Gluhen
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For the hard of thinking among you: yes, this will contain Gluhen spoilers. And a few Weiss Side B spoilers and speculation (it's a post-Gluhen manga).
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Firstly: Character designs
Phwoar. I know a lot of people don't like them, but they are so pretty! And they have the same idiosyncrasies as the old designs in their movement and gestures, so they are easily recognisable. My only gripe is the flashback sequence. I preferred to explain the changes as the time gap and the fact everyone had matured, as I think most fanfic writers are doing, so showing Neu and Kase's deaths with the new character designs for Ken and Yohji was a bit jarring. That and they gave Farf back his eye, unless he was supposed to just be wearing that eye patch for the hell of it. The others, well, you really could still tell who it was is you thought hard enough about it, if you took into account that hair length and colour was likely to change over time, but regaining an eye and losing the scars?
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I have to watch the original series again. I can't get the new designs out of my head, which means anything I've started is going to have changing hair colours and so on.
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New Characters
From what I've heard, both Birman and Manx die in the Dramatic Precious CDs, so I wasn't surprised to meet Rex, who seems a perfectly adequate replacement. She can shoot, she's in control, but she's not usurping Weiss's roles. She's a secretary, and Omi's escort in High Society. I liked her especially at the end when she was talking to Knight and Queen. She took the words out of my mouth.
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Sena... it's hard to shake the feeling that he's an Omi rip-off. Probably because he is. The main difference would be that Omi tended to wait for the tragedies to hit him, while Sena goes out and makes his own. If the series had been longer I don't doubt that Sena's mother's death would have marked the halfway point, like Suiichi and Reiji's did in the original series, and Epitaph would have been destroyed later on. There was enough variety that it didn't get boring, but, well, put it this way: I wasn't exactly shedding tears when Sena died.
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Kyou I liked. A mini-Aya, to be honest, but they needed someone to fill the gap left by Ken and Yohji's sabbatical. He wasn't so overt as Sena, and despite being much more underdeveloped his death resonated much more than Sena's. Though that might be because, well, I didn't really like Sena.
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Todo (or however you want to spell it). A megalomaniac fourteen year old who finds himself in the midst of the worst identity crisis possible. Ouch. I honestly felt for him, which is probably tied in with why Kyou's death meant more to me than Sena's. It's a shame they didn't focus on the clone plot more, especially Todo's reaction to it. Would the other clones have reacted the same way, or was it just due to the fact that Todo thought he was a normal kid? For that matter, who was Todo originally cloned from? I thought he bore more than just a superficial resemblance to the original Nagi, though without the telekinesis (or psychokinesis, as they call it). Something to base a bit of fanfiction on, anyway.
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I know there were plenty of other new characters, but villains all seem to spring from the same mould, and all the non-villainous characters died to create more angst.
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Animation and Music
It was a running joke how bad the animation was in the original series, so it seems almost sad that it's so much better in Gluhen. To the point of gorgeous, in fact. There are some series I will watch just for the animation, but Weiss didn't used to be one of them. Even if I had hated every moment of Gluhen, I might have watched it anyway. I adore the opening sequence. And the boys are still all complete posers, not just Aya now!
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I suppose it shouldn't have come as a surprise, Weiss being a band and all, but the music was so fitting. I love the music in Weiss Kreuz in general, but I got a thrill when I heard the title sequence from the original series when Weiss regrouped (episode 10?). The music always suits the mood perfectly, it seems to me, and I really want to get hold of some of their CDs now. Preferably with translations!
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Plot
There doesn't seem to be a superfluous episode in this series. Probably due to the fact it's only 13 episodes long. Each episode builds on the plot from the previous one, and the minor characters are introduced early enough that when they die you actually feel sorry for them, which is one up over the old series. There's a lot less humour in this series, not that the original was barrel of laughs. Still, everyone seems to have grown up and sobered up a bit. The first time I noticed an attempt at a joke was Ken commenting he had two kidneys.
