In Which Mr. Bones Learns While Chocobos Never Change, Childhood Nostalgia is a Cruel Mistress.

Another week passes in paradise and I, Mr. Bones, bring to you my thoughts on Final Fantasy: Unlimited. Raidrinn, being my cohort, humbly requested my thoughts on this foray into distilling the Final Fantasy series heart and soul into a 26 episode anime. The series has all the trappings of the classic Final Fantasy story. The series opens to a married couple who are world renown researchers in what one can only assume is some sort of quantum physics based field watching an emerging battle between two colossal titans taking place in the ocean bay outside their hometown, and just like clockwork the navy intervenes and is cut down, This mess of an opening ends with the standard dueling monster mega blast and cuts to the opening credits.

The twins, that's what I am going to refer to them as, are looking for their parents. The absentee guardians went to this wonderful alternate dimension known colloquially as "Wonderland". They apparently wrote a book on the subject. Why this even matters I have no clue. There is their chaperon in orange, a cute 20-something woman. She just kind of shows up on the "doom train" from our world to Wonderland. This trio of non-descript character rejects are the main cast of this abomination.

The premise of this show is formulaic at best, The group journeys a little farther and a meets a problem, dark and brooding stranger with big phallic guns shows up out of the fog of war, and proceeds to awaken his BFG of ultimate Barbra Streisand destruction. He lovingly refers to it as the "Magun", I believe it might be short for MAGIC GUN. Why he doesn't just call it the magic gun, I have no idea, but hey, Japan. This mutha sucka uses concentrated summoner energy, which apparently with three round combos summons different god-like monsters to do battle with non-descript villain generals. The question I keep asking myself is where does he get the bullets from? who makes them, and how? Well, I never did find out, maybe it is in one of those numerous light novels that came out after trying to explain the plot that never existed. NO SERIOUSLY!  I AINT MAGUNIN DIS SHIT UP! The show was so badly mangled in production, they went back and wrote multiple novels and radio dramas trying to fill in the lobotomized holes in the story.

I think it should be said that when the show first came out in 2005, I actually sat through the whole series. I tried to again, I could not even make it through disc 2 of 5 in the set. The show is so horribly generic, that I honestly could not stomach it again. The shows presentation is a product of adept marketing is flawless, the final product however is a horrible failure. This is manifest in the American packaging of the dvds. The package art is snappy and bright, I picked it up on a whim just because of the epicness of the character profiles on the box. The presentation of both music and art is very well done. This show is a textbook case of big budget production lacking any heart.

So final decision is in, this is a netflix stream at best, a pass at it's worst. Unless you are a hardcore Final Fantasy fanboy don't even waste your time and energy on this. I know I wont be any longer.
With that I have said as much as I can about Final Fantasy Unlimited. Join me next week for another review of Mr. Bones Anime Pile.

This is Mr. Bones wishing you all the best, and if I don't see you, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and good night...