This has to be one of the single most unique anime that I have ever seen. Taking the famous story of "The Count of Monte Cristo" and placing it into a futuristic sci-fi universe seems like a recipe for disaster, but damn did it work incredibly. The story is excellent, the visuals are absolutely incredible, and its themes are important. Gankutsuou is close to absolute greatness, but it also has plenty of glaring flaws.

The Story:

The famous story of revenge. This show adapts its source material incredibly well and makes the story shine even better in some places than it did in the novel. Revenge stories are somewhat hard to make, having to tip-toe this line of trying not to make it feel like pure edge, and this does it so well. The count is driven by the want for revenge, but that want for revenge is fueled by real legitimate reasoning. He turned into this as the result of corrupt systems, and as a result of these oppressive systems, the count got his entire life stolen from them. This story is so full of twists and turns, keeping the viewer fully engaged until the very last moments. Truly something great.

The Visuals:

This is one of the most visually ambitious anime that I have ever seen. It takes so many wild ideas and smashes them all together, creating this atmosphere that suits the story perfectly. The trope of "unmoving plaid" is used on all the characters from their hair to their clothes. Somehow they took this usually cheesy effect for cheaping out on budget and made it into something beautiful. So many intricate textures are used and shown off, and the vast wardrobe that each character has lets this shine ever so much more.

Next are the backgrounds, which are just as chaotic and beautiful as the character designs. The backgrounds also make heavy use of textures, but in a different way than the previous section. Buildings and structures use these pseudo-realistic textures that look great, and also add to this sense of "unease" which fits perfectly into the story. Certain locations also feature boatloads of surrealist imagery, placing objects into locations where they shouldn't exist, and everything just works so well. The visuals in this show reminded me an awful lot of Madoka Magica, and it's just incredible.

Finally, what would probably be the most divisive part connected to the visuals, is the CGI. To put it frankly, the CGI is terrible, they look straight out of an early PS2 game, which makes sense for this being made in 2004. But again like the previous sections, this somehow works. The 3D models, while low in resolution, fit the show perfectly and yet again add to the uneasy atmosphere that this world has.

Easily one of my favorite anime of all time in the visuals department.
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The Themes (Spoilers):__

Simple, but impactful. Is revenge worth it if it means spending the rest of your life trying to get justice for the life that you already had taken from you? It's one thing if it means breaking down the oppressive systems that put you in that place, but what if it's just purely done for yourself? is it really worth it then?

The count is the literal physical embodiment of revenge, and he had what was left of his already stolen life yet again taken away from him because of his desire for revenge.

The Problems (Spoilers):

Ok ok, this show was incredible, but it has a lot of flaws.

1. Eugenie - In the novel, she was a lesbian who refused to abide by the strict boxes that society tried to place her in. In the anime, she is a straight woman who is used as a political pawn to be married off to the family that would benefit her father the most. There was a moment near the end of the show when it seemed it was finally her time to shine. During the wedding that she clearly didn't want to be having, there was this long tense pause where it seemed like she was finally going to speak out and deny it, but then she was ultimately saved by a group of men instead of her being able to actually fight for herself first. Overshadowed by men and under-executed as a character. While her role in the show is a lot more prevalent, I did not like this large recharacterization one bit, and her aspects also lead to the next flaw.

1. The Women - Holy shit, literally all the women in this show are executed horribly. Every single last woman is used purely as a plot device, and not treated as a valuable character at all. Taken advantage of, manipulated, and then ultimately put into a position of uselessness once they aren't needed anymore. Like literally, one of them was sucked of all their use and then reverted to a state of infantilism that left them useless for the rest of the show. You can name pretty much any major woman in this show, and the same exact thing basically happened to them too. THEN, at the very end of the show, after basically all of the women were put into some state of ineffectiveness, they all came back in order to have this happy ending where you got to see them paired up with the man that loved them. Yeah... not great. I'm sure one could argue that this is a reflection of the times of the source material and that's why none of them got any major significant roles, but moments like Eugenie's arose a few times but they were ultimately overshadowed by the men of the story.

1. Misc - There were a few characters in the show who didn't really have much of a role in the story, but they were made as some harmful stereotypes. Two of these come to mind, the first being Peppo. Peppo is a trans woman I believe, but she "revealed" this by saying to Albert after they had an intimate encounter, "I'm a boy", which resulted in a repulsed reaction by Albert. I don't know if that was supposed to be a "comedic" moment, or what, but it's sadly a fairly common occurrence in anime. She did have somewhat of a good moment at the end of the show, but that doesn't really change much about what happened. The second one is a very minor character who I don't even remember the name of. The problem was their design, they were short and round with a very pronounced hooked nose, and they also really loved money. Yeah... I think you can tell what seemed to be going on there.

Final Statements:

So while Gankutsuou was one of the single most unique anime I have seen both story-wise and visually, it sadly had some pretty glaring flaws holding it back from being one of the best that I have ever seen.