Trip down memory lane with Gluhen
I decided to take a trip down memory lane today with Weiß Kreuz: Gluhen, the anime responsible for helping me remember the alt key code for ß.
In high school my friends and I had nicknamed ourselves after the Weiß characters. One was Omi, the other Ken (we forced this upon her, poor thing) and I was Aya. As for Yohji? That's better left unsaid.
I downloaded the entire series of Gluhen since I was in the mood to watch it. I have it on DVD in the States, but that doesn't help me much in Korea. And because it was lulzy worth, I took screencaps! Yay! Most of this entry is about the differences between the first series Weiß Kreuz and its predecessor Weiß Kreuz Gluhen and how different the designs are in both versions. The majority of screens are from episode 6.
Please don't get upset by this if you're a big Gluhen fan. I actually love this series to death, but the poor show just sets itself up to be made fun of and I love a lot of fun doing it.
warning! This is picture heavy
Weiß Gets Ready to Work!
Picture Spam! Talking a walk down memory lane with Weiß Kreuz Gluhen
Gluhen's opening. While this look may have worked in X, it doesn't cut it in WeiB Gluhen, though I'm not totally opposed to seeing semi-hot bishounen half naked. This scene comes from the opening, but there is no scene in the anime of this nature and Ken doesn't even have wings. False advertising!
Yohji....your hair...what did you do with your hair? We WeiB fans used to joke that Yohji's hair style made him look like his head got run over by a lawn mower, and to this day I still can't get used to it. I was never the biggest fan of Yohji, but they effed him up in this anime. Although his level of stud-ness has decreased, he seems to be more of a hit with the ladies in this version. Perhaps the reason for this is that he never seems to put a shirt on while on the job. One wonders if he gets cold...
Even Omi here looks upset with the change here. Gone is the cutesy Omi who was popular with all the girls at school and who spent the majority of the show taking care of his incompetent co-workers while at the same time angsting over the fact that his "father" was essentially the bad guy. Omi also seems to have gotten quite fond of hair dye as his hair changed from brown to brown-gray. Or maybe it's all the new stress from becoming Persia.
Kyo (pictured on the left). Kyo was only in the first few eps, but he's worth mentioning, I guess. Kyo acts as a stand in in the show for Ken. It's evident by his lackluster character design that he will die shortly after appearing, and in that Koyasu Takehito did not disappoint us. I think Todo actually got a better character design than this guy, and he wasn't even part of Weiss. I can't remember his exact weapon or even his outfit, which just shows you how little this poor man meant to me. Still, I was sad when he died. I guess.
Pictured here flirting with Aya Sensei is Sena, the Omi substitute who is best known for his ridiculous weapon (a ring) and his mary sue quality. It's been a while since I visited with the Weiss community, but I don't remember poor Sena having many fans. Not even Koyasu seems to have liked him as he was the only member to actually DIE (Aya's ridiculous "death" scene at the end doesn't count, especially when they revived him in Side B). Poor, poor Sena.
Besides Yohji, Aya is one of the most changed character in WeiB.
He used to look like this and be a bad arse who only loosened up when he was around his sister, but thanks to the mangaka getting pissed off with Koyasu, his design was changed to the first image. Aya has also had a change of heart since his sister became well, as his character is much more open. He actually, le gasp, smiles and takes interest in women who don't look like his sick sister. And somehow Persia decided that he would make a good teacher! Considering I'm supposed to be Aya, the irony there is all too sweet.
Anyway, Aya's number one trait in Gluhen may be his sensitive, long pony-tail
This pony-tail enables Aya to continue angsting, perhaps over the fact that he can't even see his sweet sister anymore despite the fact that she's fully recovered, while being the most level headed of the Weiss characters. He spends a good majority of the show giving advice and giving orders when Persia's too wussy to stand up to his grandfather and send his people out on a mission. It also gives him the ability to somehow be a stellar teacher and become popular with all the ladies. Oh, Aya, all the girls love your sensitive, long pony-tail.The fact that he's voiced by Dan Green probably didn't hurt either.
I've saved the best for last.
Ken seems to have made the best transition from the first season to the second. While his character design seems to been altered slightly, he still keeps his quirky personality. The dub has fully supported this as Ken has some of the lamest and most awesome dialogue at all time. "Man, this mission blows" can only spoken by everyone's favorite moron. Ken's simpleness is probably his best quality and because of that he is probably the most sane yet insane character in the show. While Aya is busy giving blood money to the Catholic church to "make up for his sins" and Omi is busy being an arse, Ken is hanging out in prison reminding himself how awesome life is because of soccer. It's the little things in life that make it so good. Thank you, Ken, for reminding all of us of this truth.
To be honest, seeing Ken and Aya's transitions was the only reason I watched this show. It certainly wasn't for Schwartz. I'm still crying over the destruction of their characters.
