Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
SgtSalamander
Let me preface my review with this- Witch Hunter Robin, on paper, should be a home run for my personal tastes. It's an atmospheric Adult Swim anime from 2004 with supernatural elements and Gothic design influences. That sounds like it was made for me. However, despite this, it still falls flat as a clumsy, ugly, and even downright boring slog that barely kept my attention. Beginning with the story, like much of the anime, it has a very strong conceptual base that is theoretically engaging with a ton of staying power. With an international witch hunting organization, and people randomly bestowed genetically inherited magic powers called witches causing havoc across the world, it makes for a setting that is compelling and rich with potential lore and interesting conflicts, even drawing in th…
Read at the sourcemegafat
It's really easy to pitch this series as "The X-Files meets Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex", but that makes it sound way more awesome than it is. Not to say that Witch Hunter Robin is bad by any stretch, it isn't, but the series needs to be with moderate expectations to be fully enjoyed.
Set in a world where people with paranormal powers called Witches, or "craft users", who have been around for millennia, hiding from the rest of the world. For years, an organization called SOLOMON, run by priests set in Italy, has dedicated their time and effort into hunting down and killing them, except for the Japanese branch, which captures them and put them away in a mysterious place called the "Factory".
After the death of one of their hunters in the Japanese branch, SOLOMON dispatches a n…
Read at the sourcektulu007
Witch Hunter Robin was a 2002 Sunrise anime. Yes, the same studio that brought us Gundam (the good and the bad), Code Geass, Dirty Pair and many more.
Story:
We open with a witch hunting organisation, STN-J, anticipating their new recruit. They quickly meet her, the titular Robin, as fire craft user with an improbable hair style. Which just proves that she’s the protagonist. From there, we watch as Robin and her team go up against witches of various kinds and bring them in. But there’s something amiss with STN-J. Where are they taking the witches they capture and what is this mysterious Orbo substance that protects them from a witch’s powers?
The biggest narrative problem with the series has to do with the set up. So, we’ve got these Seeds who are born with mysterious powers that may…
Read at the sourcespyrocoot
'Witch Hunter Robin' is fairly unique as far as anime goes. It had Witches, a Gothic atmosphere, Christian iconography, realistic character designs and backgrounds and a slow, deliberate pacing intended to draw in a mature audience. It had all the ingredients needed to make it a cult classic, but it never quite took off. It would be easy to say that it wound up forgotten among other early 2000s classics being released around the same time, but I think the answer is more straightforward than that - it simply isn't a very good anime. Its strongest aspects are, without a doubt, the art and sound departments, so I shall look at those first.
Visually, 'Witch Hunter Robin' is easy on the eye. Simple, realistic character designs are placed against highly detailed backgrounds to good effect. The…
Read at the sourcefaint3dg
I will start my review by telling that WHR was the first anime i watched that didnt have stupid facial expressions ( which i dislike deeply) , so for that only it will always be one of my favorites . Soundtracks r amazing , dark, sad or simply innocent and always feet perfectly to the scene's mood.
Animation is great , simply great . Characters dont look alike like in some other animes where u can switch clothes and hairstyle and characters will remain the same . Architecture is very good too.
As for the characters - i'd give them 8 out of 10. They didnt get 10 from me for a few reasons :
1. some relations between characters could have been more developed: for example some would see that appearing romance was implied in Robin/ Amon relations , but it was never shown . We get to find out…
Read at the sourceAngelsArcanum
Ever wanted to see Twilight's central relationship emulated into an anime format tossed in with more gothic crap, dull and formulaic supernatural battles, cardboard characters and bogus revelations and motivations? No? Thought so. Unfortunately that's most of what you are going to get out of Witch Hunter Robin, so if the aforementioned things don't tickle your fancy, I suggest you avoid at all costs.
A little backstory tidbit before my review (feel free to skip if you so choose to ignore my ramblings ;_;): As a young adolescent male anime fan with a craving for boisterous shonen action and flamboyant spectacles, seeing clips of Witch Hunter Robin on the Bionix block of Canada's YTV station, it seemed really boring and unappealing to the young me suffice to say. The colour palette was blea…
Read at the sourceDuvalian_Gooner
Hardly a review more than a fun fact about the show. It is oozing with AMAZING or at least well known English voice actors that we know and love.
