“Supernatural The Animation” Review and First Episode Recap
Another change of scene. We see an old house with pillars in front of it and yellow tape going from one pillar to the other telling us that this is a crime scene. We moving in closer till we can actually see the writing on the tape: Crime scene. And then the tape gets cut and we look at the detective with Dean and Sam standing behind her. The detective is reaching into her purse and getting some keys out. She unlocks the door and the boys are treated to the view of her backside while she is bending down towards the keyhole. “Uhh. Hmm,” we hear Dean go. We actually get a look of Dean’s face enjoying the view. The detective finally manages to open the door and then she goes “Ouah” Deans looks at her and asks concerned “You Ok?” Now we see them both. She is holding a finger up “Yeah, I just sliced my finger on the door frame.” We see a cut on her finger “Don’t worry. I think I live.” That is the moment when Dean grabs her hand and starts putting something that looks suspiciously like a handkerchief around her finger. (when for Chuck’s sake have we ever seen Dean carry a hanky? Just seems so un-Deanlike). After he is done he goes “That should do the trick.” “Thank you marshal” “All in the line of duty.” Now it seems like we are in the house looking outside through the open door and we see the detective standing there in the door frame and Dean bending down slightly towards her putting his hand on the door frame. “Since I just saved your life I was thinking maybe we could go out for a few drinks tonight.” View is changed again so that we can see the faces of both boys while Sam puts his fist towards his mouth and seems to clear his throat. That action gets Dean to suddenly prop himself up again. Finally they start walking into the house. In the light coming in through the open door we see blood all over the floor. Sam walks by a chair lying on the floor and there is blood everywhere. Dean goes “Oh my god.” “Yeah” the detective replies. “What kind of a rage does this to a person?” Dean wants to know. Sam is already at the window whipping his finger across the window sill. Dean walks up to him and asks “Got something over here?” Sam smells his finger. Then he crosses his arms in front of him “Not really.” We look at them from the back now. “But something doesn’t feel right. I thought it might have been a spirit but it didn’t leave any signs, no ozone odors, nothing.” Dean walks away again and Sam bends down to take a closer look at the window sill. Dean walks into another room and sees how the detective crouches down to look at a picture. We see that she has teary eyes and then she starts to sob. Dean who stands a few steps behind her inquires, “Hey, you alright?” She stands up again wipes her face “Yeah I am fine.” She turns towards Dean. “Though did you guys find anything?” He answers while bending down to take a look at the picture she was looking at “No, struck out – hmm?” Finally we get a look at the picture just to find out that it is the picture that got covered with blood in the opening sequence and the only person we are still able to recognize is the detective. “The two of you were friends?” “Yes we were. Amanda and I had been friends for a very long time.” “I had no idea I am sorry.” “It’s ok. There is no way you could have known. It’s nice of you to be concerned.” “That’s me. Mr. Nice Guy. It’s a weakness of mine.” During Dean’s last words our view changes back to Sam. We are looking from the outside of the house onto him, watching how he is trying to open the window which seems to be stuck. But finally he manages it. He looks outside and down to the ground. We get to see what he sees. Seems like we are on the second floor which is strange since we never moved up some stairs after entering in the house and at the beginning of this scene we saw that the house is not standing on a hill. Anyways when Sam looks down he sees a trail of blood running down the side of the house right into a manhole. He is extremely surprised and then we hear a door slam.
Change of scene once more. We are outside the house. And we hear Dean, “Hey wait up. Why did you just take off like that?” “Check this out” “Whow! What the hell?” Here we get to see through Dean’s eyes. His gaze follows the trail of blood down the house and Sam goes, “If Zach did this how could he leave a trail of the vic’s blood like this?” By now Dean’s gaze reached the manhole. There is steam coming out of it, giving us the impression that something smelly is down there.
