Master Keaton - Excavation (Vol. 1)

I've always wanted the whole series and this was just the first step

Excellent beginning to the anime of an understated hero. Starts with the first adventure of the manga, but doesn't follow the manga's order. Still an quiet, enjoyable adventure of a hero that saves the day with smarts and skills.

This is a very engaging and accessible anime drama. The plot device is great: an ex-S.A.S. instructor and part time professor, Keaton travels the globe and gets involved in adventures while working as an investigator for LLoyds of London. No giant robots or super-powered martial artists are in this series but there is alot of realistic action. The animation is not "Macross Plus" or "Spirited Away" quality but it is very good. Keaton's understated character should appeal to anime fans and will probably create some new ones.

In addition to the well focused comments in the editorial description, it will be useful to say that "Master Keaton" involved some very important names on the japanese anime and manga industry that helped it become a blockbuster in his native country. First of all, the original manga author is Mr. Naoki Urasawa, well-known for his previous stories ("Yawara!", which was the base for a very successful 123-episode judo anime; "Happy", about tennis; and "Pineapple Army", a war manga). He won the very prestigious Osamu Tezuka manga award for his disturbing but superb "Monster". For "Master Keaton", he teamed with writer Hokusei Katsushika and published 12 volumes about Taichi Keaton's adventures all over the world.In second place, the animation production house was Mad House, one of those rare anime studios that are not to blame for any anime that came out from their hands ("Trigun", "Card Captor Sakura", "Perfect Blue", "Millenium Actress", "Metropolis", "Pet Shop of Horrors", and a very large etcetera). "Master Keaton" was sure a very "outsider" project for anime. Its hero is not a teen, but a rather mature man reaching his forties. Also, he is surely not a "bishounen" (a term used in manga and anime for "beautiful boys"). The animation doesn't include remarkable effects, and though there are many action sequences (remember, Keaton is a retired SAS trainer), those do not involve espectacular explosions, frantic car chases or anything you may call "eye-popping" by modern standards. We're definitely in front of an adult-oriented series, which focuses greatly in each episode's story, bringing always a little human drama. Animation is just standard, and emphasis is obvious more on backgrounds than on characters (a lot of them is old people, maybe 50 or more, so it would be not appealing to younger viewers).Besides this "commercial shortcomings", we are in front of a true gem of anime, one that surely won't come out again for a very long time. One detail more: in Japan, the TV series ran for 24 episodes, but demands from followers convinced the producers to make 15 more episodes that were included in the video edition as never-before-seen extras. Let's thank Mad House for taking such a risky project and ending it succesfully. The same for Pioneer USA, which has taken a similar risk and has started with a DVD edition that is up to their well-known standards. And is affordable, too: the original japanese release are up to $... for each one of 13 volumes (LD or region-2 DVD, with just 3 episodes on each one). So, this is a very great opportunity for occidental viewers to take a look at some of those rare masterpieces that television anime has produced.