Witch Hunter Robin - That 2000's Art Style 

While making this my external hard drive broke. It's not a big deal but I lost alot footage and had to rip them from the internet in order to finish this before Halloween. So sorry about the little fluctuation in quality.

Watching this show really makes me miss the early 2000s

I really don't mind slow story pace, but I wish there's more character development. I don't even know any details about Karasuma aside from her psychometry skills. She just comes in the office every morning.

I'm actually hooked to this anime bec. of its color pallet and overall animation and real suit the plot of Witch Hunter Robin.. i believe that we really doesn't see this kind of animation nowadays.. i feel like its unique on its time.. kinda give me similar vibes of Cowboy Bebop--reminds me..

The transitory period was either this, or neon colours everywhere, making your eyes bleed AND vomit. This is much more tolerable. Also, nice to bump into someone who likes Ergo Proxy. Although I would say THAT show was more straightforward than philosophical, since a good half of its philosophy has nothing to do with the plot, which is clear (at the end anyway).

Witch Hunter Robin is SEVERELY underrated. Happy to see a video delving into it.

Honestly i picked this show up souley based on its art direction. i usually dont like the early 2000s anime style but Witch Hunter Robin looks great. i love the semi relastic faces. theyre not overly realistic to the point of being ugly (like western comics) but theyre not to cartoony either, theyre just right; like ergo proxy. i also really like Robins design. Her outfit isnt unnecessarily sexualized in any way and it looks practical / functional. She looks cute and cool at the same time, so once again a nice balance.

About the voice acting: everyone feels organic except Robin. Robin sounds like a Silent Hill character. And I dig it.

This anime captured my imagination when I was younger precisely because of its style; I've always liked dark, moody earnestness (I suppose what would be called "edgy"), but there was such a seeming lack of that in anime, so shows like this, Ergo Proxy, Big O, etc. were almost formative. I crave them even more now because of the increased homogenization. Anyway, I saw it very recently after buying the DVDs. Style is great, especially the music, but it's definitely undone by the slow pace and lack of focus. The show is too interested in red herrings and vague lore, making it very hard to follow. Some trimming and heightened propulsion would make the difference.

When WHR wants to do things right, it does it *very* right with its story telling, theming and set pieces. When it doesn't, it's just as slow as any other crime drama. I remember one scene where Robin was looking at Amon through a lens of her glasses held at arms length, and gently tilting them towards him and back while conversing. I love that. She wants to be close to him, but he keeps her at a distance, and the glasses warping his image to look closer or further based on how she tilted them *showed* that, it didn't tell it. We all kind of knew how Robin felt, but little expositional moments like that are genius, especially in hindsight. I wish it got a reboot, or a manga, or an OVA, or a game, or *something*, but I know that will never happen. I'll have to be happy with rewatching it on Funimation for now.

I'm still obsessed with Robin from 2006 and I think of her daily rent free in my mind Canada Valley 2023.

This show gets a lot of flak but true story I graduated in 2006 and a few years before I was at a friends house and watched this for the first time on Adult Swim and was just blown away. It was the first real adult anime I had ever seen and its what started my branching out into different genres and subjects. For this reason alone it will always have a place in my heart no matter what anyone says

i loved this style so so so much. i don't really have an "era" i dislike, but the look anime had in the 2000's is my favorite.

I know this is an old review but I'm so happy to see more people talk about this underrated anime. I still remember when it first came out on Adult Swim back in 2004 and while I was intrigued by it because of the art style, I was just not in the right headspace (or maturity) to truly appreciate the themes which made 14 year old me think the anime was boring. But when I re-watched it years later, as a young adult, I really grew to appreciate it the themes a lot, much to the point where I would put Witch Hunter Robin in my personal top 10 favorite anime list. I can admit that it's not ground-breaking and it's not surprising why it fell by the wayside back during it's original run but yet to me, I can't help but love it and it's honestly a comfort show for me. The art style is just beautiful but I'm bias because I love darker styles and WHR struck a nice middle-ground. It's dark but it's not depressing and bleak, the characters are drawn distinctive but not too overly detailed (and this goes for their personalities as they don't fall into generic cliches with how they act), and of course the great music that helped enhance the atmosphere. I also didn't mind the slow to start story. I'll admit that the story is not noteworthy, it's not the worst but it's nothing really to write home about neither but I personally didn't mind that because the atmosphere and characters were that intriguing to me and thankfully the series was not all that long neither so that helped as well. I think you calling this show essentially a time capsule of early 2000s is fair and I can see that for sure. And I will admit, I can be a bit nostalgic for it because seeing where the standard anime style is today with bright saturated colors and generic face drawings (with some exceptions of course), it makes me appreciate the 2000s style even more with how varied things were as experimentation was still happening during this time before studios learned what worked and didn't work. Overall I love WHR and it's nice to see others who appreciate it even if it wasn't groundbreaking.

