 Alternative TitlesJapanese: FLAG（フラッグ）Information Episodes: 13 Status: Finished Airing Aired: Jun 16, 2006 to Mar 2, 2007 Source: Original Duration: 24 min. per ep. Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older Statistics Score: 7.121 (scored by 50475,047 users) Ranked: #377122 based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded. Popularity: #4798 Members: 22,548 Favorites: 77 Available AtResources |
Details Characters & Staff Episodes Videos Stats Reviews Recommendations Interest Stacks News Forum Clubs Pictures Ranked #3771Popularity #4798Members 22,548SynopsisIn 20xx, a civil war broke out in a small country in Asia in spite of the dispatch of UN forces. But a picture taken by accident in the battlefield accelerates the peace process: a photograph of a flag, which became the symbol of peace. However, just before the peace agreement is finalized, the flag is stolen by an armed extremist group in order to obstruct the truce. To rescue the flag, the UN sends the Special Development Command (SDC, which is armed with the High Agility Versatile Weapon Carrier (HAVWC)), along with an embedded photojournalist to record their activities. That photojournalist is Saeko Shirasu—the young camerawoman who took the picture of the flag. (Source: ANN)BackgroundIt was broadcast as pay per view streaming web video on Bandai Channel.(Source: Wikipedia)Related Entries MALxJapan -More than just anime- Characters & Voice Actors Staff "00-Opening-Hope to Peace (Hata) (00-Opening-Hope to Peace-「旗」)" by Yoshihiro Ike (池頼広) "Lights" by Eri Nobuchika Reviews  Jun 12, 2019 FLAG is an ONA from mid '06 to early '07. It was handled by The Answer studio. That's right, the studio behind Golgo 13. It's also an original work. So, that'll be interesting. Story:Our narrative takes place in a fictional war torn country named for a yoga pose. A young photographer named Shirasu Saeko manages to capture a strong moment of hope in a brilliant photograph. This results in the flag in the photo becoming a symbol of peace. There's just one problem, it gets stolen. Shirasu is chosen to work with UN's special forces in their efforts to scour Uddiyana and regain the flag. The biggest... problem with the series is that it has two protagonists, for good reason, but it can repeat information from each of their perspectives with very little difference. Which just feels like a pointless way to pad the series. To its credit, the dual perspective does work well for showing the situation from the military-oriented perspective of Shirasu and from the more civilian point of view of Keiichi. Which serves to provide a broader, more nuanced viewpoint. The series also makes good use of its photography theme. Both with its aesthetic and by using short snippets for its scenes. The ending also has a strong narrative purpose that ties things together and is really well done. Characters:The series does a great job of using snippets with characters to illustrate different parts of their personalities and flesh them out more than you would expect for a cast of this size in a thirteen episode series. It helps that the conflict has a strong sense of realism to it which gives them a grounding in reality. It also helps considerably that the side characters interact with the photographers, which provides some strong interactions for the photographers even though we don't see that much footage of them directly. Art: The only real downside of the art is that the CG shots of the mecha have pretty stilted movements and they just look awkward. Yeah, I have seen much worse CG but this still isn't good. Overall, however, the visual aesthetic is really good. Seeing everything through lenses, as either stills or video, gives the series a unique look and it really delivers the photography theme strongly. I also appreciate that the series shows warfare while using various tools to avoid making it graphic. It's almost like you can get the point across without going the sensationalist route and showing a bunch of blood and corpses. And even though the mecha look a bit awkward, seeing their blueprints and how the parts connect is interesting. Even if the engineering isn't realistic. If it was we'd all use these blueprints for our own killer robots. And almost as many people would die as anti-vaxxers have killed. Sound: The worst thing I can say about the acting is that Tanaka Rena delivers some of her lines a bit awkwardly. They aren't badly done but they don't seem to quite match the mood the series is conveying. In contrast, we get an excellent performance from Ishizuka Unshou and most of the actors do really well. Ike Yoshihiro's soundtrack is nicely done. Ho-yay:About the closest we get is Shirasu commenting favourably on some of the women she's working with. But she does the same thing with the men and it's pretty obvious that it's not meant romantically. Romance, as a whole, is not a significant thing in this series. Areas of Improvement:Cut down on the repetition. We don't need to see both Shirasu & Keiichi look at the HAVWC blueprints. We can see that kind of thing once. And it would make for a cleaner narrative. Animate the mecha more naturally. It would legitimately be better if these things looked more natural instead of sticking out awkwardly. Better direction for Tanaka Rena. Like I said, she's not bad. But the emotional core of the series would be stronger if not for those out of place lines of dialogue. Final Thoughts:Ultimately, FLAG is a series that has a lot to offer. Including an aesthetic that's all its own. Do I recommend it? If you're intrigued by the idea of a narrative where photography is a central theme and an operation to suppress insurgents is handled from a human rather than a sensationalist perspective, I absolutely would. I'll give it a solid 8/10. Reviewer’s Rating: 8 What did you think of this review? Nice 0 Love it 0 Funny 0 Confusing 0 Informative 0 Well-written 0 Creative 0Show all  Jan 4, 2013 There's this old saying: “You can't polish a turd.” Someone (probably a grandparent; it's hard to beat cranky old people in the “brutal honesty” department) relayed that valuable piece of information to me at some point in my young life, and I've found it to be a crude but immutable truth, in art and fiction as much as in anything else. The best way I can describe Flag is to say that it's a great example of attempted turd polishing. It boasts a unique visual presentation and some downright incredible animation, but at the end of the day a weak narrative, poor cast, and muddled... themes stick out from it like sore thumbs.The story is this: In the near future, a civil war is erupting in a fictional country in Asia. Before the events of the series occur, photographer Saeko Shirasu takes a picture of a flag being lifted by the UN with help from