“Supernatural The Animation” Review and First Episode Recap
Episode one: “Alter Ego” (based on “Skin”):
The first picture we see is a green eye twitching. Of course my first thought was that that is Dean’s eye. – Wrong – It seems who ever drew the animation has a thing for green eyes since we will see them a lot during the animation. The next picture is a full moon and then our view starts moving downwards and we see some leafless trees with an old house in the background. (Thought that was a nice touch. Think about it. Since the show is filmed in Vancouver and most of it during the winter time. How many episodes have we seen with leafless trees?) This image is followed by a family picture. Somebody seems to mirror on the glass in front of the picture and we hear the sound of metal scratching metal. Just to find out a moment later that that noise actually is a knife being sharpened. A man looks at the knife and says: “That looks perfect” and then we see a woman dressed only in her underwear tied to a chair. She seems to be shocked about that statement. “I am ready now Amanda. Are you?” says the man while walking towards her. He bends down to her, “What’s wrong Amanda?” The woman is in tears “Please I am begging you! Why are you doing this?” “Why am I doing this? I thought it would be obvious. You rejected me Amanda. And that hurt.” Amanda looks like at him with huge green eyes. “No! I don’t know you. Who are you?” “Hmm. I am your husband. How is it possible that you don’t recognize me after all this time?” “What are you saying? No you’re not! You are not Zach!” Now she is getting upset. “I am begging you please leave me alone.” By now he has his nose nearly in her face. “Sweetheart believe me, I am Zach” and while he says those last three words his eyes turn white for a brief moment and he stands up again. Then we see one of her green eyes again. In it you see him mirrored how he raises his right arm with that giant knife in it. Amanda begs: “No, please!” and screams out of the top of her lungs. Now the mirror image in her eyes starts lowering his arm and then our view shifts on the man and we see how he starts to stab Amanda and blood splatters everywhere while he seems to enjoy it. Then our view turns down to her right foot, which is tied to the chair, and blood is on and around that foot. Next impression is a shadow image of the man stabbing her. We see huge amount of blood splashing through the room and onto everything. The whole scene ends with the family picture from the beginning of the scene getting covered in blood. And then the Supernatural title card follows (it looks a lot like the title card from season two). By now we are two minutes into the episode, which is about a tenth of the episode, though that is about the same of most real episodes – a tenth of the time.
At the end of the title card we hear some kind of music with a rock touch to it and while the music keeps going the next scene starts on a sunny day with bushes in the front, mountains in the back, and in between a road with the Impala on it driving from right to left on our screen. And then we are zoomed in to see into the car through the driver window. A whistling, Dean with sunglasses is driving while Sam seems to be sleeping. The whistling though doesn’t fit the music we are hearing. And then Sam moans in his sleep and we get to see his dream. A baby in its crib trying to reach the moving mobile above his bed making happy noises. And then we hear footsteps and see a shadow falling onto the baby. Next image is a dark man with glowing yellow eyes bending down into the crib and suddenly the baby starts to scream. Now there are short glimpses/images. We hear someone running then we see some blurred images of people. Suddenly one of those faces moves towards us and we realize that the person must be dead since it is a skull looking at us. This is followed by an image of a woman burning on the ceiling and afterwards there is an image of a burning face, flames shooting out of the eyes and mouth. While we see the last image we hear a child voice screaming “Sam!” and an adult voice saying “Come on! Hurry!” and the “hurry” has been echoed a couple of times. And then Sam wakes up with a shocked face breathing heavily. “Waky, waky sunshine.” Sam turns to the left and we see Dean taking off his sunglasses. (That is when I realized that that last sentence was coming from Dean. Had my problems with it since it wasn’t Jensen voice). Dean looks to his right, “Sammy?” “Don’t do that please. Don’t call me Sammy.” Now we are looking into the car through the windshield. Sam: “Though where are we?” “We still got another 500 clicks till we get to Missouri.” “Missouri? I thought we were heading north. Are you going to tell me or do I have to guess? Did Dad call?” “No, haven’t heard from him yet but check this out. Front page” And we see how Dean is pointing on a news paper which lays between them on the seat. (Gosh how I love those cars with the seat going from one side to the other so you could actually sit three people in the front) “Sounds pretty gruesome. Go on check it out.” And Sam grabs the news paper and reads it. “Bloody murder. Husband kills new bride with cleaver. – Charming. And?” (I think it impressive how we actually get a look at the news paper and could read nearly the whole article since the images are that sharp) Now we are treated to a view of the right front of the impala and back to looking at Sam while Dean says “I checked and it said this is the fourth killing in six month. It’s a small town. They usually don’t have any crime at all” “Yeah so do we become cops all of a sudden?” “Plus all the suspects that were arrested claim that they were at a different place the time that the murder was committed.” “So, what you are saying is that the same person must have been in two places at once.” “Something worth looking into. Don’t you think?” “Sure. But I rather spent our time trying to find Dad.” “Dad would be doing the same thing if he were here and you know it.” “Yeah alright suit yourself. What ever.” And then we look onto a road with the Impala moving towards us.