I'm a big fan of WHR precisely because of the show shifting gears at the halfway-mark. I blame that switch on Evangelion, which had earlier introduced the Hidden Agenda Plot Twist; in this case, Robin started as a hunter and became the hunted. The characters are all distinct, including lesser characters like the witch Methuselah, and even the comparison of Michelangelo's "Pieta" to Goya's "Saturn Devouring His Child" sets up the second half twist. And the final two episodes--where the Hidden Agenda is revealed--is predictable but still gut-wrenching. That plus the witches living in Kowloon-like rundown parts of the city is very effective. This is a series for those who take their anime as seriously as the people who made the series.

It has a very unique vibe to it that I really haven't seen in any other anime since. Like it has that supernatural, urban fantasy tone no different from other stories at the time (Boogiepop, Tsukihime) without the copious amounts of gore that usually come with it as well as this gothic imagery. Murase Shukou I'd always say, as a director, is a master at building tone and atmosphere; this, Ergo Proxy, and the movie Genocidal Organ do a great job at that. I do ultimately agree it probably hasn't aged very well as I think it's not as dense as other similar stories (Murase himself said that his goal with Ergo Proxy was to add more to it since he felt he couldn't do as much with WHR due to different focus at the time), but it's still a great tone piece and a nostalgic series for me.

I just want more shows with that feel. This, The Big O, and Hellsing (2001) all have this sort of dark, mysterious, gothic feel to them that nothing else really captures.

I like your conversation here about your overview of the technical/artistic style of Witch Hunter. Thanks for sharing 👌

Before there was Haruhi Suzumiya, Fate Deen Night, Shakugan no Shana, Zero no Tsukaima, there was Inuyasha and Witch Hunter Robin. I clearly remember watching this on TV back in secondary school and I was blown away by it. This and Jin Roh Wolf Brigade.

music and atmosphere was great. I dont remember it to well now, but I really liked it when I was younger, watching it weekly on television at the time.

Patience is a virtue, so to speak.

I think you're searching for the term grunge - in modern day "edgy" is universally a negative, which is a shame, because so many deep, complex, interesting shows get written off as "edgy" because people simply prefer joyous worlds with colorful palettes in their video games and anime. Anime in the early 2000s was not afraid to explore making a very philosophical, serious story (as you pointed out about ergo proxy) even if they bordered on boring at times. I think this contrast can be perfectly seen in FMA2003 vs. FMA:B, the latter seeks to provide fulfilment and action to the audience whereas the first is a very real examination about the cruel, and unclear costs life sometimes takes from people.

good to see you again!

I loved Witch Hunter Robin. But you're right, it's slow. I loved the music and the feel, but found myself hungry for more action. And don't feel bad about missing it. It was on Adult Swim for like a month and then it was gone. I'm surprised I caught it.

To this day this show will always be one of my fav anime of all time lol

First DVD set I ever ordered online, because it wasn't available anywhere locally.

Apparently, Kari Wahlgren has said that Robin is one of her favourite roles.

Thank you for making this. I've always loved this and Ergo Proxy and when I try to show it to my friends they all complain about how they're boring af 🤣 I honestly can't deny it. I didn't know they were made by the same director but that makes so much sense now. I'm going to see if he made any other anime in this visual style. It really speaks to me for some reason.

I agree with you. When I was a teen, I missed the ending of the anime because there were other and better anime on different channels. Since then, I've tried to rewatch WHR 2 times and everytime I give up half way through because nothing much happens and I feel bored. Meanwhile, I rewatch Ergo Proxy every year because it's literally one of my favorite anime of all times. My conclusion: I think some anime look great when we're young because our mind is just built differently but they actually aren't that great, and most (too many) people just live with the nostalgia instead of questioning themselves. That's also the reason why the critics of adaptations of anime/anime movies are so bad: people expect to feel how they felt when they saw the original work when they were kids, which is literally impossible because of our damn adult brains. **cough** Sorry, I got a bit off topic there. Lol All this to say that people should question themselves instead of proclaiming that something they saw during their childhood is "amazing". I'm not trying to say that WHR is bad, it's obviously not, but it's not amazing for sure and because of that it's even quite overrated. I'll very soon try a third (and probably the last) time though. I hope this time, I'll FINALLY see how it ends. (I suddenly wonder if maybe I've actually seen the ending when I was younger but totally forgot about it... 🤔 I've suddenly a foreboding. I'll see ! 😂)

Witch Hunter Robin is basically 'What if GITS:SAC but worse, and with witches!', which is fine because GITS:SAC is amazing and anything that's like it is also good.