Two of the uglier members of Schwartz. We used to joke that everyone liked Schwartz more in the original anime which you could tell because even when Weiß looked ugly looking, thanks to the periodic drop of animation quality, Schwartz always looked decent. They may have had bad fashion sense, but they always looked good. Gluhen seems to be making up for that by showing them at their worst.
There was also this crazy new team created, who are by far the ugliest. All of the characters were based off of Schwartz. I don't even remember any of their names, which shows you how much I cared for their team.
Ok, the blue guy is kinda hot. Kinda. But a girl? What were they thinking. I know Nagi's a little feminine, but come on!
But Gluhen wasn't all bad. In addition to giving us a freshly updated Ken and Aya, it also introduced us more to the Krashers, or was it the Crushers? Does anyone know?
Apparently the Krashers were special team trained by Weiß's Aya Fujimiya, who then called himself Ran Fujimiya. I believe this happened some time between the original series and Gluhen, when the original Weiß team split up. Well, I guess I can't imagine Ran/Aya working as a business man... The Krashers are also hired by Persia's authorities to take out Weiß in case they became a problem. Knight shows his loyalty towards Ran as the Krashers gave Aya a lot of leeway to escape before destroying the building. He's also shown giving Persia a hard time in the aftermath after Ran/Aya disappears, perhaps blaming Persia for having sent them to kill Weiß.
While the majority of the Krashers were made of fail, the Ran fanboy Knight at least had some potential...
Knight! One of Queen's pawns.
And maybe this kid from Krashers is okay looking too, despite his horrible fashion sense.
He looks kinda like Omi....minus the humongous eyes.
In addition to more information about the Krashers, the ending may be far more funnier and lulzy than the original series'. After so many deaths, we find out the cause of all this disaster was a computer, which was killed by Omi's specially made virus. I wonder if this is a conspiracy theory regarding Microsoft. Or maybe Koyasu just hates computers.
Regardless, Weiß Kreuz Gluhen, otherwise known as "Knight Hunters Eternity", was probably the best $18 ever spent, especially since it contained no shortage of outtakes. It's as if the voice actors knew how ridiculous the show was and took the opportunity to let their feelings be known. Both series' outtakes were hilarious, and Gluhen is packed full of them. I'm glad someone had fun somewhere with this series.
And that's it. Lame as it was, I had a lot of fun with this. Let me know if you think I should do something like this again and I'll seriously consider it. I've got a lot of series I really enjoy poking fun of. Maybe I should do Escaflowne next
Now off to see Tales of Symphonia Tethe'alla ep 3!
In high school my friends and I had nicknamed ourselves after the Weiß characters. One was Omi, the other Ken (we forced this upon her, poor thing) and I was Aya. As for Yohji? That's better left unsaid.
I downloaded the entire series of Gluhen since I was in the mood to watch it. I have it on DVD in the States, but that doesn't help me much in Korea. And because it was lulzy worth, I took screencaps! Yay! Most of this entry is about the differences between the first series Weiß Kreuz and its predecessor Weiß Kreuz Gluhen and how different the designs are in both versions. The majority of screens are from episode 6.
Please don't get upset by this if you're a big Gluhen fan. I actually love this series to death, but the poor show just sets itself up to be made fun of and I love a lot of fun doing it.
warning! This is picture heavy
Weiß Gets Ready to Work!
Picture Spam! Talking a walk down memory lane with Weiß Kreuz Gluhen
Gluhen's opening. While this look may have worked in X, it doesn't cut it in WeiB Gluhen, though I'm not totally opposed to seeing semi-hot bishounen half naked. This scene comes from the opening, but there is no scene in the anime of this nature and Ken doesn't even have wings. False advertising!
Yohji....your hair...what did you do with your hair? We WeiB fans used to joke that Yohji's hair style made him look like his head got run over by a lawn mower, and to this day I still can't get used to it. I was never the biggest fan of Yohji, but they effed him up in this anime. Although his level of stud-ness has decreased, he seems to be more of a hit with the ladies in this version. Perhaps the reason for this is that he never seems to put a shirt on while on the job. One wonders if he gets cold...
Even Omi here looks upset with the change here. Gone is the cutesy Omi who was popular with all the girls at school and who spent the majority of the show taking care of his incompetent co-workers while at the same time angsting over the fact that his "father" was essentially the bad guy. Omi also seems to have gotten quite fond of hair dye as his hair changed from brown to brown-gray. Or maybe it's all the new stress from becoming Persia.
Kyo (pictured on the left). Kyo was only in the first few eps, but he's worth mentioning, I guess. Kyo acts as a stand in in the show for Ken. It's evident by his lackluster character design that he will die shortly after appearing, and in that Koyasu Takehito did not disappoint us. I think Todo actually got a better character design than this guy, and he wasn't even part of Weiss. I can't remember his exact weapon or even his outfit, which just shows you how little this poor man meant to me. Still, I was sad when he died. I guess.
