Within 5 minutes of watching Blassreiter, most people probably took a look at the CG and the animation and combined with the fact it was from Gonzo, dismissed the show out of hand. Heck, I almost did; at the beginning of the series the CG was so oddly different from what I’d seen that it turned me off completely. But for some reason, I stuck with the show. And now I an say at around episode 16, I’m glad I did.
I won’t deny that there are problems with it. The characters aren’t that well developed (except for Joseph), there is a sense of emoness throughout the series, and combined with a fair amount of racial unrest and segregation as well as lots of people dieing, the series is real depressing and sure, the animation for the characters isn’t that good, but where the money really went in was, in fact, the CG action scenes. Don’t get me wrong; there is a severe overuse of CG for the simplest things, such as a person riding a bike and at times that becomes bothersome. But when the show kicks into a higher gear, with Demoniacs (the inhuman creatures)moving really fluidly and animalistically. Despite some hectic directing, all of the fights are really interesting to watch and quite flashy.
Despite what I’ve written (where the cons outweigh the pros) there’s something morbidly fascinating with the world of Blassreiter. It’s full of angst, trials and death so maybe I’m just waiting for the happy ending to justify all of this (hell, they killed off who eveyone thought was the main character in the 6th episode). There’s also a lot of apocalyptic imagery (and I love the nature of people fighting to stop the apocalypse). Anyway, what I do know is that I always anticipate the next episode and my gut feeling is that this series could end very well. So far, it’s doing an adequate job.
Grand Punk Railroad 
Hmm. I’ve struggled to find the motivation to keep up with Blassreiter, but since you and Demian (of Otakuism) have both been pointing out its merits, perhaps I’ll summon up the strength to catch up.
I stopped watching it because it was way too depressing and the plot wasn’t garnering my interest. I wasn’t really sympathetic to any of the characters except maybe Gerd. Maybe I just don’t like the fact that nearly every character in the show has enormous flaws on how to deal with things (Hermann’s too zealous, Malek is too reactive, Amanda is too UNreactive, Joseph is too……passive?).
So overall I guess I don’t think I’m calling the show bad. The show just doesn’t click with me.
Im not a fan of GONZO. But definitely not because of their use of CG, infact I’ve never been annoyed with their. Though in Blassreiter the characters look out of place sometime (but the fights are cool of course).
I’m much more a of Nitro+ 🙂
@The Animanachronism
The dramatic shift it takes towards the middle of the series is worth it, and Joseph’s background is much more interesting than is implied. I don’t think you’d regret doing so.
@Avisch
It’s one of the cases where a show is truly greater than the sum of its parts.
I recently read a post mentioning how labels like “good” and “bad” promote censorship. That’s exactly the case here. We have a perfectly entertaining show that people have been way to quick to dismiss because of their simplistic notions of “good” and “bad”.
@Baka-raptor
Truth is, no matter who you are, people’s opinions influence your own in some way; if someone thought this show was bad, I would be more inclined to view it in a negative light, even if I had not seen it before.