Johnny Yong Bosch (Vash the Stampede, Lelouch, Lamperouge, Izaya, Kiba, Rossiu)
Crispin Freeman (Alucard, Shizuo, Tsume, Straight Cougar)
Wendee Lee (Faye Valentine, Konata Izumi, Suzuka)
These are just a few actors, if you browse through like I did you'll be ecstatic with all the familiar voice actors in this one, It's missing Steven Blum:( but it has a lot of other greats, I watched this anime based solely on the fact of them all.
Read at the sourceangelsreview
I love the darkness that is in this. I first got into it by accident and it has had me hooked for a while now. The story line feels a lot like the idea of almost every business is corrupt and has some mystery aspects that almost make it go into a genre of its own. I would have liked to have more answers though, since some things were not explained well. In the end, I felt more like I had more questions then answers and made things a little bothersome. The ending flew me for a loop though, and I have no clue what to think of it. I don’t think it was a really good note to leave us on. Another problem is we do not get really any background story about anyone. Sure we get very tiny hints about Robin’s but that’s it.
The animation is really well done though some of is a tad to dark to see what…
Read at the sourcefirebug
Witch Hunter Robin puts a new spin on an old "problem". This anime does not go into the why's and how's for the extermination of witches, it just lets you know that the Vatican still sees them as a problem and threat in the world. In steps the STN also known as Solomon. The story is unique and fairly fast paced It kind of gets bogged down towards the end of the series, but still has interesting twists and turns. The characters are strong and have a lot of depth to them. The music is also good in the anime as most of the darker anime tend to have a stronger sound tract. I enjoyed the new spin on a "problem that plagued Europe and early America. It was shone in a very new and interesting light.
Read at the sourceapplesauce4
This is one for the adults. Subtle, clever and elegant iis how I'd describe this anime. I'll leave the basic contextual stuff to everyone else.
I started watching WHR immediately after Blood+ as I'd heard it was fairly similar, and indeed there is a mysterious subplot/history that unfolds itself throughout the series. I really liked the way many of the plot pieces were seeded, to eventually open up episodes later. Maybe it's one of those series that's more satisfying to watch in several sittings rather than one a week (I'm not sure I could have stood the suspense otherwise).
I hear gripes about endings and character expressions (particularly from the leads, Robin and Amon) but for what it's worth, I really like this anime particularly for its potential to go further.
It really did remi…
Read at the sourcethephilistine_
This show started off well with random witch hunts but then moved into a plot driven storyline for the second half. This wouldn’t have been a bad thing if I could just care enough about any of the players in the show. But I didn’t. Apart from the bartender I could care less about any of the others. As for Robin, the main character, she was hard to like because her dialogue consisted of too many “hmms” and head nods. I did like her hair style though.
I have seen the term “monster of the week” being thrown around as if it were a bad thing. As previously mentioned this was the portion of the series I enjoyed most. In defense of “monster of the week” shows I would like to point out a few successful shows that followed this from different genres. For starters, Mushishi, my favorite anime, is b…
Read at the sourcedreiak
This show was one of those shows that seemed like it was going to be great, builds up, and then kind of lets you down to a certain extent.
The animation, art, backgrounds ect regarding the production value of this anime are great, as was it's predecessor cowboy bebop. I would have ranked this anime much lower if this were not so, as is most of the value comes from the fact that this is a great looking show. Unfortunately, the production value was not matched by the stories progression.
The first half of the plot is good enough, there is a steady build of tension, and intrigue, however, halfway though events start to make less sense. Normally my reviews are completely story free, but I will make a minor exception to explain here: When Robin STOPS being hunted, I kinda had a WTF? Why did t…
Read at the sourceTape
Ill just start with the honest truth. This is probably the worst anime i have seen from start to finish. I am usually a person that wont give a show really low scores like I have this one, but I just couldnt hold back.
Ill start by telling you what I liked then disliked.
What i liked was the idea that the people with the special powers, aren't aliens or people that have had crazy scientific studies done on them and got special powers, they are witches form the ancient times. Thats right those witches they talk about drowning and hanging in Salem. That is what had me first go O.o this may be a great show.
