TV Review: Marvel: X-Men Season One (2011)

Marvel: X-Men Season One (2011) produced by Madhouse and Marvel Animation

Jean Grey, having been manipulated by the Inner Circle, kills herself in the opening sequence of this story. The other X-Men (Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, and Beast) are distraught and return to America. Well, everyone but Cyclops, who mourns Jean. Back at the Xavier Institute, Professor X has a problem with Cerebro. It can't detect anything in Northern Japan, even though there are reports of mutants being kidnapped there. He gets the four remaining active X-Men back together to go investigate. They find the U-Men, an anti-mutant group that harvests organs from mutants. They use those organs to give themselves power to fight mutants. The X-Men fight their way into the bad guys' headquarters where they discover one of the Inner Circle, Emma Frost, plugged into the organ-draining equipment. They free her and reluctantly ally with her. She claims she left the Inner Circle and that female telepath they saw manipulating Jean Grey was an image created by Mastermind, the evil head of the Inner Circle. The X-Men also discover that mutants in the area are suffering from Damon-Hall Syndrome, a secondary mutation that often turns the mutants into uncontrollable and unthinking monsters. 

The series, as anime produced in Japan, is subtitled (though there is a dubbed track that I didn't listen to, though I guess dubbing is not as problematic with animated programs as opposed to live action ones). The story has some anime tropes, the most disappointing one being the unnaturally large busts of the female characters. The other problem I had was the ultimate revelation of the hidden bad guy's plan, which did not fit with his actions. Sure, it made the plot more exciting but it killed the creditability somewhat. The characterizations are good. Fun and funny moments abound and the fight scenes are fun.