thePopcornExplorer

I feel it's a bit inglorious the way things ended for this TV show, as of the time of writing this review we have full confirmation that no more seasons will be happening, Warrior is officially canceled for good after 3 seasons.

I am aware that TV shows are cancelled all the time mostly I believe for viewership / budget reasons, however it's not common for a critically acclaimed (by both audiences and critics) and a popular show to be shut down for good - and in Warrior's case it is a shame.. I was fully aware when I started to watch that it had already been canceled by HBO but having watched those final episodes I wasn't expecting to be so disappointed about HBO decision.

What is so good about it? Let's start with the obvious, the production value is great, set in the late 1800s the set design, the wardrobe, make up, everything seems authentic adding to a great cinematography, the atmosphere is perfectly set.

Of course the martial arts and fighting sequences are without a doubt some of the best on TV, the stunt coordination and fighting choreography is really well made, it's not clunky, it's believable and it seems a lot of the actors went through the trouble of rigorous training to make things even better!

The cast does an amazing job, most of them are not really famous faces (or they weren't prior to the show) and I can't go without mention that a TV show that reached such heights with most of the actors being Asian or from Asian descendance, its a testament to how the movie and TV industry is changing for the best and allowing for a wider range of people globally to showcase their talent.

It's not without its flaws however, I feel they had some problems that prevented them from being a true landmark in TV, first of all the pace... the early seasons take too long to set the characters and the plot, some plot lines are so stretched, filled with dialogues that don't seem to do much for the narrative, it can be a little frustrating and when they finally show us some intense and dramatic scenes, they fell a bit short and the waiting time until we got them wasn't worth it.

The frustrating part is that they fixed this in the later episodes of the last season, when things finally start to fall apart and become interesting, they get cancelled....

Another major issue, overall the characters lack charisma, I can't help but compare with the Peaky Blinders that did better in both these issues I am raising, at times I felt the players involved were a bit 2 dimensional and not that interesting at the end of the day, and that applies to the protagonist as well.

I feel the writers were a bit lost showcasing us his true motivations and beliefs, very early on his main goal gets obviously discarded so every decision he made from that moment on it seems that he was a spectator of his own life, it's not clear why he wishes to stay, he just keeps being there in San Francisco kicking people around and its not until the last season that we then see another motivation for him that makes kind of sense.

I know that for budget reasons they had to abandon one key character plot line but it was also really poorly handled, its kind of dark, the way her story ended.

But for what is worth, looking at the bigger picture as a production, a martial art TV show and a gang drama there were some really amazing moments, including the riot episode which was peak TV and this last season promised some improvements for the future which unfortunately we won't get.

I would still recommend watching, who knows, maybe another network picks it up..

I was already expecting this anime to be chaotic in its plot and over the top with its characters, so I was actually a bit afraid that there was too much hype and it would be just a ridiculous attempt at humor with some nonsense in the mix, well it has nonsense, but its so entertaining and with such a strong, honest and well written romance story at its core, I really enjoyed the experience.

It's hard to be original with the amount of anime already written these days, so there are several elements that you have seen before in other stories, Dandandan however excels in the beautiful mixture of genres it places in the story, it has comedic moments, emotional and dramatic scenes, a well crafted and believable romance, Sci-Fi as well as horror elements added in the mix - so one thing is certain, there's no lack of originality.

One might argue that at its core the plot was already done before, but definitely not like this, the main goal of the protagonists it is so ridiculous I dare to say I've never seen it done on an anime - yet they manage to turn that ridiculous goal into something that makes sense and it's darker than one might think in the first place.

Its base is for sure the chemistry and romance between the protagonists, it holds everything together as the story progresses and it is a really engaging and well crafted one... Despite the fact that most anime's insist on having young high schoolers depicted rather than older folks but that's a discussion that applies to a whole bunch of other shows.

I really loved Dandandan and I am eagerly waiting to see more - also I can't get enough of that opening!