3rd EP Review: The Reflection — Stan Lee vs. Anime

A collaboration project between “POW! Entertainment” and “Studio Deen” brings Stan Lee’s superhero origin story in to the world of anime. Sort of…

Travis K Bracken
Aug 24, 2017 · 4 min read
You can watch The Reflection on Crunchyroll

I would love to be able to say only good things about this anime. I really would. Like most of my generation I grew up watching or reading Stan Lee’s creations as a kid, and now, that he’s finally gotten into making an anime “for real” (not just licensing characters) I hoped for something great. Especially after hearing he’ll be working with Hiroshi Nagahama (DMC, Mushishi) — an anime director who has not many, but really good productions on his resume. I didn’t get it. Not quite at any rate. The plot — while entertaining, is simple and overdone. The music — unassuming and bland. The animation — limited and quite simple. The overall graphics design and feel of the show are the only thing that truly stand out, and even that — not always in a good way.

Like most superhero shows The Reflection works on a simple premise — 3 years before we meet our heroes an event called (surprise, surprise) the Reflection occurred — a green light and dark mist from an unknown place showed up and enveloped the world. Some people got hit, and wake up with powers. The world at large fears these “Reflected” and so it’s quickly and successfully swept under the rug. For 3 years, when a series of events forces the world to acknowledge the existence of these heroes and villains. At that point we meet our heroes — a curious New York journalist, at least two masked heros (with vastly different psyches) and more.

The overall graphics design and feel of the show are the only thing that truly stand out.

Stan Lee has always had a style of origin story and this one is no different. It’s bland, really, unoriginal and just so unbearably him at first I though I was watching a remake of the X-Men cartoons. We have clearly defined good and bad guys, the general populace that’s unaware and uninterested in the details just as long as “Refs’” stay far away from them, even the heroes can be clearly traced back to Marvel — characters like Iron Man or some X-men are clearly seen in the design and powers of The Reflected.

Now who does the guy on the left remind you of, hm? (image via crunchyroll.com)

The music is another thing, while I never really actively listen for music in a show (unless watching it for a review such as this). I understand it’s there to be in the background, to make sure the scenes you’re looking at have a specific emotional tone to them. It does it’s job. And that’s it — there’s nothing there that makes me want to buy the soundtrack — even though it was produced by Trevor Horn and has scenes in the show that are meant to be treated as a music video to some extent.

The biggest letdown though, is the animation. The general feel and design of the show is — in my opinion — spot on. It has the characteristic of anime way of drawing the characters and backgrounds. Even the heroes have the anime feel they deserve. The heavy, comic book style, edges of the environment and characters help retain the “Marvellian” style of art. It’s truly a well balanced and though out design which gives the show a feel almost as unique as Mononoke had 10 years ago. The first fight of i-Guy in the opening scenes of the series shows the true beauty of a merged Japanese-American style,a fusion of great potential if not the greatest execution.

The show is filled with .gif-like scenes of heroes capes fluttering in the air or a moonlit sky, basically wasting our time.

It falls short however when animation comes into play. Studio Deen has been critiqued for it’s lackluster work before and this show, unfortunately, is part of that theme. There is little full animation, the backgrounds in many moments seem lazy. The show is filled with .gif-like scenes of heroes capes fluttering in the air or a moonlit sky, basically wasting our time. A 2–3 second scene to break the tempo is understandable. 10–30 seconds of that is just filling up time that could be served so much better. Not only that but because of the comic-like style some of the animations have a tendency to get messy and not very visually clear which has an impact on how well you can enjoy the scene itself.

Overall the show deserves a meek 7/10. There’s a lot of wasted potential there — more so in light of the recent acquisition of Stan Lee’ POW! Entertainment. One could expect a bigger budget for the show because of that, especially considering it might be though of as a showcase for potential “western” expansion in to the Japanese market. Alas, we’ll have to last with this and hope another collaboration project gets more funding while retaining that unique feel that The Reflection has shown us can come from mixing Japanese and US styles.

— —

Hi! I’m KCPR! I watch a lot of anime, TV shows and pop-culture. I read just as much. I also play video games, take pictures, talk about things I feel strongly about & am working on my creative writing degree. You can find me on twitch.tv/KCPRTV, here on medium@ Kacper Wojciech or you can also mail me KCPRTV@gmail.com

)
Travis K Bracken

Written by

Polish by passport, Scottish by heart. Nerd through and through. Addicted to books, anime and sugar. Political thinker, creative writer and amateur philosopher.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade