Audience reviews
18 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
SMGJohn
Every review is subjective, art is subjective your opinion may differ, never trust reviews to make the opinion for you, use them as a guide and make your own journey.
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Blessed with a remarkable soundtrack by Yoko Kanno, yet burdened by excessive symbolism and opaque abstraction, Arjuna is an anime that consistently prioritises political messaging over narrative engagement. While it is entirely possible for a work to successfully balance ideological critique with entertainment, it is equally reasonable for viewers to respond unfavourably when that balance collapses, as it does here.
At its conceptual core, Arjuna seeks to critique gratuitous consumption within a commercialised society and to highlight the harms such consumption inflicts, both environmentally and socially. In theory, this…
Read at the sourceMrKuandohan
I have been looking forward to this series for over 15 years. Shoji Kawamori directed, created, and wrote it. Yoko Kanno on the music? Just the key visual looks interesting. So I finally sat down to watch it… And I have a lot of things to say about this show. Not good things either. However, I don’t want to get into a scientific war over this series, so I will just write what you are to expect when you watch this series so you know if you are interested in it or not.
This series has really interesting, and well shot cinematography in most episodes. But especially the first few episodes. The music is obviously good, but I found that the sound effects often drowned out the evocative music, even during vocal songs. The main lead sounds like she’s never acted before, because her delivery is o…
Read at the sourceJoeStraatmann
If Shoji Kawamori wasn't so intent on doubling down on the series' claims, I'd call Arjuna a psy-op against environmentalism. It's odd he's so militant given in Macross, he sees the greatest gift of mankind as the mall and as far as Macross Delta, the good guys do their duty gentrifying the universe.
Arjuna is such an unpleasant, anger-inducing anime where they take a poor girl, dump her IMMEDIATELY into a terrible situation, and essentially look down on her for not being good enough despite not teaching her ANYTHING. It should be noted they don't directly tell her about one of her powers until the LAST EPISODE.
For the rest of it, they turn good intentions into the circle of Hell where you rest in your fecal matter for eternity by throwing maniacal claims out there like pollution creat…
Read at the sourceDaxtotheMax
I think this might be a special series.
It plays out similar to a mecha series which is understandable considering the creator worked on Macross and Transformers and is pretty much known for making mechas but if I pitched this series as that, you wouldn't be interested, would you?
If I pitched this as a magical girl series, you wouldn't either. So if I said it had an environmental message, you'd just cross it off the watchlist and move to the next one, right? Three strikes and you're out, just not your cup of tea. No, don't do that.
It was actually the start of the premise that got me to start it though, "Juna Ariyoshi is an ordinary Japanese schoolgirl, who possesses a childlike curiosity and a strong admiration toward nature. One day, while on a trip with her boyfriend, Tokio Oshima,…
Read at the sourceThatAnimeSnobRE
Arjuna may seem to be yet another mahou shoujo, but it’s actually the Japanese counterpart of the American Captain Planet cartoon. Its prime directive is to teach the target audience how to respect nature and the basics of ecology. It’s also moralistic with long serious monologues which can easily pass as preachy. Learning stuff through anime can be fun but not when the characters are telling you to open your textbook on page 123.
It’s fairly unorthodox as a mahou shojo, since the lead girl’s magic powers are not used on every episode, she has strange-looking clothes, and her prime weapon is a bow. Most of the show is a confusing mess because of how often it jumps from one theme to another. The ecology is its prime and most memorable aspect, but there are a dozen more and unfortunately no…
Read at the sourceIndigoue
Earth Maiden Arjuna is my problematic fave. It has many glaring flaws, which will be mentioned below, but despite these, I resoundingly adored it. If you like environmentalism, Hinduism, or ontology (in that order), then you should try this anime. The basics of this show have been discussed elsewhere, so instead I'll focus on THREE of its most important elements that catapulted this anime unexpectedly into my favourites list.