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The tone is a lot darker this series, which is quite an accomplishment compared with the original series. There's less individual angst, like Kase and Neu, but there's a lot more focus on ethics and ideals. Manipulation of children, genetic modification, cloning, repentance, suicide... The character's who die are introduced much sooner, so their deaths have more resonance, and characters like Todo and the principal manage to have real pathos despite being introduced as villains. The fact there are no 'monster of the week' episodes (to coin a Buffy phrase) means these deaths come fast and relentlessly. It's all one mission, one hideous mission.
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And then there's Schwarz. I'm going to be controversial and say that perhaps they shouldn't have been included in Gluhen. I'm glad they were, but they were underused. They turned up to help Weiss, basically, and despite threats to kill them never managed to follow through. Perhaps an earlier reintroduction would have been useful, especially for Nagi. It felt like they were included just to satisfy fans. Nagi's call to Omi at the end, "I've finished", is very ambiguous, though it seems from Omi's reaction to imply he's leaving Kritiker having finished what he set out to do by joining them. But then, why haven't Schu and Brad made their presence known by making an attempt on Weiss again? Or did they die when the building collapsed? Well, they've survived it before, so I can't see why they wouldn't survive again. I liked the way the computer made it obvious they were going to return but, to repeat myself, they were underused. They each fought, they proved they had a psychic bond deeper than the newer Rosenkreuz agents, they buggered off.
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Maybe it's just me, but the Rosenkreuz thing seemed... odd. In fanfiction, Rosenkreuz has always been treated as a training facility for psychics, not a laboratory in which psychics are created. From what Gluhen seems to be telling us, Estet created psychics through genetic manipulation, imbuing each new generation with powers the previous didn't have, combining and expanding on the original powers. They were grown, like Todo, like Z Class. It doesn't quite mesh with the ancient empire ideal set up in the original series. In the original series, Estet was portrayed as an an archaic, even obsolete, league of psychics dedicated to the resurrection of their glory days through magic. In Gluhen, they are an ultra-modern collective of clones run by an AI, dedicated to making humans 'bigger and better' by increasing their strength, intelligence, memory and psychic-potential. It's magic versus machines, and this abrupt about face... In some ways parts of the canon actually make more sense. All we know about Brad and Schu's pasts is that they went to Rosenkreuz, while we actually see glimpses of Nagi and Farf's, but know that they did something prior to attending Rosenkreuz. If Brad and Schu were 'grown', would that explain why they have no apparent pasts? It just about works, but it makes Nagi's 'psychokinesis' harder to explain.
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And then there's the last episode, and that dream...
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Last Mission...
The whole series felt like it was wrapping up loose ends to me, probably due in no small part to the fact it said 'Last mission 1', ' Last mission 13' etc on the title screen of each episode. It was, overall, one big mission, and for most of Weiss it was their last. It also explains why there were no singular missions. Still, it made me sad :( This series was all about closure, yet, for some characters, we didn't get it.
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In many ways, all of Weiss died. I especially felt for Omi. Omi is dead, only Mamoru exists now. Not sure I like Mamoru... I suppose you could just say Omi has grown up, but it's more than that. He's left his childhood behind by severing all ties with it. He's left his friends. The last glimpse we see of Omi is standing in what I shall assume is a shared dream sequence, wanting to sell flowers for ever. It's an unrealistic dream for all of them, after everything they've been through, and Yohji and Aya acknowledge that. Omi's gone now, replaced by Takatori Mamoru. He's not a new Reijii (and when did he find out that Reiji was his father, not Suiichi?), he's a new Suiichi. He's furthering his own interests. Justice is no longer an issue for him - he's above the law. He's one of the people he used to kill.
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I don't want to accept Omi is dead, but he is.
