Code:Breaker

What is evil? It can be describe as something wicked, malevolent, sinister, ill, or something which holds responsibility for the bad things that happen in this world. It's a four letter word that strikes fear, anxiety, and many other emotions. In the real world, people commit deeds through free will. Some of these are good deeds, while others are evil. In the Code Breaker world, there exists supernatural beings who are able to judge deeds (good/evil) and carry out justice with an iron fist. Rei Ogami: “An Eye for an Eye, a Tooth for a Tooth, and Evil for Evil” Welcome to the world ofCode:Breaker. The series is written by Akimine Kamijyo based off the manga of the same name who is also known for her previous work, Samurai Deeper Kyo. It all begins one day when Sakura, a local high school student, witnesses some blue flames like she's never ever seen before. Likewise, from there on and out, her life is changed forever. The hero or maybe better seen as the anti-hero of Code:Breaker is Rei Ogami. He is the local bad boy with a tough attitude who does what he wants, when he wants, how he wants as long as it gets the job done. In his mind, there is no justice for evil and as he quotes one more time, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and evil for evil”. He expresses a darker side of "justice" similar to those more like a vengeance hero rather than some ally of justice like we see in pop culture. Code:Breaker doesn't avoid most of the cliches we see in most of today's themes. The common gag of 'boy meets girl' is employed but it doesn't just end there. Sakura Sakurakouji is portrayed as a school beauty and idol that is admirable by many of the students. Then, there's the mysterious transfer student Rei Ogami. Things like this is very common for anime viewers to see these days in the industry. To add on to this topping of cliches, there's an assumption that the two have a “thing” going on by nearly everyone at the entire school. They misunderstand their relationship and often misinterprets it as if the duo are dating. From there on and out, the two seems to have a strained relationship. In every way, Sakura tries to explain Ogami that killing others is “wrong” because it's the wrong thing to do. She strives to get her ideologies to Ogami in order to convince him to be a good hero and do the right thing. However, her words are often deaf to his ears as Ogami kills to protect others, at least in his point of view. At times, Ogami even expresses himself as evil and that in this world, in order to save lives, sacrifices are needed. He presents himself as not a hero in this case but rather as someone who is trying to do what he believes is “right”. The question here remains though: Would you kill to protect someone you care about? The characterization of the other characters from the series is explored to a lesser degree although a few of them does stand out in particular of those associated with the Code:Breaker organization. Most if all of the Code Breakers has their own standard code of conduct (or rather their signature Code of Hammurabi) and coupled with them some supernatural abilities that makes them fearful of others. In fact, Code Breaker itself has become a term of both fear and hatred. The Code Breakers themselves all have different personalities as well. Some are fun to watch such as the playful Yuuki Tenpouin while others are more straightforward and serious such as Rui Hachiouji. The most mysterious of the bunch are Masaomi Heike and Hitomi, two individuals who are very difficult to read. In fact, throughout the series they seem to be playing mind games with the other characters in particular Ogami. In the world of evil, there is injustice but in their eyes, they seem to represent evil themselves. Luckily for the ladies, this series presents some good bishonen sketch work. The characters' designs all possesses a sense of style by the way they dress, act, and presenting their ideas not through words but by their actions. Most of the time, they engage in what they do best and that's to deliver “justice” to evil. At other times, they seem to be chilling around like ordinary people despite their feared status. The series' theme itself also becomes a sense of philosophy. What exactly is evil and how it is defined? More importantly, how do we take actions against it? These questions often become ambiguous and may never have a direct answer. Nonetheless, the blue flame executed by Ogami seems to serve itself as a metaphor in which criminals are terminated by being burned to actions. Similar to how an individual goes to hell for wrong deeds, the flame itself manifests as a tool to destroy those who are evil, or at least those who are considered so under the eyes of the Code Breakers. In the artwork department, everything seems quite generic. Most if not all the characters have the same design with different colored hair styles to match their themes. While pleasing to the female audience, it can become a bothersome after seeing it so many times. The backgrounds itself is just normal with nothing that really stand out as the setting is set in present time rather than a futuristic dystopia. The soundtracks of the series is presented with mixed rhythms shifting from comedic, to action, to violence, and to mystery. The opening song, "DARK SHAME" by GRANRODEO has a rock beat and orchestrated with a montage of the main characters. From the song, a viewer can see some of the potential action and even foreshadowing of some events. It doesn't stop there though as it shows some of the violence in various scenes that are mostly presented by Ogami and his blue flames. As cliched as it sounds, the song does work effectively so no shame there. Ultimately, Code:Breaker is a package of an action series that deals with the world of evil. It is cliched at many times especially with whole 'girl meets boy on a mysterious night' setting, the school life drama, the shounen like battles, and secret organizations. The drama and comedy also seems to be a bit forced as often times or not, they occur out of nowhere and tries to bring the audience a good laugh. It works sometimes but at other times just seems awkward. The series is just slightly above mediocre with the good premise and ideas but still contains too many overused tropes. However, if you're looking for some action packed thriller sequences with dark heroes, then C:B might be for you.

