Drawn by pain is?difficult to really review fairly. On one hand, the idea is an interesting one. The blending of live action and animation isn?t rare but making that animation look hand drawn and cartoonish is actually a very unique concept. The story line, a vigilante heroine attempting to save others from the pain she endured as a child is both different enough to be intriguing and archetypal enough to be easily understood, its emotions easy to get behind and become one with.
Or it would be in theory.
The problem is not its ideas but its execution.
The Characters:
The main character Emily starts the series as a little girl with a violently abusive father but quickly becomes a young woman who?s desire is to rid the world of people like her father. It?s a good character in theory but the problem is..well?she?s completely unlikable. Her actions are at best dishonest and conciliatory and at worse psychotic and hypocritical. While her self proclaimed mission is to rid the world of abusive men, she tends to instigate the actions of those who she sees as abusive. Ie, when you dress like a hooker, bait men along and then insult and ridicule them, how are you any better then what you?re trying to get rid of?
Beyond this is her seeing all men as violent and abusive while all women are the victims. Her attitude is one of the major reasons I myself was unable to take her seriously. She is seen in the first episode reacting with obscene amounts of anger at a friendly question. For her any sort of flirting or even just friendly action is seen as a personal attack.
While yes her character is supposed to be suffering from mental problems, they could have at least still made her have a somewhat likeable personality, rather then just a pointlessly angry, violent and hypocritical vigilante without a point.
Acting
A major failing here. I really can?t say much good about it. All the acting comes off very much like a high school visual arts class video, where students unenergetically deliver lines in a uninspired monotone. The series also seems to have a penchant for quick and slightly eschewed angles, cutting back and forth and attempting to convey motion and feeling when really all it does is hammer in that nothing is really happening.
Its almost laughable when the characters do decide to show emotion because its always over the top and even more unbelievable. Emily?s face never seems to move from the dead frown she wears, her attitude never seems to improve and she never goes through the realistic revelations that anyone of normal intelligence would go through years before the events of the series. Reactions, motivations, and feelings are shallow and unbelievable.
Her madness:
Speaking as one who not only has studied mental illness but has gone through it, hers is a dramatically bad and clichéd portrayal, with voices in her head, hallucinations and dilutions that are completely unrealistic, blending both real conditions and falsehoods held by the general public. While the idea of her current self getting revenge for her childhood self seems to work, it quickly loses steam and motivation as her dilutions seem to stem from at times random internal sources rather then the psychoanalyzible sources they should stem from.
Character design.
Its assumed that the jerky and unevenness of the lines in the animation is a desired effect, seeming to be hundreds of sketches all merging into one fractured movement. However, the animations tend to be overused or repeated. There are other errors, like the sword being at the wrong angle when shown being swung (ie swinging the flat of the sword at someone) and obviously out of synch movements and actions of the live action and the animated objects and characters.
The characters themselves are uninspired to say the least. The lack of detail makes it hard to really set yourself apart but they could have tried. The main animated character, Emily?s alter ego/powers is a combination of kill bill and Guts from ?Berserker?, an overtly masculine female warrior with a Cloud Strife hairdo. Oddly Emily?s character of a pointlessly angry and murderous ***** seems to fit perfectly in massively muscular persona of this doodled fem fatal.
The other character, The male, is to be honest, a gimp. He wears a blindfold, nipple rings and punches through peoples heads. I?m sure there?s something utterly Freudian here but the way its portrayed just makes it seem silly.
In summery:
A interesting idea that got lost within bad portrayals of mental illness, laughable acting and feme-Nazism
Or it would be in theory.
The problem is not its ideas but its execution.
The Characters:
The main character Emily starts the series as a little girl with a violently abusive father but quickly becomes a young woman who?s desire is to rid the world of people like her father. It?s a good character in theory but the problem is..well?she?s completely unlikable. Her actions are at best dishonest and conciliatory and at worse psychotic and hypocritical. While her self proclaimed mission is to rid the world of abusive men, she tends to instigate the actions of those who she sees as abusive. Ie, when you dress like a hooker, bait men along and then insult and ridicule them, how are you any better then what you?re trying to get rid of?
Beyond this is her seeing all men as violent and abusive while all women are the victims. Her attitude is one of the major reasons I myself was unable to take her seriously. She is seen in the first episode reacting with obscene amounts of anger at a friendly question. For her any sort of flirting or even just friendly action is seen as a personal attack.
While yes her character is supposed to be suffering from mental problems, they could have at least still made her have a somewhat likeable personality, rather then just a pointlessly angry, violent and hypocritical vigilante without a point.
Acting
A major failing here. I really can?t say much good about it. All the acting comes off very much like a high school visual arts class video, where students unenergetically deliver lines in a uninspired monotone. The series also seems to have a penchant for quick and slightly eschewed angles, cutting back and forth and attempting to convey motion and feeling when really all it does is hammer in that nothing is really happening.
Its almost laughable when the characters do decide to show emotion because its always over the top and even more unbelievable. Emily?s face never seems to move from the dead frown she wears, her attitude never seems to improve and she never goes through the realistic revelations that anyone of normal intelligence would go through years before the events of the series. Reactions, motivations, and feelings are shallow and unbelievable.
Her madness:
Speaking as one who not only has studied mental illness but has gone through it, hers is a dramatically bad and clichéd portrayal, with voices in her head, hallucinations and dilutions that are completely unrealistic, blending both real conditions and falsehoods held by the general public. While the idea of her current self getting revenge for her childhood self seems to work, it quickly loses steam and motivation as her dilutions seem to stem from at times random internal sources rather then the psychoanalyzible sources they should stem from.
Character design.
Its assumed that the jerky and unevenness of the lines in the animation is a desired effect, seeming to be hundreds of sketches all merging into one fractured movement. However, the animations tend to be overused or repeated. There are other errors, like the sword being at the wrong angle when shown being swung (ie swinging the flat of the sword at someone) and obviously out of synch movements and actions of the live action and the animated objects and characters.
The characters themselves are uninspired to say the least. The lack of detail makes it hard to really set yourself apart but they could have tried. The main animated character, Emily?s alter ego/powers is a combination of kill bill and Guts from ?Berserker?, an overtly masculine female warrior with a Cloud Strife hairdo. Oddly Emily?s character of a pointlessly angry and murderous ***** seems to fit perfectly in massively muscular persona of this doodled fem fatal.
The other character, The male, is to be honest, a gimp. He wears a blindfold, nipple rings and punches through peoples heads. I?m sure there?s something utterly Freudian here but the way its portrayed just makes it seem silly.
In summery:
A interesting idea that got lost within bad portrayals of mental illness, laughable acting and feme-Nazism