FIRSTLY: The obvious, Arjuna's most polarising feature is its very overt and nuanced environmentalist message. I am in the camp that sees this as its greatest strength. It acknowledges that there is no way out of our wanton disregard for the Earth's well-being without there being either mass human suffering if we were to go down the path of suddenly halting all envir…
Read at the sourceCivilwarfare101
I haven't been so conflicted watching an anime in a long while. The show is interesting at points and it can be thought provoking, but the whole story kind of just feels confused to me. It could be because it wasn't what I wanted it to be or that the first 2 episodes may have put my expectations out of whack but I was expecting this to be some kind of superhero globe trotting adventure show where Tokio, Juna and the SEED orangization go on adventures together defeating Raja and then some lesson and points about enviromentalism would be brought up while it was going on. I was expecting this to be some kind of monster of the week with an underlying over arching plot which would slowly reveal itself.
But it was ultimately a slice of life show with heavy enviromentalism themes with the show…
Read at the sourceansamant
Captain Planet: Japan edition. There's another anime out there that fits that analogy better, but its name is escaping me at the moment.
How I imagine the whole thing went down: A new studio was looking for a big name to make a big hit to put their studio on the map around the turn of the century. Enter Shoji Kawamori of Macross and Escaflowne fame, who was reading Time Magazine or The Economist or whatever that were saying how bad things are gonna be in the 21st century coz of Global Warming, overpopulation, etc., and he said, "time to yell at everyone to do better". And thus Arjuna came to be.
Its very well done early 2000s show and the story telling is pretty nice. The problem is its very opinionated, which i thoroughly enjoyed, but that's because I didnt take it personally, and the…
Read at the sourceAnomanderake
Earth Maiden Arjuna is one of the anime which don't stick to the common anime tropes, atleast for the most part. Not many anime care to deal with socio-political issues since they are usually targeted at the shounen/shoujo demographic who expect ballistic action sequences, gripping drama or cute endearing romedies. EMA tries to incorporate some of these elements to keep its audience base entertained. It has a bit of action and high school teen drama too. Its central theme however, is a critique of the modern way of living and its consequences. A very admirable premise dealt with sharp witty sarcasm. Despite its good intentions, the show falls prey to directionless story-telling and largely annoying characters. It's made only worse by trying to include action and high school drama to attrac…
Read at the sourcemegafat
The story follows Juna, who was just an ordinary high-school girl, right up until the day she died in a motorcycle accident. But in the twilight of death, she saw a vision of the future, of the barren earth destroyed by something call the Raaja, and was offered a second chance at life if she would help stop them. Now she must learn to cast aside her thoughtlessly destructive ways and face her destiny as the Avatar of Time, the one being who can decide the fate of the planet.
If you can't tell by the description, you'll know it within the first couple of episodes of the show, but the series makes it blatantly obvious as to what the message is, to take care of nature and not carelessly intrude on it and pollute it with human made machines. It feels like a first year philosophy class, and th…
Read at the sourcestreet_carp
Vacuous at its best, trite for the remainder.
The “pro-environment” message is the culmination of scientific illiteracy. The theme behind the entire plot is an attack on intellectual thought, and a vitriolic tantrum demanding a return to the ignorant bliss of an agrarian society. It fails to support any claim it makes despite presenting pathetic straw men arguments that it pretends are the only refutation of the tired nonsense spewed throughout the show. Characters exist solely to deliver these one-off lines of dialogue in the interest of avoiding an actual counter, and this on its own deserves contempt. In addition, when they do make a claim it is simply untrue.
A pro-environment message would have been fine, but this show is a celebration of the banal tropes of the intellectually beref…
Read at the sourcesyncrogazer
Looks like I'm adding another show to the 'visually interesting anime of the early 2000s' list. Otogizoushi came to mind almost immediately when I started this. So anyway, yeah, on the surface this is basically an environmentalism propaganda piece, but (and this is unusual) I wasn't turned off by it. Does it get preachy at times? Maybe. Is that a problem? Not at all. I think it works because all of the opinion spouting somehow meanders its way into, and melds with, the overall aesthetic of the anime. In other words, the message is an integral part of the experience; coupled with the imagery, nothing feels out of place. Because of this I see this as more of a mood piece than an 'An Inconvenient Truth,' "here are the facts" kind of thing. In this sense I don't think 'agreeing' with everythin…
Read at the sourceYuukoDreams
While there where some outstanding morals and lines mentioned, the animation is quite great and, dear lord, the music is absolutely top notch (the soundtrack is sikkkkkkkkkk i just can't handle it); everything else is rather meh.