Next change of scene. We are in the sewer now. The boys wade through ankle deep water. “Well this is reassuring.” Sam remarks looking down at his gun. “This bullets are rock salt.” “Real bullets won’t do us any good. The guy is a spirit.” Dean explains while we follow the light of his flash light going along the walls and by a whole in the wall. Once the light left the whole in the wall we see an eye looking through it. “Looks like we have to do this the hard way.” Dean keeps going. And then we get a look onto the boys. First from the ceiling and then from the front while they keep wading through the water with guns in hand ready to shoot. Suddenly there is a noise behind them. Alarmed they turn around. Seems like we are a few steps away from them on our right side is a wooden pole and something is crumpling down from it. They boys both shine their flash lights towards that pole. The gaze moves upward and we see a rat running up that pole. Now we get a look at Sam how he relaxes once he realizes that it was only a rat and Dean remarks “I almost blasted that thing.” This scene was stressing enough for Dean to actually have a sweat drop on his cheek (Can you believe this? Our Dean never shows any signs of sweating). And then, like out of nowhere there appears a face next to Dean’s from behind him. And Sam yells “Dean behind you!” The guy grabs Dean’s flash light and somehow Sam’s flash light turns off. The dude blinds Dean so he can’t see anything. Dean tries to grab the guy behind him but he is gone. And then we see how the strange person is hitting him with something hard on his shoulder. Dean starts to fall and in his fall he takes Sam down with him. But Sam is a fast mover and up on his feet really fast and when he stands up again he has his now working flash light in his left hand and his gun in his right one. He shines his light on the guy who is bent over just in time to see him raise his head. “Zach!” he yells in recognition. And then Zach runs by him extremely fast. Sam is so surprised he can only turn around to check if he can find out where Zach went to. Once he points his flashlight towards the ceiling he discovers Zach there. And then Zach jumps him. Next thing we see is Sam lying on the ground eyes closed sweat dripping down his left cheek bone he opens his eyes and immediately looks up and sees the cover of a manhole with what seems like moon light shining through. While Sam is trying to get up we hear foot steps coming towards him and Dean’s voice saying “Waky, waky sunshine.” Sam still on the floor turns to his left and sees a smiling Dean sitting next to him. “Dean! What is this? Where are we?” and while we hear this the view changes so we can see a Sam on his knees with his hands tied behind his back kneeling in a little hole in the ground while Dean is sitting on the ground reaching down with his left hand to touch Sam’s head. “No need to panic Sammy boy.” Sam is wiggling in order to get that hand off his head. “What, who are you?” he looks at Dean and sees how he puts his right fist to his forehead. Suddenly Sam sees the images of the previous fight between Dean and Zach again in his mind and then he exclaims “You’re not Dean! Who are you?” “What? Dean of course!” “Nice try! Dean hurt his shoulder. What did you do with him?” “I don’t think you want to know.” Now Sam is really alarmed. “Answer me! What did you do with Dean?” “Well that hurts little bro being rejected by your own brother. Why would you say these things?” Suddenly Sam sees these images of a dark hooded man with beaming yellow eyes bending over him looking down at him. “You been having a hard time lately, haven’t you?” Dean stands up. “Almost as hard as what I been through.” “What?” “You’re not the only one who’s been through hell. Dean has … I mean I have too. You know.” “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” “Hey I know what you are thinking. Why the hell are we on the road all the time? Well, I got to tell you. I resent the fact that you have the easy life. You know what I have gone through while you were partying at college? I’ve been with Dad fighting these creatures every freaking day, ghosts, vampires. And then one day the old man decides to disappear just like that.” “What is that?” “I feel betrayed by the one guy I truly believed in. And now everyone calls me a freak. I can’t even make friends anymore. You’re getting all the fun. But what the hell. Right?” Now Dean looks up. “I’m finally getting what I’ve been waiting for for a long time.” “Look I …” Sam turns to look at him again. “What are you talking about?” “Can’t answer that little bro. I am going to show her a good time.” And with that Dean starts walking away. “Stop!… Stop! Wait!” Finally Sam is trying to free his tied up hands while making some noises like he is straining real hard doing that. In this picture we see that he is actually tied to a wall somehow while there seems to be a hole below him. Now we get a look at a tied up Dean who seemingly unconscious, head hanging down. A little rock falls on his head. He moans and raises his head. Quickly he has a surprised look on his face when he looks down. Now Sam is yelling down into the hole below him. “Who’s there?” Dean looks up. “Is that you Sam?” “Dean? I hope you can tell me what the hell is going on.” “Yeah right!” Dean remarks. “Looks like that thing is a shape shifter. Right now he looks just like you,” Sam says. “That’s great.” “He is over to Catherine’s right now.” “If I could just loosen these ropes a bit.” And then Dean starts to wiggle some, straining hard while doing that. We see that he is also tied to a wall somehow. “What do you thing the spirit is after?” he is inquiring. “No that’s no spirit. It has the ability to see our thoughts.” Finally Dean manages to loosen the ropes just enough for him to be able to reach into his pocket in order to pull out his zippo. He lights it and starts burning the ropes. “Have you ever heard of a shape shifter that can do that?” Sam wants to know. “I am really not sure. Right now I just have to concentrate to get these ropes off so we can get the hell out of here.” We watch how Dean raises his hand in agony. “Only a few more seconds and we should be out of here.” He presses through his clenched teeth in pain.
Now follows a quick change of scenes. We see Dean’s face covered in a yellowish light his cheek blows up like a bubble gum. And then there are bubbles coming out all over his undressed very muscular upper body. We hear him moan in pain. By now he looks like a giant pimpled balloon on skinny legs. Suddenly it looks like someone pricked wholes in that balloon. Air seems to be coming out of various places of Dean’s body. Afterwards his upper body is hanging just loosely down like he has no strength no more to stand straight. And then we see his chest. It looks like the chest of a body builder on steroids. Way to many muscles to my taste. And we see like things are moving under his skin 4 from the right and 4 from the left towards the middle. Once they reach each other they rip open the skin and we get to see some ugly green worms. They are pulling his skin off until there is only a skeleton left in a blazing white light. By now we all know that that wasn’t Dean but the shape shifter. And we are changing back to Dean and his agony while burning the ropes. Finally the ropes are coming loose. He is leaning forward in order to tear them apart. But he must have forgotten that he was kind of hanging in the air and he falls down. In the last second he is able to grab the end of the rope. “Oh come on” he remarks while looking down. “Good work,” Sam cheers him on from the top. And while Dean is swinging on the rope in order to reach a safe place he announces, “Now I know what Tarzan is going through.” (This is the closest thing to a pop culture references I found.) Finally he reaches the wall and his able to climb upwards.
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