During that whole scene we either look on Sam or Dean depending on who is talking. I like the little things in it too. Dean is wearing the ring from the first few seasons as well as the amulet. The back seat is completely littered with baggage. You actually get the image that the car is moving since we hear the noise coming of the engine and the world outside of the car is moving by. But if you look closer you realize that it is just a short interval of pictures that keeps repeating itself. Occasionally we see some huge advertisement at the side of the road. The last one we see asks us to drink coffee.
For some reason unknown Jared’s voice doesn’t always go along with the movement of Sam’s mouth (this will get even worse later on in this ep but it is getting better in the eps to follow). My son thinks it is because Jared is new to the voicing of animes while I think somebody did a bad job at cutting the voice together with the picture. Maybe Jared came in a little late for doing the voicing job though they were in a hurry to cut it in. Sure would like to ask him that. Maybe get a chance to do so at the German con.
Change of scenes. It is night time. We look at some town houses and then we are inside a police station and someone says: “Hey Jimmy tell me. You still got that file on that Johnson case?” “Yeah it’s on my desk. Sorry about the coffee spills.” “I was about to file it under cold case. Got something new?” and now Sam and Dean enter the police station. “No I was checking something out” And here ends the mysterious conversation between cops. Sam and Dean move towards the front desk Sam is going “Errr” looks like his trying to come up with something to say to the officer when he realizes that Dean turned to the right admiring a woman that is walking towards us (we only get to see her from her lower chest to her knees) Of course he has to find an excuse to talk to her “Excuse me.” The woman turns around and Dean goes “eeehh.” Sam bends his head towards his brother “Dean?” “Eeemm.” And then he starts his move ” I’d like to talk to detective Boyle, please.” Now we are treated to her upper body. A beautiful young brunet woman with big green eyes (told you we will see lots of green eyes), she has the hair at her side pulled back to form a little ponytail while some of her bangs falling down over her left eye. She wears a white blouse with a dark jacket. The buttons of the blouse are unbuttoned nearly down to her bra and through a shadow we get the image we are able to see her breasts. She is clinging a file tight to her body. Well all in all she seems to be the kind of woman Dean would like to meet to put it mildly. “And what would this be about?” she wants to know. Dean introduces them by flashing an ID “Davis and Martin. We are Federal marshals miss.” Sam: “We’d like to talk to him about the murder if we could? Is he around at all?” And she replies “You are looking at him. Detective Catherine Boyle. What can I do for you marshals?” Sam and Dean both go “Eeerrr” and then Dean shakes her hand “Good to meet you Detective”
Next change of scene. We see an old metal lamp with the bulb in it burning. While we watch a moth flying into the light the Detective says “Here he is gentleman.” The view changes again. Now we are looking from the ceiling of the room. The light shines onto a table. A man sitting in a chair bent over the table. Dean sitting across from him while Sam and the detective stand behind him. “Marshals Davis and Martin meet Zach Evans. Murdered his wife with a cleaver two months into their marriage,” The detective says. And Dean starts with his interrogations. “Mr. Evans, you are saying that your wife was already dead by the time you came home from your brother’s house. Is that correct? Mr. Evans?” The man sobs and then “Yeah” “Mr. Evans? So that would make you innocent then?” Finally the man raises his head and yells “I didn’t kill my wife” And then he falls back, bending over. We see him actually crying lots of tears. “I didn’t kill her. I loved Amanda” he sobs. “I still can’t believe that she is dead.”
