Beck Vol 1 Episodes 1-5
01/01/2008 . Source: Joules Taylor 
region2 DVD: pub: Revelation Films. FUN72501. 1 DVD 125 minutes 5 episodes plus extras. Price: £15.99 (UK). Buy Beck in the USA - or Buy Beck in the UK  check out website: www.revfilms.com
'The View At 14' (episode 1). Yukio 'Koyuki' Tanaka is your very average fourteen year-old high school student. On the verge of adulthood, shy, awkward, with no great passions or interests, uncertain about his future and feeling he's going nowhere, Koyuki daydreams through life. Even his musical tastes are mediocre.
Then he saves a very strange looking patchwork dog, named Beck, from a group of infant bullies and his life suddenly changes. Beck's owner is sixteen year-old Ryusuke 'Ray' Minami, who used to play guitar in America with Dying Breed until the band split up. Now he's trying to make his current band, Serial Mama, the best band in the world. The anime tells the story of the successes and tribulations along the way...
The episodes are well-paced with a leisurely feel to them. In the second, 'Live House', Koyuki is invited to see Ryusuke's band play live and there's a rumour that a talent scout for a record company will be in the audience. In 'Moon On The Water', Koyuki meets Ryusuke's fourteen year-old sister, Maho, who is a singer and visits Ryusuke at his (interesting!) house. In 'Strum The Guitar', Koyuki begins to learn to play guitar and we and the other characters discover he has a good singing voice which leads Maho to suggest to her brother he might be a good choice as vocalist for the band. Then disaster strikes in the form of an accident and Koyuki is devastated, until a chance encounter with Ken'ichi Saitou gives him new hope.
The final episode of Volume 1, Beck sees Saitou chivvying Koyuki's guitar training along by entering him into a summer music festival. Little by little throughout the series Koyuki's whole world expands as he discovers both good and bad in those around him.
I will be blunt, I loved this first volume of the anime. It's as down-to-earth and realistic as you can get in the genre, accessible and appealing to practically everyone. From Ryusuke's sister, Maho, the same age as Koyuki but decades older when it comes to temperament to Ken'ichi Saitou, forty-something ex-Olympic swimmer turned stationery store owner who teaches Koyuki guitar, the story covers a wide range of characters and just about every situation a teenager can experience. I particularly liked the way Saito, unmarried and lonely, whose only true friend is his cockatoo, Page, is portrayed as so beautifully sympathetic and helpful to Koyuki, alternately encouraging and bullying him to do his very best. It's a delight in a genre where very often the older characters are shown as repressive or disapproving, or no assistance to the younger protagonists, and brings together youth and adulthood in a charming way.
The animation is also very realistic, employing lifelike movements for the characters most notably in the musical sections, which are excellent and wonderfully, appealingly ordinary faces. The palette is clean and clear, the music pleasant and occasionally exciting and there's a real sense of 'slice of Japanese life' realism throughout. The only unrealistic thing in the anime is Beck, the eponymous patchwork dog, which looks like a creation of Dr Frankenstein's but which is nevertheless oddly cute. Although it hates Koyuki, despite his originally saving it and bites him whenever it can!
The only reason I would hesitate to recommend it to everyone is, in the main, the language. There's a lot of English and a lot of swearing in the anime. It's part of the soundtrack, not just in the dub, making it unsuitable for younger children. There is some violence, too, and a little suggested sex but nothing too graphic. Overall, 'Beck' is an excellent introduction to anime for anyone who has never seen any before.
Joules Taylor
http://heartsown.biz/
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