OP Sequence

OP: 「祈り ~You Raise Me Up」 (Inori ~You Raise Me Up) by Lena Park
Watch the OP! Mirror 1, Mirror 2

Summary:

One bloody night on the sky continent of Neo Verona, Montague kills Capulet and the rest of the Capulet family. Capulet’s daughter Juliet witnesses the death of her father and is led away by Cordelia, but the two girls are captured and almost killed. Fortunately, they are saved by a group of loyal knights and are taken away on flying-horseback. Fourteen years later, the Montague family and its men are still searching for the remaining Capulet daughter. They’ve tied up one particular girl in the middle of a crowd, but then a man dressed in red interrupts the soldiers. The people recognize this man as the Red Whirlwind, and he quickly gets to work freeing the girl and beating up the leader of the soldiers. The Red Whirlwind then makes his escape and happens to recognize Cordelia buying something from a street vendor, so he pulls her along in the getaway. The two make their way through the alleys and up to a bridge, but they get cornered on a broken path.

When the fragile ground gives away, the Red Whirlwind suddenly finds himself falling into the abyss below. Luckily, a boy named Romeo had seen what was going on and now flies in on top of his horse to save the Red Whirlwind. His friend Benvolio saves Cordelia, and the two land their horses at a safe spot far away from where they left the soldiers. Without even a word of thanks, the Red Whirlwind starts walking away, so Romeo tries to stop him. Although the Red Whirlwind chides Romeo for acting important, he does end up thanking Romeo. In truth, the identity of the Red Whirlwind is a boy named Odin, and he returns home to a theater with Cordelia. As he starts to change out of his clothes, Odin’s mind dwells a little on Romeo. It seems that Odin doesn’t remember his past very well, though he does recall being saved in a similar manner a long time ago. Cordelia says that he will understand everything when he turns 16 tomorrow, and she takes off Odin’s wig to reveal a head full of long hair. In fact, Odin is actually a girl – Juliet.

Meanwhile, Romeo returns to his father, and after getting lectured, Romeo gets paid a visit by Hermione. His father wants him to dance with her tonight at the Rose Ball, but when Romeo touches her hand, he’s reminded of the Red Whirlwind. As he’s getting dressed later, Romeo admits to Benvolio that Hermione is pretty, but he feels no love towards her. He then asks his friend about love, and Benvolio answers that it’s feeling that it’s okay to die with a certain person. Back at the theater, Juliet is also thinking about love, and she asks William the theater owner about it. William explains that love is something you don’t mind risking your life for. Juliet then checks in with the actress Emilia and finds out about the Rose Ball because Emilia wants her to come too. Letting down her hair, Juliet gets in a dress reluctantly, but after Emilia goes to get a hat, Juliet happily puts on makeup and twirls around a few times. A noble then arrives to pick Emilia up for the ball, but he accidentally takes Juliet instead, leaving the real Emilia behind.

Arriving at estate where the Rose Ball is being held, Juliet recognizes the architecture and has a brief flashback of her childhood. Seeing Montague on top of the stairs in front of her, Juliet drops her rose and runs outside. She stops at a fountain in which there are petals and flowers floating around. As she picks one up and smells it, a male voice behind her asks her if she’s okay. Juliet turns around and is shocked to see the boy who had saved her earlier: Romeo.

ED Sequence

ED: 「サイクロン」 (Cyclone) by 12012
Watch the ED!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2
I find it rare these days that I like both an opening and ending song, but that’s exactly the case here. Lena Park sings a beautiful ballad to start the show (which, as many people have pointed out, is an internationally popular song that’s taken on many different forms), while the band 12012 does a high-energy rock ending.

I got goosebumps watching this because it was so good. Forget about knowing the classic Romeo and Juliet story because aside from the character names and the basic premise, this is completely different – and I’m loving it. Music and animation were superb, and the action sequences in the first half of the episode were awesome. Heck, I was hooked after the first two minutes when the Capulets died to Montague. I’m sure that it’ll end tragically, but the question is where GONZO will take the story in getting to that ending. At the very least, all signs point to Juliet getting plenty of action screentime since she seems to be quite well trained martially. In any case, I think this one’s definitely a keeper, and I’m almost positive I’ll be blogging it.

112 Comments

  1. Hmmm, 12012 is doing the ending theme? That’s interesting, I didn’t even know that they were still around anymore. I wasn’t a big fan of theirs, but hopefully I’ll enjoy it.

    Getting ready to watch this soon, so I’m looking forward to it after hearing what you said.

    Likkun
  2. Gonzo isn’t THE MAN, it’s just an animation production company like Sunrise. The only thing I ever worry about with Gonzo is whether the animation will keep up. For example, Red Garden was wonderful, but didn’t have a good enough budget for most of the series to support it.

    flou
  3. go off to download the raw immediately!
    I’ve always had hopes for this series, GONZO or not, if they manage to do it well then I have no worries :D.
    Besides, just like what I said to many people, Gonzo had adapted a classics like The Count of Monte Cristo so well, they ‘ll definitely have more experience this time

    Fuuka
  4. That’s looks so Hot for spring!:)Love it already.But I don’t want said this but I hope it’s not going to be a sad ending, I hope not.Bye got to go watch it.

    HoneyBabyBear97
  5. Well, it definitely looks pretty.