Pictured here flirting with Aya Sensei is Sena, the Omi substitute who is best known for his ridiculous weapon (a ring) and his mary sue quality. It's been a while since I visited with the Weiss community, but I don't remember poor Sena having many fans. Not even Koyasu seems to have liked him as he was the only member to actually DIE (Aya's ridiculous "death" scene at the end doesn't count, especially when they revived him in Side B). Poor, poor Sena.
Besides Yohji, Aya is one of the most changed character in WeiB.
He used to look like this and be a bad arse who only loosened up when he was around his sister, but thanks to the mangaka getting pissed off with Koyasu, his design was changed to the first image. Aya has also had a change of heart since his sister became well, as his character is much more open. He actually, le gasp, smiles and takes interest in women who don't look like his sick sister. And somehow Persia decided that he would make a good teacher! Considering I'm supposed to be Aya, the irony there is all too sweet.
Anyway, Aya's number one trait in Gluhen may be his sensitive, long pony-tail
This pony-tail enables Aya to continue angsting, perhaps over the fact that he can't even see his sweet sister anymore despite the fact that she's fully recovered, while being the most level headed of the Weiss characters. He spends a good majority of the show giving advice and giving orders when Persia's too wussy to stand up to his grandfather and send his people out on a mission. It also gives him the ability to somehow be a stellar teacher and become popular with all the ladies. Oh, Aya, all the girls love your sensitive, long pony-tail.The fact that he's voiced by Dan Green probably didn't hurt either.
I've saved the best for last.
Ken seems to have made the best transition from the first season to the second. While his character design seems to been altered slightly, he still keeps his quirky personality. The dub has fully supported this as Ken has some of the lamest and most awesome dialogue at all time. "Man, this mission blows" can only spoken by everyone's favorite moron. Ken's simpleness is probably his best quality and because of that he is probably the most sane yet insane character in the show. While Aya is busy giving blood money to the Catholic church to "make up for his sins" and Omi is busy being an arse, Ken is hanging out in prison reminding himself how awesome life is because of soccer. It's the little things in life that make it so good. Thank you, Ken, for reminding all of us of this truth.
To be honest, seeing Ken and Aya's transitions was the only reason I watched this show. It certainly wasn't for Schwartz. I'm still crying over the destruction of their characters.
Two of the uglier members of Schwartz. We used to joke that everyone liked Schwartz more in the original anime which you could tell because even when Weiß looked ugly looking, thanks to the periodic drop of animation quality, Schwartz always looked decent. They may have had bad fashion sense, but they always looked good. Gluhen seems to be making up for that by showing them at their worst.
There was also this crazy new team created, who are by far the ugliest. All of the characters were based off of Schwartz. I don't even remember any of their names, which shows you how much I cared for their team.
Ok, the blue guy is kinda hot. Kinda. But a girl? What were they thinking. I know Nagi's a little feminine, but come on!
But Gluhen wasn't all bad. In addition to giving us a freshly updated Ken and Aya, it also introduced us more to the Krashers, or was it the Crushers? Does anyone know?
Apparently the Krashers were special team trained by Weiß's Aya Fujimiya, who then called himself Ran Fujimiya. I believe this happened some time between the original series and Gluhen, when the original Weiß team split up. Well, I guess I can't imagine Ran/Aya working as a business man... The Krashers are also hired by Persia's authorities to take out Weiß in case they became a problem. Knight shows his loyalty towards Ran as the Krashers gave Aya a lot of leeway to escape before destroying the building. He's also shown giving Persia a hard time in the aftermath after Ran/Aya disappears, perhaps blaming Persia for having sent them to kill Weiß.
While the majority of the Krashers were made of fail, the Ran fanboy Knight at least had some potential...
Knight! One of Queen's pawns.
And maybe this kid from Krashers is okay looking too, despite his horrible fashion sense.
He looks kinda like Omi....minus the humongous eyes.
In addition to more information about the Krashers, the ending may be far more funnier and lulzy than the original series'. After so many deaths, we find out the cause of all this disaster was a computer, which was killed by Omi's specially made virus. I wonder if this is a conspiracy theory regarding Microsoft. Or maybe Koyasu just hates computers.
Regardless, Weiß Kreuz Gluhen, otherwise known as "Knight Hunters Eternity", was probably the best $18 ever spent, especially since it contained no shortage of outtakes. It's as if the voice actors knew how ridiculous the show was and took the opportunity to let their feelings be known. Both series' outtakes were hilarious, and Gluhen is packed full of them. I'm glad someone had fun somewhere with this series.
And that's it. Lame as it was, I had a lot of fun with this. Let me know if you think I should do something like this again and I'll seriously consider it. I've got a lot of series I really enjoy poking fun of. Maybe I should do Escaflowne next
Now off to see Tales of Symphonia Tethe'alla ep 3!