Scryed

I’m struggling to decide what to post about today.  I’m watching some great new series, but almost never post about a series until it’s done.  That’s because the ending often makes or breaks the series, from my perspective.

Maybe I’ll go with Scryed, or s-Cry-ed if you prefer.  This story takes place in the future when some sort of geological disaster (the Great Uprising) has fractured an area of the earth near Tokyo.  That area is now known as the Lost Ground.  After the Great Uprising, people began being born with the ability to deconstruct and reshape material with only their mental power.  These people became known as “Alters”.  There are two groups of Alters in this series.  One is the Native Alters who go their own way using their power for their own purposes, and who all live in the Lost Ground.  The other group of Alters makes up the members of HOLY, a special task force of HOLD, the government police force.

The story centers around two Alters, a Native Alter named Kazuma and a HOLY Alter named Ryuhou.  These two meet early on, detest each other on sight and spend a good portion of the series trying to annihilate each other.

The story plot starts out with HOLY and HOLD capturing any native Alters they run across and sending them to the mainland for their own good and to get them out of the way.  Along the way it’s determined that the native alters who are being captured are being “refined” by the mainland and used as the puppets of the government.    During story background it’s also discovered that the Great Uprising was caused by a similar phenomenon in an alternate universe in which everyone is an Alter.  Both Kazuma and Ryuhou seem to be able to access this alternate universe when they use their powers fully.  In one of their many battles Kazuma and Ryuhou break through to the alternate universe and cause another geological uprising to occur.  The government becomes aware of the alternate universe and decides to use its power for themselves, using their ‘refined’ Alters. 

Specifically, one particularly nasty government guy and Alter himself, Mujo Kyuoji, decides he wants to be most powerful, supreme overlord of the universe and kidnaps Kazuma’s Alter friend Kanami to help him achieve that end.  Kazuma and Ryuhou work together to defeat him and free Kanami, all the time despising each other.

This series has a good-sized cast of characters.  Many of these are HOLY Alter users whose various skills are showcased, but then who are killed off along the way. Both Ryuhou’s closest friend among the HOLY Alters, Scheris, and Kazuma’s closest friend, Kimishima, are also killed.  Several other characters are pivotal to the plot besides Kazuma, Ryuhou and Kanami.  These include Mimori, a non-Alter childhood friend of Ryuhou’s, and Tachibana, a HOLY Alter who begins helping Mimori and the native Alters.  These five actually survive the series so that’s something.

I liked the basic story and the concept of this anime series, but I really hate the whole, testosterone-filled, I-must-be-the-strongest-and-defeat-you mentality.  Even after they worked together and even though they have friends in common, Ryuhou and Kazuma cannot stop trying to kill each other.  In fact the series ends with them fighting and Kanami and Mimori waiting for them to come back.  If not for that, and the fairly high death toll, I would have liked this series much better.