Sadly that is where it stops being good, and starts going down the drain. Lets start with the main character. You would think you get to see a lot of uses of her ability and get an inte…
Read at the sourceSi
I had wanted to see this series for a number of years. I finally found the complete series at a reasonable price. To say it was a disappointment would not do the series justice, it was a good watch; it just didn't thrill me either.
The main characters proved very interesting and developed as the story unfolded which kept me engaged despite the slow pace at the beginning of the series.
I personally thought that with a wealth of folktales and history associated with witches and demons the plot could have been much more interesting.
Read at the sourceThaiberium
Witch Hunter Robin, anime by Sunrise, made in 2002, something I've unexpectedly picked up one day. Well no harm done. Let's start dissecting my classification shall we?
Story-wise, it all starts slow as most introductions are want to do. The STN-J, witch hunts, the replacement from a convent in Italy and all that jazz. Most of the episodes were predictable, which left me with nothing to go on but character irony. It could only take me so far however. Sure enough a person whose three main weapons include surprise, words and a machine were enough to get the ball rolling. This is when the conspiracy starts, drawing you in, shyly stripping away whatever is hiding the truth. At this point, the viscosity of the plot is just perfect and proceeds nicely along as it builds up to the end.
Next alo…
Read at the sourceAlexius
Witch Hunter Robin is one of those shows that draws you in unconditionally. While some people might not appreciate or enjoy the genre or story, either after the fact or at first glance, I believe that anyone who loves intellectually grasping stories and characterization should at least try out the first few episodes of Witch Hunter Robin.
While the story and plot is slow (sometimes tremendously), the overall plotline and conclusion to the anime makes you really see the epic and vast nature of just what was being approached with this series. Starting like any normal "monster-of-the-week" series, you are compelled into the daily investigations of the STNJ, a "secretive" detective agency (ala Men in Black) that hunts down abusive witches, individuals with various sorts of powers. Even some o…
Read at the sourceShadowmancer
This anime kept my attention only because of the battle scenes. Whenever there wasn't fighting, the series seemed boring and slow.
The music was wonderful, but very repetitive.
You learn nearly nothing about the characters throughout the series, nor the plot. They seemed to wait until the very end to explain every single detail and the background of the main character. It was frustrating, because the entire series you wait for some more information and you get nothing but more questions.
Every person will have a different opinion of this anime, but in mine, I did enjoy it, but I think I forced myself to watch it to simply find out the ending.
Read at the sourcenew_user
Witch Hunter Robin is part mystery, part supernatural drama. There are no fights against uber villains or anything of that kind, just brief skirmishes with small fries. Instead, this is a slightly more mature anime that is centered around characters and an underlying plot.
The creators of this anime tried to keep the characters as true to life as possible while maintaining this kind of supernatural setting. You see that realism in the dynamics between them at the office (some character are older than others, for example) and in their histories as they're revealed. I thought that the characters could have been explored further, however. We're really only offered a superficial view of the characters. There aren't many soul-searching monologues in this series as you may see in others. There…
Read at the sourcerkrempel
Those less familiar with the gothic/horror/scifi crossover genre might enjoy this series a lot more, at least 1 or 2 points more, than I did. If, on the other hand, you've seen a lot of this sort of stuff, this series will inevitably seem somewhat predictable.
I'll not go into details to avoid spoilers, but let's just say that everything in the plot basically ended up doing what I thought it was doing. Masked soldiers, young girl with powers, weirdo green liquid, brooding hero-type, they were all unable to surprise me. Another annoyance was that I couldn't identify with any of the characters, which seemed emotionless, even frigid, to me. Lastly, the plot takes way to long to develop. Nothing of consequence happens in eps. 2-10.
So what is good? Well, all of the above may just be a way fo…
Read at the sourceXinil
Witch Hunter Robin (WHR) is a dark, mysterious Anime centering around Robin Sena, a witch. Though technically, Robin is no witch, but actually a "craft" user. I won't go into details, but craft users hunt the witch users. Sound interesting? It is.
The story behind this show really draws you forward throughout each episode. It's not a boss of the week show, and it's not a mindless action flick. You'll follow Robin as she finds out more and more secrets about the witch hunting organization she works for. The trials she goes through in order to achieve these hidden secrets are quite entertaining.
The animation is nothing amazing, but far from mediocre. Most of the series is shot in a dark environment, so be prepared to possibly turn up your screen/video gamma or you might miss a thing or t…
Read at the source