I really miss the "realism" style we got with things like Satoshi Kon's work and Monster. It's so rare.

It is a classic Anime : not only is the art style excellent and moody but the scripts and plot is brilliant, the characters are all engaging and there are so many unexpected twists and turns it really keeps the viewer on edge - if you like this I also recommend Ergo Proxy as another Anime Classic for those inclined to the more mature and restrained stories - without these, Death Note might have been rejected but Shogun Jump knew that the classics and other smart series such as FMA Brotherhood have a solid following - Anime is for all, something for everyone !

I never knew this aired in adult swim considering that I did watch ghost in the shell a lot, I actually knew about this show because the local library was having anime on dvd to check out and we were all over this💙

bruh this my favorite anime.

Actually it capture realism which Ive really like

Sunrise animes always have this kind of style. House of 5 leaves use more bright colours for be on Edo era. But the style of animation is similar. This also remind me that Gonzo era like Speed Grapher. Or the hand draw animation of Last Exile. Or that magic shoujo anime Princess Tuty the palette of colours special dark

I hate it when people say today's anime is superior because it's done with computers and is therefore better. Like, I'm looking at animation errors, close-ups on bad CGI and utterly boring scenes banking on nostalgia in Sailor Moon Crystal and see nothing but praise for it "improving" on the original series. It might not look as "pretty" but at least it had some damn life.

Though not the SOLE reason, I was just commenting on another WHR video about the transition to cgi and I think maybe that's also why so many shows had this aesthetic and why more introspective edgy shows were made. The exposition cuts down on the action and animation intensive scenes, making it easier to try and learn and perfect the technique. On the other hand, a lot of us were edgelords back then. I feel that was part of the end of the 90's and the oldest millennials way of bridging that gap between the gen x nihilistic cyberpunk aesthetic of the decade and the more upbeat decade that followed. If memory serves me right, there may have also been some sort of economic depression not so long before or around this time for Japan, because there were a lot of shows that had a bit of a more... I don't know how to describe it.. it wasn't "poor" but it was more of a simpler lifestyle and some characters dealt with economic hardship or middle class struggles a bit more.... And then there was also niea under seven. And texhnolyze was just depressingly broke. Lain's parents getter her a computer echoed a bit of financial burden as well, and boogiepop phantom had it's abandoned amusement park when the financing fell through for it. Haibane renmei and even last exile reflected this weird aspect of financial struggle a bit too. In the 80's and 90's anime excess might have been more commonly portrayed or you might see class warfare come about a little bit, but this period that WHR came out in... Characters were just broke. Idk... This may be more along the subject matter for a 3 hour long hazel video rambling about older anime.

I really miss this art style and these sort of character designs, Witch hunter Robin, Ergo Proxy ect. Now days so much stuff has really bland and almost lazy character designs.

Animation nowadays is technically better but the soul has been lost from the 00s and 90s. Same with music.

Brings up dharma, show a scene from drive this guy... this guy I get this vibe.

I like the 2000s animation better than most of today's.

I think part of why Robin is so weirdly voiced is because she's supposed to be still getting used to speaking Japanese and because it's a dub and we hear them speaking English it's not very obvious outside of the rare moments she'd use the wrong expression or word.

I don't think this anime's issue is that it's slow but that it's really shallow and doesn't follow the "show don't tell" rule. That's coming from someone whose favorite movie is Tenshi no Tamago, the epitome of slowness.

I personally loved the settings look ,the near future gothic Castle look to the building matched with the japanese quaint urber homes really just would sit right also earth colors people it's how you make the bright colors pop. Anime in the 2010s sucked and the 2020s make me embarrassed to even associate with the word anime. Say what ever you want about smooth animation and as for story's and characters well the story's are rehashed or have less vision behind the creative direction. Also the pedophilia is on a 11 now and it's where I really am distancing myself now. I could handle the lewdness but the form of anime that's the majority now is a sign there's way to much arrested development at the helm and foot of the anime industry. Some like to say that the style was to appeal to a western audience with the more mature look to things but it's obvious from the way things are there's a large perversion about it all. My point being earth tones and subtle style are not flat it's just not over stimulating like a Crayola crack pipe the shit people watch now.

This one is slow... damn did you watch Monster. :D

this was an exciting google result but the narration ruins it for me. you've got a voice for photography

You know for some reason I find that CGI from the 00's actually normally holds up better than modern CGI, at least when it comes to using it for background art. Maybe this is something to do with context, Just the knowledge that this was something more ambitious in the 00's. But I also think there is a standard qualitative difference. Something about anime background art has really gone to shit in the last decade. And it's baffling because backgrounds are one of the most important factors of a show. Even if there's lots of good animation going on if the background looks like shit, the show works like shit.