Marvel Anime: Iron Man – Complete Series
DVD
Directed by Yuzo Sato
Written by Warren Ellis
Marvel Entertainment/Sony Pictures
Release Date: April 24, 2012

Okay, a little honesty here. I thought I had written this like eight weeks ago, but when I went to go link to it, I realized that it must have been one of the reviews I had on my tablet when my it died. So here is my very late review of this two-disc Marvel Anime: Iron Man – Complete Series. It was quite different from other Iron Man cartoons I have seen in the past.

The series itself is very typical of Japanese anime. If you are a fan of this style, then you know what I mean when I say it is very much eye candy. The characters are very animated (no pun intended), almost to the point of ridiculousness at times, actually. But again, this is common for anime. Not that I hate it or anything, but I don’t really like the style. I grew up watching Starblazers and G-Force, so the amalgamated stylings of “Japanimation” are not unknown to me. There just seems to be a certain slickness to it that sets modern anime apart from other cartoon styles.

As far as the storylines go, it was very repetitive but entertaining. There seemed to be a lot of build up in each episode before what I would call the “boss fight” at the end. This is not what I would have expected from Warren Ellis, but it is still a decent concept as it applied to this series. The gist is that Stark Industries wants to promote world peace by supplying unlimited free energy via power plants run on his Arc Reactor concept and he wants to start it in Japan. He also wants to introduce the Japanese to his Iron Man Dio suits, available to be mass produced. But an evil organization named The Zodiac has other plans and it’s up to Iron Man to figure out what is going on!

Though I tend to enjoy more traditional cartoon versions, I did thoroughly enjoy this series. Once I became accustomed to the pace, I found myself really wrapped up in the tale. We get a guest appearance from Wolverine and, of course, Pepper Potts is always at hand to straighten things out for Tony. Really the only negative comment I can make about this series is that it becomes very predictable. But even that doesn’t detract too much from the fact that it’s still a decent Iron Man cartoon. I say if you are a fan of the franchise then this is worth buying. If not then just wait for Netflix, I guess. Either way, it’s worth watching at least once.