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I don't want to accept Aya is dead, because I know he isn't. He turns up in the post-Gluhen manga. Oops. Having him stabbed and all is nice, but knowing he and Ken are leading Weiss Side B in England a bit further down the line kinda takes the wind out of his sails. If you were wondering, that's the whole point of the airport thing and Ken going on about seeing Aya again. I'm glad Aya spoke to his sister (nice to see she hasn't been completely forgotten) and the mission demonstrates he's still a vigilante and still not happy with what he does, but accepts it. I don't think any other member of Weiss ever did accept it. He obviously likes kids though, so it's sad that he can't escape from being a murderer to teach for a living. Aya probably gets the most closure out of any character, which is why it bugs me they didn't let him stay dead for the manga.
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Which leads us to Ken. If you've read any of the manga translations, the prison stay does seem to do him a lot of good. And it's nice to see he still has football. It's probable that Omi set all of the other members of Weiss up for the end of the series, paying Yohji's hospital bills, sending Aya to England, and putting Ken in prison. That's the implication, any way. And I do like Ken in the last episode, though he still seems rather unstable. Like Aya, he's not going to stop killing. There's not closure for Ken at all. He doesn't want to quit. He and Yohji have always been the least stable (watch the episode with the madness inducing music - it only affects them), and during the series Yohji seemed more frightening because his insanity was less obvious, but know I wonder if Ken's strain of insanity was even more subtle. I don't think he even believes in fighting for justice any more, not like Aya, so why does he want to continue? Because he enjoys it. He's in prison, paying penance, but he can't quit Weiss because without it he feels empty. Discovering football again proves he's more than just a killer (turns out he likes cooking too!), but he still intends to join Aya and go back to his old life.
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I've changed my mind, I don't like Ken in the last episode. He's too creepy. Damnit, go back to professional football, boy! Stop killing. You like it too much.
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Yohji. Youji. Yoji. Dear ol' Yotan. Except he's not. He's dear ol' patient number whatever. Yohji always seemed the oddest choice for a member of Weiss. He'd loved and lost, but he didn't have a cause to fight for. The others were all driven by revenge and obligation, but Yohji just trailed along in a haze of grief for Asuka. If he hadn't become Weiss, he'd have probably found himself in the position he was at the end of the series, over Asuka, married and happy. It's all he ever wanted. So happy for him, though the amnesia does rule out any chance of his return, unlike, for example, a fatal knife wound to the stomach in a strange city (not letting that go, you know).
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We see Nagi as well, who claims he has finished. Finished what? Taking out someone who attempts to kill Omi? Omi admits in a previous episode that he's not entirely sure who's side Nagi is on, or why he's their ally, and neither are we. Schwarz are still around, still keen on killing Weiss (bit tough now, I'd say). Nagi came back to Japan because they did. He's still bound to Schuldig and Crawford, saving their lives. So I'm going to go out on a limb and say he's finished with Kritiker. Schwarz seemed to be about the end of Estet, and Estet is gone from Japan. Weiss has split up. Nagi's got no reason to stick around. I wonder if Schwarz turn up in the Weiss Side B manga? There's absolutely no closure on the Schwarz plot, with Schuldig still adamant he's going to kill Weiss, Nagi leaving Kritiker and Brad being smug at the Rosenkreuz people... There's a lot that could be done with them still.
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It's supposed to be a happy ending for Weiss, as far as I can tell. If that's so, why is Yohji the only person I'm happy for? Omi's gone, replaced by Takatori Mamoru, in a position he used to despise others for being in: above the law and willing to take advantage of it. Ken is trying to repent so that he can go back to killing with a clearer conscience, and is looking forwards to being a killer again. Aya is still doing a job he despises himself for, and doesn't even get to experience the happiness he expects from dying for long. Yohji is living as if Weiss never happened. Schwarz are an enigma, as usual. It's not a happy ending. When they stand on the hill, whenever and wherever that is supposed to have happened, they're happy. They have a future together. They're not free from their pasts, or pain, but they could have closure from it. But it's just a dream, and, in their minds, an unrealistic one. They have too much blood on their hands to handle flowers. Instead they either abandon their pasts altogether or never manage to leave them.
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Bah. I liked the series, but the ending depresses me. Weiss should either have stayed together or split altogether. It's like Ken and Aya can't escape from their pasts and Omi from his future, which, I suppose, is the whole point.
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