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REVIEW: Dimension W Limited Edition


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Wyvern



Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Posts: 1544
PostPosted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 4:11 pm Reply with quote
The whole show just feels cynically made, the kind of project that seems like it was designed by committee as a "Popular Show X meets Popular Show Y" kind of deal (in this case, Ghost in the Shell meets Big O and maybe a little Bebop, except the result isn't nearly as good as any of those.) Even worse, Dim W can't seem to commit to a tone or theme, like the producers were grasping desperately for a tone and setting that worked. First it seems like it's going to be episodic adventures in a futuristic city, then it's doing horror stories in a hotel, and finally it spends like half its run on an island where a bunch of forgettable new characters show up while the established supporting cast ceases to exist.

It all gives the impression of a production with no clear goals and no confidence in itself. The show is a mess, and while lots of anime have problems like this, most of them don't self-destruct quite so publicly.
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Themaster20000



Joined: 05 Aug 2014
Posts: 863
PostPosted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 5:06 pm Reply with quote
Starts off pretty interesting but then quickly derails in the last half. The show had some of the laziest exposition I've seen in a show, and the random introduction of a villain in the last few episodes was quite laughable. The main crux of the show should've been the relationship between Mira and Kyouma, yet they don't do anything interesting with either of them,nor the side characters who nothing at all to them. Just wasted potential at the end of the day.
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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3442
PostPosted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 5:58 pm Reply with quote
relyat08 wrote:
Koda89 wrote:
The best part of the show was its OP and ED honestly. Laughing


You should also check out the OVAs OP. Laughing
I agree. I made it through as much of this show as I did solely because of the OP and ED, both of which are fun, upbeat, and technically very impressive. The animators responsible for both of them are also two of my absolute favorites Shinya Takahashi and Ryouma Ebata.


I'm pretty sure "The OP was great" was the most consistent thing I heard about this anime, hans't there been enough evidence yet that a breakdancing anime, with very good animation, would work amazingly well?
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CheezcakeMe





PostPosted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 7:00 pm Reply with quote
I think this show received a lot more vitriol than other bad shows because it had a lot of potential to be a really good show if they'd just tried a little harder. I thought this show had a lot of potential, but they just went in all the wrong directions with the story. Wow you got a super powerful robot girl? Let's string her up naked while we wait for the "dashing hero" to come rescue her. Ugh.
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harminia



Joined: 24 Aug 2015
Posts: 1987
Location: australia
PostPosted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 7:06 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
an almost Lovecraftian reveal, as the darker side of Dimension W turns a misguided gallery manager into a spiraling tree of flesh and teeth.

I'd forgotten that at the start the show wasn't actually too bad.

By the end of it I looked more forward to the weekly episode reviews here on ANN than I did the actual episodes.
I basically summed up the show as Dimension Whatever.

I kept hoping for action but the show just kept cutting out when stuff would actually happen. It was really annoying because what little times there was action, the animation was nice.
I got super sick of Mira fanservice though.

Best character was Jason Chrysler, the American superhero. When he just flew off like "I'll leave these enemies to you", I laughed a lot.
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Takkun4343



Joined: 19 Jul 2007
Posts: 1493
Location: Englewood, Ohio
PostPosted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 7:06 pm Reply with quote
CheezcakeMe wrote:
Wow you got a super powerful robot girl? Let's string her up naked while we wait for the "dashing hero" to come rescue her.

Didn't she actually wind up saving herself in that situation? If the scene you're thinking of is the one I'm thinking of, then she definitely did.
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Top Gun



Joined: 28 Sep 2007
Posts: 4564
PostPosted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 7:54 pm Reply with quote
angelmcazares wrote:
Clearly Dimension W is not a good show, but I feel that some people have unjustly treated it as the worst anime ever. I believe the reason for that is that some fans and critics created an warranted hype around it because Funimation is in the production committee.

People hype so much scorn on shows like this because there's clearly some decent budget and competent people working on them, and the basic premise seems like it has a lot of promise...but then it's utterly and completely wasted on ham-fisted incompetent writing. (Call it Sword Art Online Syndrome, if you will.) It's hard to be disappointed by a show that's clearly utter crap from the get-go, and honestly those sorts of shows often fall into the "so bad it's good" category and provide tons of unintentional entertainment. But when you see something that in another universe might have been an enjoyable experience, yet it winds up turning into hot garbage, it's just sad. I sat through all of Dimension W, but I couldn't even tell you half of the major plot points, because my brain was constantly being astounded by the horrific storytelling to the point where I think it shut down for a bit to protect itself.
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CheezcakeMe





PostPosted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 8:48 pm Reply with quote
Takkun4343 wrote:

Didn't she actually wind up saving herself in that situation? If the scene you're thinking of is the one I'm thinking of, then she definitely did.