Change of scene. We see a TV with four different pictures from surveillance cameras. In one of those videos a man walks up to the front door. “That looks like Zach. So what do you think?” we hear Dean saying. And then we see the two of them. They are back at the police station looking onto a monitor. Dean sits in front of it while Sam stands behind him. Sam answers, starting with a sigh “Honestly. I get the feeling he is telling the truth.” (When Sam says that it was the first time that I actually saw Jared’s face in my image. Somehow it seems like I just knew what it would look like when Sam says those words. And what is it with Dean always sitting and Jared standing behind him?) Now we are looking at the monitor again while Dean replays the moment when the man walks up to the house. “Yeah, but look. The surveillance camera caught a man who looks exactly like Zach.” We see the image of the man how he turns and looks around. “There he is entering the house right before the murder was committed.” Dean goes. We see a surprised Sam. “Hey. Wait a second.” He bents down over Dean’s shoulder to take a closer look at the monitor. “Rewind the tape a bit” “What?” “Just do it!” And we hear how Dean rewinds the tape. We see the faces of both brothers until Sam goes “There! Stop!” Now we looking again at the monitor and see the moment where the man turns around and Sam asks Dean “Go frame by frame” “There! Did you see that?” We actually see how the man’s eyes turn white. (Blizzard eyes anyone?) But Dean says “It’s just the angle of the lens.” He leans back in his chair folding his hands behind his head putting the right leg over his left knee. “No.” remarks Sam “Not this time. Dean look at it again. You see what I mean. Don’t you remember? Dad always said spirits and ghosts give a strange glow when they’re caught on camera.” By now Dean has a surprised face “Though?” and the leaves his relaxed position to move forward leaning his right arm onto the table the monitor sits on. “You think this is a doppleganger?” And Sam goes quizzically “Hmm.”
I enjoyed that. I was curious to see how well the writers would be able to craft a story in 20 mi utes that delivered the same kind of emotional content as the original series, but they captured the essence of the early tension between Sam and Dean fairly well actually. I dig the artwork. And in a way the gore at the beginning was even more graphic than the action series. I the series yo might see blood spurt on a window once, but not over and over again.
It was a bit jarring hearing Jared’s voice but not Jensen’s. The adjustment would have been easier if they had found substitute voices for both characters.
One other complaint … was that a cheap cover of Kansas at the end? It didn’t sound like the original. Couldn’t they have just ponied up the royalty fee and put the real song in there?
All in all, though, this looks like yet another set of DVDs to add to my want list on Amazon or my viewing queue on Netflix. 🙂
Thanks ChristopherH
I was surprised at the artwork too and Eric Kripke mentioned once that he especially liked it that they are able to show so much more (like you put it) gore into the anime than the real show. I will try to find that video again.
About hearing Jared’s voice but not Jensen’s. Yes it is more than just a bit jarring but after watching a few eps it is not as bad as it is when you first discover that it is not Jensen talking. And I most definatly prefer Jared’s voice to the voice of a substitute. Can’t wait to hear Jensen’s voice in there too. He is doing the Dean voice in episode 11 and 12. Haven’t gotten around to watch those yet. Only made it up to episode 6 so far. But maybe I will have time over the weekend.
I totally agree Wayward son without Kansas just doesn’t seem right for anything Supernatural.
P.S. Dadgummit! I’m still getting used to the IPad keyboard. Sorry about all the typos.
P.S.S. Agreed … Jared and Jensen both look quite yummy in those clips.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of anime style animation. It’s just not as visually appealing to me as other types of animation. But, of course, I had to check this one out! I think the new story episodes are really pretty good. I would kind of like to see them with the ‘real’ actors. ‘Ghost on the Highway’ was a pretty good MOTW. I liked the twist with Sam in ‘The Alter Ego.’ I thought it was new and interesting.
Great recap, Yirabah! I agree with a lot of what you said! I totally get what you mean about seeing Jared’s face when he’s talking! I too can picture the exact facial expression. Not having Jensen’s voice playing opposite Jared’s really threw me off, especially at first. I got used to it after a while. I think that Anime Sam is a better interpretation of Sam, especially season 1 Sam, than Anime Dean is of Dean. He’s not as cute as he should be (and that jacket is awful!). Maybe that’s just me. I like my Dean as cute as possible!