[Spoiler Warning] NOTE: This is my first review at MAL, so please bear with me. Also, I haven’t read the manga AT ALL, and I don’t know if the manga’s story is similar to the anime’s. Consider this as a point of view of someone who just watched the anime. There are some spoilers along the way to explain my point in the review, so read at your own risk. :) I remembered watching the first few episodes of Code:Breaker (together with a few more anime) when it was still being aired last year. I got curious since I thought, “Hey another super power-themed shonen anime! Cool!”After watching those few episodes, I stopped watching it and simply waited for the series to finish since I got tired of waiting for a new episode, which was released weekly. While watching the last episodes of Code:Breaker, I got disappointed to this anime due to various reasons, but mainly I got disappointed because of the plot. Well, it started good, but how the series ended is just bland and generic. Perhaps most of us (if not all of us) have seen a story with a character betraying the good guys, working for the bad guy, and then in the end, betraying that bad guy and saying that he has been in league with the good guys all along. Well, we have that kind of cliché here. How about the Big Bad showing up after the bad guy gets defeated? We also have it here. The great presentation made at the start of the story was wasted by how they ended this series, which is cliché-filled, and done in a bad way at that. Another thing here is the characterization of, well, the characters, which doesn’t seem real and human enough for me, and it shows more as the series progresses. Come on, someone who really IS evil doesn’t say he’s evil; rather, he would say that he’s the hero of justice (or something like that). Besides that, there are also some dialogues in this anime that I find weird and/or just simply wrong. And being an adaptation of a manga, the series’ ending is rather inconclusive, since 1) the manga is not yet finished and, 2) the adaptation is only 13 episodes long, which is very short. What I find wrong about its ending is that it never left me wanting for more. With that said, the anime isn’t all bad points and no good points at all. Just as I said earlier, the way the story was presented in the beginning was great, with a certain number of people with superpowers (called Code:Breakers) are working for the government to eliminate (i.e.; kill) people that the government sees as evil. The character designs are also great, although the design for the Code:Breakers have varying touches of bishounen-ness in them. So if you’re looking for a groundbreaking new anime, this certainly is NOT it. Maybe if you haven’t watched a lot of superpower-themed anime, you might enjoy this. Just “might”, though.

Well, I came to this Anime like a "Meeting-by-Chance"! I've never heard of it, I had no idea about what's going on there and so on... After I finished watching it I must say, I did not waste my time with it! It's got a good visual quality, some nice characters (in my case I liked Ogami and Yuuki most) and nicely choreographed battle scenes. The balance and the dynamic between Humor, Action and a little bit drama is done wonderfully and keeps the audiences attention, throughout the anime, "upright" ;) The little problem tough is how this anime has been set out so far. I don'treally like the ending. I mean, everything before was done very nicely and I did enjoy it - that's why my expectations grew over the time while I was watching C:B. But the end can be compared to a crash with another car - suddenly, unexpected, fast, ... finish... They should have done at least 3 to 5 episodes more, just to give us a better end and more screen time for the remaining 3 code breakers. Anyway, I can recommend it to everyone because I believe it's worth watching ìt!

Code Breaker was probably one of the animes i had more faith to be good when it came out. Well i can say it didnt fulfill my expectations. Probably the worst aspect of the anime is the characters, specially the female protagonist. She is just annoying with a ridiculous sense of justice, and probably its one of the characters in any anime with more repetitive dialogue. I swear i have heard her yelling "oogami-kun!" (the male protagonist name) like 20 times in each episode followed by the sentence "dont kill him" or "dont do this" or similar stuff. Anyone that has watched the fighting scene betweenIchigo and Grimmjow in Bleach will remember how annoying Orihime was by repeating non-stop "kurosaki-kun", well, the girl from code breaker is far worse and she does it in every chapter of the 13. The rest of the characters are kinda meh, nothing to say about them, they are not as annoying and the girl but they dont add much, even the male protagonist is a meh character, he's just a cool guy who kills bad people, he doesnt even talk too much. The story is really non-sense. to be fair the premises arent bad, some people with incredible powers erradicating evil. its not great but its ok. But the thing that makes the story so bad is the plan of the villain and why he is trying to do such evil thing. i dont want to spoil anything to anybody, but i will just say it is retarded. he is trying to obtain something by doing actions that doesnt make any sense and even if he succeded in his plan i am not able to understand or grasp how it would benefit him in obtaining his goal. let me put an example to explain myself: imagine you want a new car, but you cant have it, instead of working, or stealing it from the shop or whatever it takes to get the car, you go killing owners of the car you originally wanted. remember your main objective, you wanted a new car, so why would you benefit by killing people?Exactly it doesnt make any sense, and Code Breaker Plot is something similar to this, im not kidding, its dumb. To be fair the art is not that bad, though some guys looks seem to belong to a shoujo manga, but its okay i guess, and the animations during some battles are good though i should say the battles themselves are not very interesting or epic. To conclude this, Code Breaker a very dissapointing anime, with the worst character i've seen in almost any anime and a plot that is absurd. I am really sad....