The story is quite flat, and overall the anime was pretty boring which is very very sad.
I would have loved to buy the Manga if one existed because some morals, as I've mentioned are absoluetly remarkable and hit mit rock-hard.
But honestly aside of the lines and the godlike OST I would not recommend anyone to watch this Anime.
This is all I have to say but myanimelist makes me write more so here's banter.
Personally I really hated some characters as e.g. the protagonists best friend because he obviously did not want to undersand her ways, which was extremely…
Read at the sourcechubar
The first impression that I got from this anime is that this anime is going to deal with a lot of environmental issues that still plague the world today but it’s going to have some sort of action in it. The art actually reminded me of something from “Tenchi Muyo!” but it’s a bit more messy than it. Plus, you can tell that the CGI didn’t age very well but it’s not detrimental of the story. It felt very much like it’s imcompleted, somehow but the landscapes are from from that. The landscapes are breathtaking and gorgeous and really pops out from the actual characters.
Going by the first episode by itself, it goes into it immediately along with the action of her powers, even if she’s not “truly” woken up. But the episodes after that seemed to grind to a halt; it’s mostly because Chris, the p…
Read at the sourceFujaku
I don't have much experience with the magical girl genre, and the magical girl anime I have seen aren't your typical magical girl anime. However, the few magical girl anime I have seen, I do not like very much, and Arjuna is no expectation.
Works that try to make someone care about a world issue, like the environment, are typically pulled down by the fact that it's very tough to get people nowadays to relate to it. I mean, sure I'm slightly concerned about pollution and stuff, but it doesn't directly affect me, so why should I do anything to stop it? Sure people are chopping down trees, but I'm not an animal living in a forest, so how does it affect me? I'm not a plant, so how does putting insecticides and other stuff like that on there affect me? If you can't relate to it, then you can't…
Read at the sourceSkadi
Message films or those with controversial or social commentary often don’t seem to fair well with the general public. That is honestly the only reason I can see for this series having such a small base of viewers. Arjuna from an art and production standpoint is really one of the better shows I have seen and one that I think everyone should check out. It attempts to deal with some very important issues facing our planet from ecology issues to the over medication of society. For the most part it does a really good job at this, even though at times I felt it got overly preachy.
The story starts out with Juna, out heroine, being involved in an accident which leaves her dead. She feels her spirit slipping away when she is contact by another mysterious spirit who offers to save her life if she…
Read at the sourceDarkRavie
Earth Maiden Arjuna
After an accident where she is pronounced dead, a young teenage girl is brought back to life and chosen to be the Avatar of Time. With no idea what is going on she is thrust into situations she doesn't seem to understand.
My Thoughts:
This anime is not your typical anime. There is some action but most of the anime deals with a young teenage girl's feelings and growing awareness towards the environment. In a way it also teaches the viewer about the environment and what's being done to the planet as well as gives hints on what we can do to prevent what can be called at some point environmental disasters.
Read at the sourceWinter
Earth Maiden Arjuna...it could be described as either you love it or you hate it. It's hard to say considering I'm one of those who loved it. I'll assume you have read the synopsis and at least have a basic idea of what this anime is about. Very good, on with the review!
Story: The story of Arjuna had a lot of promise, I'll tell you that. With the first and second episodes I was mildly in shock at the premise set out before me. It could have been a true masterpiece, but when you think about it, this is a tricky story to dive into. I refuse to post spoilers, but a good majority of the show is about Juna's 'education' you could call it. With every new thing she learns about the world, another hint towards the ending is revealed. They do this well and I have no complaints about the ending. A…
Read at the source