Overall, pretty good. Maybe they should do more new story episodes than redoing existing ones. It’s hard to live up to the awesomeness of live action Supernatural. I do like the idea of seeing the cases they worked between the cases we’ve already seen on the show. I love more background and new insight to our boys’ past!
And, yeah, the cheap cover of Wayward Son just doesn’t do it for me!
Thank you Morgan.
Sam in the Alter Ego was a nice twist. I also enjoyed that I was not able to figure out immediatly who is in the alter ego in the car, Sam or Dean, or maybe even none of them.
You are right about anime Sam coming closer to Sam than anime Dean to Dean (head starts to spin here). First Dean having brown eyes, than that hankerchief and that awful jacket – nope – I prefer the real Dean too.
As I mentioned in the article, there are new stories and they are written extremly well. In one ep we will also see how Sam mets Jess.
Apparently these DVDs aren’t yet available in the U.S.? I’m curious to know whether it is possible to get the Japanese versions with English subtitles. Are the formats even compatible?
[quote]It’s definitely possible to watch the original Japanese voice track with English subtitles. WB would be stupid to not include them …[/quote]
Silly me! Why didn’t I think of that … duh … haha! 🙂
Thanks cassi for your explanation.
The anime was cut to the Japanese voice track so that’s why Jared voice doesn’t match the images. The translation and the voice actors try to make it fit but sometimes it simply doesn’t work.
I don’t think that this can be the only explanation since it is basically only Jared’s voice that is off sometimes.
Either the translation is too bad or the voice actor.[/quote]
Don’t know about the translations since I am unfortunatly not able to talk Japanese. And about the bad voice actor statement. This was Jared first voice-only-job so if it would be his fault I would definatly excuse it but I still can’t/won’t believe that it is his fault. I actually think that he is doing the best voice job in the whole anime. Since I’ve been listening to the same scenes over and over again for the recap I discovered that he is putting as much feeling in his voice as he would for the real show unlike all the other voice actors. The reason for this very likely is that he knows by now what Sam’s feelings would be.
Something I did forget to mention in my article is that the youtube videos are the ones from SPNtheAnimationEps. She lives in Japan and I do thank her for putting those vids up. According to her she is ok but my heart still goes out to her and I hope that nothing will happen to her.
Thanks Yume, I did enjoy the first original episode. It made me laugh as well as cry.
We Supernatural fans are all crazy somehow. Read a few comments who stated the same, that they watch just because it is Supernatural.
Something that makes me sad, even a little mad, is that a lot of stuff gets blocked because (like the CW side) we don’t live in the states and now the animations getting blocked on youtube since we can’t buy them yet. Something they don’t seem to understand at Warner Bros. is that SPN fans are crazy. We here in Europe watch the eps on the internet shortly after they aired in the states but that doesn’t mean that we don’t watch them once they are aired in our local TV on the contrary we do (even if it is not as good as the english original version). Plus show me the fan that doesn’t have the dvds at home. So why do they block the animes. Those ones who are into animes will still buy the DVDs even if we seen it before – after all – we are SPN fans and we are crazy about our show.
So I don’t watch a lot of anime but I’ve seen my fair share. I liked these a lot and was kind of disappointed to find episode 5 blocked. But hey, I got to watch the first 4 for free, so I guess I shouldn’t complain.
I would almost think this is kind of AU from the TV series since there are some things that seem to be happening differently. I look forward to seeing what else is different and what other little twists they throw out there.
Hi there Jeannine, thanks for commenting. If you check Dark Austral comment there is help for you.
Hello Dark_Austral, thank you for your input.
I would be interested what your friend thinks about it too since I can’t believe that the SPN anime makes any scenes to someone who doesn’t now the real show.
Missouri sure was a disappointment thanks for letting us know that there is a reason for that.
About that sidenote. I was fighting with myself if I should put that info up or not. Warner Bros. already blocked to many of her videos. Didn’t want to help them find those links.
There used to be links on various anime sites. I even sent one link to Alice. She had it posted on the crossroads. But that link, like all the others we found, never lasted for more than 2 to 4 days before they were blocked.
