed very stiff. Things did seem to smooth out somewhat toward the end, though.

I can't say that I was particularly satisfied with the way the production looked, either. Although in concept telling a story on video with stillframes rather than animation can work--it happens all the time in cheap animation, and the extra scene at the end of the Tenchi Muyo OAVs did the same thing--at least in this case, it didn't seem to be sufficient. To the series' credit, even though much of the animation was probably done in Flash, this definitely doesn't look like a web animation--Macromedia's products were a tool, not a constraint. The individual frames were very nicely drawn, the tired-eyed character designs were distinctive if not quite to my taste, and the action images had a great sense of dynamic motion to them. There were also a few scenes with fluid CG animation--some flying police cars, mainly--that looked very nice, and blended well with both the cell-style art and the slick visual style of the production.

But for a series that seemed to want to center on action scenes, there simply weren't enough stillframes in those parts to pull it off. Although most of the dialogue sequences seemed to have enough cuts, the more active scenes seemed to linger on frames, rather than punching through several to create the illusion of animation in the same way that comic books do. I also wonder if using small pieces of animation--mouth movements, mainly--would have helped the production feel more dynamic (this was done a couple of brief times, and those were welcome).

In any case, my other problem with the visuals were the abstract and undetailed backgrounds. There were a few nice, or at least concrete, images--a church, a school computer lab--but the rest of it, in what seemed to be a symptom of style-itis, didn't give nearly enough sense of space and location to satisfy me. This might just be my personal taste, but I felt like (much) more concrete backgrounds would have pulled the whole thing together visually.

Although I could imagine others thinking differently, to me D7 Peacemaker is an interesting experiment, with the potential to be something more in later episodes. Objectively, although it suffers from an overly vague plot, so much style it hurts itself, and some weak directing, it's still a passable setup for a series and a polished production, and might be worth a look by fans of darker cyberpunk-style stories if you don't think the unusual visual style will bother you. As an independent effort, it is very impressive and definitely worth a look for those interested in that sort of thing.

Related Recommendations

Aside from the much-improved sort-of-prequel Revelation, D7 Peacemaker probably has the most in common with Ghost in the Shell, although the characters are quite a bit different and that movie is more serious, and Armitage III and Bubblegum Crisis 2040 also share some themes. If you like having to piece together the plot instead of having it explained to you, Boogiepop Phantom is a very different story, but does it much better. And, if you like independent productions, Shadowskin and Understanding Chaos are both somewhat similar.

US DVD Review

The DVD is pretty darned spiffy, particularly considering that it's an independent production. It includes very sharp widescreen video (although not anamorphic), crisp 2.0 and DTS 5.1 English audio, some (text) commentary by the director, a couple of step-by-step videos demonstrating how the storyboards became the finished product, a gallery of stills, and the two trailers. In an interesting twist (and nice addition for non-North American viewers), the disc is dual-sided--one side is NTSC, and the other is PAL, and since it's also region-free, you'll be able to watch it anywhere in the world. My only complaint is that the 5.1 soundtrack is DTS only (since I have a Dolby setup), but since the DVD also includes a full soundtrack CD (including extra tracks--it's 70 minutes long, twice the length of the video), I'm willing to forgive.

Content Guide

The makers rate it 13-up, and while that's about how it feels, there's little enough objectionable material that it probably could slip in at 10-up.

Violence: 2 - No apparent deaths and no blood, but some serious combat.

Nudity: 0 - Nothing.

Sex/Mature Themes: 0 - Nothing.

Language: 1 - Relatively mild language.

Notes and Trivia

The first episode of a planned series of OAVs and at least one movie centered around the same characters. Produced by Dementia 7 Studios, an independent; they have an extensive website. They have also done some work on at least one other similarly-styled project (the preview appears at the beginning of this video). D7 Peacemaker also has its own website, and although the usability suffers a bit from the same overdose of style, it looks almost exactly like this production. You can buy the DVD there, and there are a couple of downloadable trailers, which are worth a look if you're thinking about buying it.

Availability

38 minute independent OAV; available on DVD direct from D7 Studios.

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