True I could be mis-remembering the scene a bit, (as others had pointed out the story's such a convoluted mess it's tough to remember anything) I just recall a lot of robot-girl doing dick-all and having zero chemistry with Grumpy Lead Dude.
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relyat08



Joined: 20 Mar 2013
Posts: 4125
Location: Northern Virginia
PostPosted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 9:50 pm Reply with quote
meiam wrote:


I'm pretty sure "The OP was great" was the most consistent thing I heard about this anime, hans't there been enough evidence yet that a breakdancing anime, with very good animation, would work amazingly well?


I'd be super interested in that. Especially if Mira was the main character. Other than the OP and ED, I'll admit she was pretty great. A shame that the show didn't treat her nearly as well as she deserved.
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Top Gun



Joined: 28 Sep 2007
Posts: 4564
PostPosted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 10:05 pm Reply with quote
relyat08 wrote:

I'd be super interested in that. Especially if Mira was the main character. Other than the OP and ED, I'll admit she was pretty great. A shame that the show didn't treat her nearly as well as she deserved.

Yeah, that's my other main complaint against the show besides the horrific writing: it was frequently overtly cruel toward her for no apparent reason. Coupled with the occasional uncomfortable fanservice, I really wonder what the hell they were going for.


Last edited by Top Gun on Thu Sep 14, 2017 6:20 am; edited 1 time in total
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
Posts: 7163
Location: Another Kingdom
PostPosted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 10:33 pm Reply with quote
belvadeer wrote:
It is sad that Dimension W got shot down as it was a solid concept with some neat ideas, and I really enjoyed watching it. Maybe it just needed to have been longer in scope so it could have had more room to shine.


Agreed completely. The premise had a LOT of potential that they promptly threw away. It's as if the interesting premise was that way entirely by accident, or if the show changed writing teams and only the first batch knew what to do with this premise. But I had a feeling the ratings were sinking and they needed to wrap it up, so it kind of felt like a Shonen Jump manga that had to be wrapped up soon after it began.

Greed1914 wrote:
I went into this one thinking it was going to be pretty similar to Solty Rei, which was a good thing in my book. However, the shine wore off pretty fast with the second arc, and then it seemed like they never nailed down what story they wanted to tell. It also bugged me that Mabuchi basically remained abusive towards Mira throughout.


Me, I was getting vibes like The Big O. In that one, a man with a checkered past but a nice-paying job involving fighting stumbles across a robot girl and they go on episodic adventures that slowly reveal more about the true nature of their world. I think Dimension W would've worked a lot better had they had more episodic stories rather than rushing the world-building.

And yeah, people were being quite unfair to Mira. In a way, the show seems to ask the viewer to exploit her too, considering the credits sequence had so many shots of her wiggling butt.

Instead, it wound up something like the manga Hi-Fi Cluster. That, too, had a promising premise involving a new technology with lots of story potential (a world where talent can be manufactured and temporarily endowed upon people), a protagonist who dislikes said technology, and a young companion who serves as a Watson-type character, then lost its focus very quickly in trying to be as cool as possible, it got canceled quickly, and everyone forgot about it as soon as it ended.

angelmcazares wrote:
Clearly Dimension W is not a good show, but I feel that some people have unjustly treated it as the worst anime ever. I believe the reason for that is that some fans and critics created an warranted hype around it because Funimation is in the production committee.


It is most definitely NOT the worst anime ever. There are many anime worse than Dimension W. Dimension W is bad in that it's average, forgettable, and unambitious. It's not revolting or frustrating to watch like some certain series I won't name.

Koda89 wrote:
The best part of the show was its OP and ED honestly. Laughing

I haven't even finished the show and probably never will. It is still sitting in my FUNi queue literally half finished because things got insanely stupid insanely quick. Nothing pisses me off more than what is on paper a sci-fi series that uses its science like it is magic and thus has no real logic behind it and tries to use it as carte blanche to do whatever the hell they want.


It DOES have logic, at least in Episode 2. That was the one application of a fourth dimension of space that was applied in a remotely believable way. (Lots of series use science like it can do anything though. The Dragon Ball and Yu-Gi-Oh! franchises are the most visible examples in anime. But there are many series that use magic like it was a science too.)

Snakebit1995 wrote:
I agree, the show's not great but there's a lot worse out there. I think this show got extra scrutiny because people either got over-hyped because Funi was involved, or were extra critical of it because Funi was involved and were looking for any chance to say "See what happens why you let American companies touch our anime"


Yeah, and as was mentioned earlier, Space Dandy is a series that worked very well. Shinichiro Watanabe has always appealed more to westerners than his own Japanese, and all he did was continue being himself, and that worked wonderfully.