    Now, the question is will GONZO deliver on the story? Well, it is based (loosely) off of William Shakespeare’s play. And for every half-a-dozen bad series they make, GONZO does turn out a good one once in a while…

    Guess I’ll have to watch.

    nowhere man
  6. I don’t get how Juliet can hide that much hair under a wig. Also I’m not sure how the actual William Shakespeare would approve of how he’s portrayed in the show. Still my interest in the show has indeed risen

    mikemil828
  7. This is weird. I was expecting this to be a little tragedic since its loosely based on the original Romeo and Juliet but….this looks like a typical romance anime to me! The way it started out and all……I was hoping this anime won’t turn out to be extremely tragic though.

    dward
  8. This looks awesome! o.o hope when the “tragic” part comes it will be really good, coz the “tragic” part in the shakespeare one? didn’t move me at all ehehe. i was like meh they died… yawn… -.-” and AWSOME OP

    Furuba
  9. //if this is somewhat the same as in the books then i won’t watch this but it’s probably the first animated version of it so ppl might want to watch it //

    Lord and Lady Capulet die in the first 2 minutes of the show, ‘somewhat the same’ it isn’t

    mikemil828
  10. Chris: I have the same problem – 100% on a Athlon 64 3200+ for a friggin XVID at 1024×576? You gotta be kidding me. Especially considering that the system never had any problems before (and I always chose HDTV and h264 encodes when available)…

    Gloranor
  11. Ooo, I’m excited about this as it looks really great. There’s also a pair of JDramas this season based on Romeo and Juliet and King Lear, but taking place in present day. I’m looking forward to those too.

    AngelMercury
  12. it might also turn out that there is not much tragedy for the pair in this series? looks like it. neways, suteki! is this another GONZO? i’m mixing it in my head, dam

    forpy
  13. well, even if it’s not the team that did gankutsuou, i think it’s fair that gonzo has directed well above average animes like last exile, so i have no worries on the stories

    random bystander
  14. The opening made me feel nostalgic T___T I absolutely loved listening to that song on the radio after a bad day. Must…download…full version…when it comes out!

    Gah, I’ve been looking forward to this for a very long time now. And, since it sounds amazing just from the description, I’ll be sure to watch it >3 Now, where’s them subs…

    Kanki
  15. You know, I did a quick Wiki search for the characters based on what Shakespeare play they were taken from and uh…Show Spoiler ▼

    mangaka-chan
  16. Reading ur review, looks like it definitely will not disappoint me. Oh God, I’ve listen to that Lena Park song many times at the official site & I like it more & more everytime I listen to it. It makes me almost cry. By watching the op sequence(In the process of downloading), I think I must love it more. Thank you for uploading it!^^

    Kaede
  17. Thanks a lot Omni 🙂
    (I had suspected the framrate, but then discovered that my Touka Gettan raw had the same… at least the pins state that its a DivX 5 960×540 119.88fps, rechecked with Zoomplayer just now and it says listed fps is 30fps, actual is around 24… I guess once again encoding > me XD)

    Anyways, have to agree with the others: The Op music is very beautiful, and the ed is nice as well.
    All in all, have to say a very good season for music for me so far: StrikerS op, Claymore OP&ED, El Cazador de la Bruja Insert (though Op&Ed are nice as well, not on this level), Toukan Gettan Op&Ed.
    And Wellber preop (I suspect we’ll get the real Op next ep) is beautifully sad as well.

    Gloranor
  18. I’m very touched after watching the first episode, nice animation, nice musics, and a possible great storyline ^_^ It almost made me have teary eyes during the end part of the episode, the b/g music used was totally superb.

    TTT
  19. hmmm, i wonder how closely this will follow with Shakespeare’s play? Cuz i’m pretty sure in Shakespeare’s play, Juliet’s family nvr died, and it was Romeo who heard of the banquet/ball, and decided to attend, not the other way around~
    Still, very interesting thou~
    haha
    I hope this’ll get subbed soon~

    Kocopo
  20. Man, I made a mistake with my previous comment, it was supposed to go in Darker that Black 🙁

    I was actually looking foward for this anime since you mentioned it Omni, although everybody kwows how it will end 🙁 It’s actully fascinating to see an anime version of Romeo & Juliet 🙂

    Ransom
  21. this and darker than black is keeping me very happy this season ^^

    but oh my GOD, the quality for this ep is shockingly good-it can almost pass for a movie-level anime, easily. the screencaps does the show no justice, seriously.

    mewmew
  22. Reading your summary…this anime didn’t follow Shakespeare’s play…at all…or the most part…

    Heck, Montague and Capulet family have feud…all right, they fight…all right, but they never gone to exterminate the whole other family!

    Still…let’s see that will that classic scene be in the anime…(balcony scene, and Juliet’s famous “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?”…(hope the quote’s right…))

    [Blademaster]
  23. The first episode was really nice (tho, not as nice as Darker than Black). It’s interesting to see, how will they follow the story, as in who will live and who will die.

    Show Spoiler ▼

    HiMalaya
  24. Bloody Hell! What an awesome episode…

    OK, I know GONZO, like SUNRISE, can screw a show, but it seems like they can do good jobs when the original script is a masterpiece like Romeo X Juliet. I also love it the OP, a very fresh version of that popular song.

    Sure, you can bet anything that in the end both of them will die together. Have some tissues ready for that moment.

    I’m stick with this series.

    Syaoran Li
  25. Even though the first episode is very good, I have a feeling this will be an absurd adaption near the end… GONZO will probably go for a happy ending, and have their all-too-common evil-archvillain killed.

    pakxenon
  26. >Even though the first episode is very good, I have a feeling this will be an absurd adaption near the end… GONZO will probably go for a happy ending, and have their all-too-common evil-archvillain killed.

    Wa
  27. Yes I loved the song. Heard the original of You Raise me Up. Hope this version of the song gets released soon. Romeo x Juliet makes me think about when I started reading this in High school, I like the different adaptation of the play in anime form.

    Dflowen
  28. The OP song was originally composed by the group called Secret Garden (try Wikipedia with the keyword secret garden) in their album “Once in A Red Moon”, and was later resung by some other singer inculding Josh Groban and Westlife.

    Himeya

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