Nazca
[Episodes 1-12 Reviewed]
[Reviewed by Bethany]

I have never hated an anime as much as I hate this one. ...Well, that's not quite true—there are aspects of Nazca I find infinitely neat that keep it from being on the negative scale... but the way it was handled makes me so angry, it certainly comes close to hatred. Actually, Nazca is exactly my sort of anime—the premise behind it makes me squeal and get shivers at the niftiness of such an idea. It's got enough prettyboys to keep a girl satisfied (okay, only two, but they're very pretty ... but in spandex), and it's got one of my all-time favorite anime opening sequences. (The reason its music is so good? It's Bach.) I giggle every time I see that screencap from it at the beginning of Malcolm in the Middle. ...And yet, I became so thoroughly disgusted with this anime, that in actuality, I didn't really watch the last four episodes—I watched them partly/mostly on fastforward to get to the ending, just for a feeling of completion. When I was finished watching it, I sat with my jaw-open wondering why the hell I had just spent valuable hours of my life watching that.

Story
...It's been a while since I watched this: please bear with me. Kyouji is a [typical] teenage Japanese high school boy. (Aren't they all?) He's interested in kendo, under the instruction of a man named Tate—who seems to worship as a father and/or God. Kyouji's life is turned upside down and inside out when, during a kendo tournament, his mentor goes Ancient-Incan for a moment (which only he and the mysterious Yuka, Tate's fiance, can see). Tate injures his opponent—breaks his ribs, I believe, which is one big no-no. Tate proceeds to get freakier, and eventually leads Kyouji on a merry chase around the world... or, well, at least to South America and back, after informing Kyouji that they are both the reincarnations of Incan warriors who died long ago in battle... as well as being rivals in love and war.

Sound cool? It did to me, too. Which is why I watched it. After being awed by its beautiful opening, I was ready to have my socks knocked off by something that, by all rights, should have been one hell of an anime series. Instead, I became increasingly disappointed. I'm not even sure precisely what about it bothered me any more—I do believe I've blocked it out. There was quite a bit of potential to it—in the story, the characters—that simply was not realized. Kyouji's stubborn disbelief in his former life, his undying faith in a man trying to kill him and destroy the world, and the weakness of his character simply grated on my nerves. Yuka, who be all rights should have been able to redeem the story, was little better: I wanted to gag when at least I came to the ending—or at least throw something at Yuka and Kyouji for being such irredeemable idiots. By default, Tate became my favorite character. And since I like him about as much as I like pre-calculus... it couldn't get much worse.

Notice that I lef the Romance category on this one, despite its low scoring. Why? It attempted romance. It just failed miserably. Still, I want the soundtrack to it, desperately. Their reworkings of of classical music are the definite high point of the series... and the visuals were pretty darn stunning at points, even if the Incans wore clothing that appeared to be spray-painted on. Kyouji gets points for having at one point been Bilka, and the opening still makes me squeal in excitement. I'm just disappointed that such a neat idea went so horribly wrong.

The Bottom Line
I guess some people do like Nazca. I am not one of them.