Zoids: Fuzors Review

I know a lot of people hate Fuzors. I know I hated fuzors from the moment I saw it. But it's grown on me now, and I can say I do like the series. Grudgingly, but admittedly.

Fuzors has been considered the worst series for a long time ago. Not just because of its aweful characters, but because of its choppy animation and movement. A lot of people thought that it was just downright aweful, especially with a series like NC0 to raise the bar on animation. It left a lot to be desired, and was dumped from Cartoon Network after just 16 episodes.

However, following the japanese version I came to enjoy fuzors. Especially when dodging that aweful dub! The series had a few different scenes between the two versions, english and japanese, including an entirely redone episode with a whole new battle, different fusion seens, and different effects added to the lighting and atmosphere in certain scenes that otherwise use the same movement/angle/what not.

Overall I liked the sound track. It wasn't the best but I know there are a few songs in there I'd love to buy the OST for if only I had the money. The openings aren't very good, especially the english one, which is aweful, but the animation for them is fantastic and actually lives up to what other series left out.

Now I'll admit, NC0 did leave a lot to be expected for future series, and Fuzors doesn't even compare. However, I do think that they get a lot better later on down the road, and definitely fix a few mistakes they'd been making up until then. They also manage to better blend their style after time, making the CG a little less obvious, and better rending objects into their atmosphere or at least rounding down corners enough to make it easier to look at.
I hate the character animation, but I didn't like it for any series but Genesis, so I won't comment much on that.

Now the characters were just aweful. I didn't like a one of them, except for maybe Blade/Blake, who was alright. The designs were bad, the diversity was bad (they were diverse all right, but not in a good way), the dubs were bad, the names were bad. I just didn't like them.

The main cast of zoids weren't that favorable either. König Wolf will always be my one true love, but this didn't have much. I will admit it was nice that it had more of a main cast and not so much a single team of characters to be the heroes (despite Mach Storm, I didn't feel that the series was specifically focused on them as the good guys, but continued to involve other characters). Still, there weren't very many interesting zoids. K Wuf MK-II also happens to be my least favorite K Wuf variation. Go figure it'd get the anime spot light.

With Fuzors story focusing on conquering Blue City, I did feel that it was a lot better than the other animes. It wasn't all doomy. It was one simple little city, that acted doomy. There's a big different there, even if it didn't seem like it. I do think it had an NC0 thing going on for a while though, and focused primarily on random bouts with enemies for no good reason other than "There's the Liger Zero! KILLIT!" and of course, standard team battles. They laid out a basic idea, find the Alpha Zoid, and left it at that for a long time. Things pick up half way through the series, though, just after things finally begin to change (...and ironically, hero zoid changes).

It's not an aweful series. Well, ok, maybe it is, but it's not as bad as everyone gives it credit for. I still like the series. Not just because of the K Wuf, either. It doesn't have much re-watch value, though.