I also believe that we here in Europe can keep dreaming about being able to access the same stuff as the people in America. It is slightly frustrating if you chat with a world wide group and want to show them e.g. fan made vids and talk about those and then they are blogged in some countries. I for example can’t watch approx. half the vids of the week Alice puts up. Though I keep dreaming that one day I will be able to watch them too.
re blocked content …
I’m pretty sure that the copyright laws of various countries have something to do with it. It may be true that we in America have access to more cntent … but I often find things that I’m trying to watch blocked for copyright reasons, especially content generated in Canada (don’t know why Canada and not other places though) …
Hi Yirabah
When my daughter was young, she also liked watching Pokeman, Yu-gi-oh and her favourite Sailor Moon.
I managed to watch up to episode 3. It’s no way comparable to watching the live version of Supernatural, but I still found it enjoyable.
I liked how they altered the original scripts that little bit, giving it a different twist to the story. I would like to seen the ones where both Jared and Jensen do the voice’s, however I didn’t mind the guy that did Dean’s voice, I think he did an ok job.
Anyways…Thank you for putting this together.
Hi Karen,
you are right that it is not comparible to the real thing but still I found it fun to watch. Since you already made it up to three episodes just watch one more and let me know what you think of the complet new story line.
So far,I’ve seen SPN The Animation up to episode 9 and it’s really fun to watch.
It’s okay as a substitute for the real thing during spring hellatus.
I think Jared is doing a good job with his first voice over gig.
I agree it’s really strange not to hear Jensen as Dean, but the voice actor is really doing best he can to sound like Dean Winchester Season 1 and I think he improving with every episode.
Can’t wait for the complete box, it’s not the real Supernatural but hey diversity is everything these days.
And how many of those “big network shows” made it from real life action show to animation?
Hello Dana,
so I am not the only one who uses the anime during this hellatus. Thanks for telling me that.
And yes I do love it, that our “little show” was thought interesting enough to become an anime (unlike some of those shows that millions watch each week)
I beg to differ. It is “real” Supernatural … in the same way that the prequel comic books are “real” … and in the same way that all the prose fiction novels are “real” Supernatural.
I think it is really cool that the television show is apparently spawning a host of cross-media cultural production … REALLY cool. Whether one likes the variations is a totally subjective thing. But to say that the anime version isn’t “real” is like saying the sixties Batman TV show wasn’t “real” Batman because it was too campy.
Oh come on ChristopherH, you have to understand us girls, that we prefer to watch the “real thing”. Jared and Jensen are just to beautiful and the anime characters (as well as they were drawn) just can’t match those two.
LOL …
Oh trust me … I hear ya! Jensen and Jared are both quite yummy to look at. 😉 I was only “begging to differ” in a constructive way.
About a year ago, I wrote a paper on Batman and discovered that one of the subthreads in cultural criticism is concerned with the role of the reader/viewer in interpretation. I just think that observing the ways cultural product can be expanded, adapted and re-created is very interesting.
It’s funny. I didn’t used to appreciate anime at all, but it has been growing on me. And now that one of my favorite shows is being adapted to the medium, I have another excuse to watch it. 🙂
I think over all are good show i finish all 22 episode in 2 days, and i really enjoy it how the story goes and really love how the way it end hopefully there will be a seasons 2 for it 😆
It was painful to watch the first two episodes english dubbed, lacking emotion and starting way out of order. Im going to try it in japanese and see how it goes, but not a big fan of the animation style they used. Overall, I would never pay to see this crap! Save all yourselves a headache and see the real show, hell alot better.
The anime is now available in DVD and Blueray!
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=supernatural+anime&x=0&y=0
[url]http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=supernatural+anime&x=0&y=0[/url]
I didn’t line the anime around all. To me it being anime anime it should have been way better w/ alot more action. It was more talk than anything. Deans character was all wrong the way he brushes everything off. The live action show is a way better. I think it has potential but they should get new writers and study the show a little bit more.
Update … seven episodes in … the knock-off episodes were OK, but the original episodes are quite good actually.
I love Supernatural. There’s a great post here comparing the TV series to the anime – http://www.mangauk.com/?p=supernatural-versus-supernatural