Wyvern wrote:
The whole show just feels cynically made, the kind of project that seems like it was designed by committee as a "Popular Show X meets Popular Show Y" kind of deal (in this case, Ghost in the Shell meets Big O and maybe a little Bebop, except the result isn't nearly as good as any of those.) Even worse, Dim W can't seem to commit to a tone or theme, like the producers were grasping desperately for a tone and setting that worked. First it seems like it's going to be episodic adventures in a futuristic city, then it's doing horror stories in a hotel, and finally it spends like half its run on an island where a bunch of forgettable new characters show up while the established supporting cast ceases to exist.

It all gives the impression of a production with no clear goals and no confidence in itself. The show is a mess, and while lots of anime have problems like this, most of them don't self-destruct quite so publicly.


Well, besides the island part, Big O did all of those too and executed it a lot better. I'm sure it's because that series had a much better grasp on who the characters are and keeping a consistent narrative feel throughout regardless of what new avenues it was taking.

meiam wrote:
I'm pretty sure "The OP was great" was the most consistent thing I heard about this anime, hans't there been enough evidence yet that a breakdancing anime, with very good animation, would work amazingly well?


Well, there was that Club Cool Crew anime from a few years back that flopped whose creator decided to try again with another anime about breaking.

harminia wrote:
Best character was Jason Chrysler, the American superhero. When he just flew off like "I'll leave these enemies to you", I laughed a lot.


Oh, I remember him now! Yeah, Jason was awesome.

Top Gun wrote:
Yeah, that's my other main complaint against the show besides the horrific writing: it was frequently overtly cruel toward her for no apparent reason. Coupled with the occasional uncomfortable fanservice, I really wonder what the hell they were going for.


Someone on the production team, methinks, liked Mira a bit TOO much.

I remember thinking a few times that I thought Mira would make a better protagonist than Mabuchi--that is, Dimension W would've been better had it been told through her perspective rather than Mabuchi's--though I honestly forgot why.
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Beatdigga



Joined: 26 Oct 2003
Posts: 4352
Location: New York
PostPosted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 11:06 pm Reply with quote
Sometimes...a show just sucks.

It should have been something else.
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relyat08



Joined: 20 Mar 2013
Posts: 4125
Location: Northern Virginia
PostPosted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 11:12 pm Reply with quote
leafy sea dragon wrote:

Top Gun wrote:
Yeah, that's my other main complaint against the show besides the horrific writing: it was frequently overtly cruel toward her for no apparent reason. Coupled with the occasional uncomfortable fanservice, I really wonder what the hell they were going for.


Someone on the production team, methinks, liked Mira a bit TOO much.

I remember thinking a few times that I thought Mira would make a better protagonist than Mabuchi--that is, Dimension W would've been better had it been told through her perspective rather than Mabuchi's--though I honestly forgot why.


I would say they didn't necessary like her too much, but they liked her in some fairly unhealthy and potentially abusive ways. And yeah, I would much rather have her as the main character of the show. The only reason I need is to have a more sympathetic and empathetic protagonist, really. The dude wasn't awful, but he was not a particularly interesting character, in my opinion.
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Laethiel



Joined: 29 Jun 2007
Posts: 42
PostPosted: Thu Sep 14, 2017 1:45 am Reply with quote
danpmss wrote:
To be fair, this anime was a complete mess because they THROUGHLY rushed the whole source material, resulting in leaving a lot of explanations and world building proper presentation out, character development and interaction falling flat and even unidimensional at times, and of course, the storytelling and execution becoming... garbage at best.

If I recall correctly, they adapted 8-10 volumes full of lenghty text in most of its pages, all of it + a part that wasn't even out in the manga yet at the time in 12 episodes.

You could compare that to adapting, I don't know, Boku no Hero Academia up to the next 2 not yet animated arcs in the manga. In only 12 episodes.

The manga is actually quite nice, I would recommend giving it a try.


Glad to hear that the manga's good. I've been intending to give it a try for a while, since I've enjoyed the mangaka's other works that I've read (King of Thorn and Chikyuu Misaki), and I was really hoping that this was more a case of bad adaptation than bad source material.
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Codeanime93



Joined: 28 Jul 2017
Posts: 599
PostPosted: Thu Sep 14, 2017 2:04 am Reply with quote
Look as far as I was concerned it held my attention and yes I understand people's disappointment towards it but dear god at least it wasn't Aesthetica of a Rogue hero. Which yes I regret sitting through that thing and I was often wondering why Funimation wasted money dubbing it. So yes Dimension W despite being disappointing it at least seems like something I think Funimation would bother to dub and license. For a limited 12 episode series it could do way worse. And yes it felt like one of those random pick up shows Adult Swim use to play in their golden era, maybe not a good one but it still felt like it.

It also had a pretty good English dub. But no, it was no Outlaw Star or anything.
And I'm usually a lot more forgiving in the shows I watch than most.
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