citizens of the war-stricken nation. The photo becomes extremely famous; the flag itself becomes a symbol of peace. The UN steps in to mediate the civil war, and a date on which the major warring parties will sign a UN-sanctioned peace agreement overlooked by the legendary flag is approaching. However, just before the peace agreement is to be signed, the all-important flag is stolen by an unknown insurgent group. Without this symbol of peace in its possession, the UN fears that the peace agreement will ultimately fail, so they assign an elite group of special operatives to locate and retrieve the flag. Shirasu agrees to be an embedded photographer and document the group's search for the flag. While she's doing that, a friend of hers (also a photographer) is keeping an eye on the increasingly tense situation in the country's UN-occupied capital.At this point you're probably asking questions in the vein of “if the flag is so important that they're risking lives to locate it, why wasn't it heavily guarded in the first place?” But I digress.Flag's story is told with a film making technique called “found footage,” meaning that the series is presented to us as being raw, unedited footage of events that someone taped in the past with a handheld camera. This technique has existed for a while but was popularized in the late 90s with the success of films like “The Last Broadcast” and “The Blair Witch Project.” Flag shows everything either through the lens of a camera or the display of a computer, and goes to great lengths to maintain this illusion. Whenever the cast enters a vehicle, for example, the locations of the cameras on the vehicle are pointed out to the audience, so that we don't wonder where exactly the footage of different angles is coming from. In addition, you can tell the two main characters apart based on the differing electronic displays of their cameras, allowing the series to switch back and forth between plot threads without much of a hitch. I think that's neat. The whole setup does require a certain suspension of disbelief; I don't think a photographer would use their computer's webcam to film themselves typing, or leave their camera running while sitting around drinking coffee with a friend in a Starbucks.The reason for using this style of filming is that it's honest. We see only what the camera sees, and hear only what the camera hears. That leaves us free to make up our minds about what we're seeing on our own. No external influences, such as a character's thoughts, affect our judgment. Depending on how it's used, this property could be seen as a strength or a weakness, and in Flag, it's definitely the latter. Dramas like Flag survive on swaying the emotions of the audience, so one might question how wise it is to use a style of presentation which creates distance between the audience and the events of the drama. In Flag, I don't think it was wise at all. There isn't a single conversation in the series that doesn't feel cold, empty, forced. And that's at least partially a result of this stylistic decision.The other problem with the way that Flag's story is told is that, quite simply, it's boring. Flag is an endless montage of interviews, computer simulations, and narrative monologues played over still images. We're shown grainy photographs of the harsh reality of life in this country, political and religious doctrines are explained at length, and we watch the military perform long, tedious tests of its soldiers and their futuristic weapons. All of this is out of respect for realism, and I can appreciate that, but it takes over the series to the point where I almost forgot there was an actual plot buried in there somewhere. The series has strong sequences, but they're few and far between. For every genuinely rewarding moment in Flag, there are fifty that are empty and directionless. Several episodes begin with unnecessary recaps that sometimes stretch for as long as three and a half minutes. It's draining to watch this series. I have a pretty big reserve of patience, and it ran out long before I reached Flag's conclusion.The characters aren't much better. The main character, Shirasu, is shown to be a little insecure and lonely. She's trying to figure out what exactly she wants to do with her skills as a photographer. She gains a bit of depth as she gradually becomes more comfortable with her role in the squad of soldiers she's been assigned to film, and moves from feeling like an outsider to being accepted. Unfortunately, the soldiers themselves are nowhere near as fleshed out as Shirasu. They're cardboard cutouts at best, bordering on outright stereotypes. There's a tough blonde female commanding officer, a big Russian strongman-esque pilot, an intelligent young Asian woman with glasses who does computer work...the list of seen-them-befores goes on. The show botches several opportunities to turn the cast into something more memorable. For example, in a series of interviews, Shirasu asks the soldiers about their personal reasons for choosing this line of work. Just when I thought I might get to hear them say something interesting, the responses came back, all empty one-line platitudes: “I fight for my family,” “I fight to save people,” “I fight for my country,” etc. Real nice. Apparently everyone's reasons for risking their lives come from recruitment posters they saw in their local middle school. We can eventually discern a little bit more about the cast based on how they react in discussions about military protocol and battle, but they're still too flat to be a source of any real drama or interest.Thematically, Flag is more than a little confused, and doesn't seem to know what it wants to say at all. Originally I thought the series was going to be about photography: The value of an iconic image, the ability of the photographer to capture the past, breaking the barrier between being an observer and a participant, risking yourself for your art. Flag brings up all these themes, but utterly fails to elaborate on them or make any sort of real statement. Which is too bad, because those are all relatively original ideas. In addition, as Flag goes on, the focus shifts from themes of photography to general antiwar sentiment. This isn't bad in and of itself, but it's nothing we haven't seen before, and Flag doesn't bring anything new to this theme. Images of children with guns, civilians killed or displaced by indiscriminate bombing, masked terrorists taking to the streets...these images can be powerful when infused with the right amount of emotion, but on their own accord, they ceased to be shocking and new to most of us a long time ago, and they're now fairly commonplace in our media, both fiction and nonfiction. Flag presents them in an emotionless manner that doesn't bring anything new to the table. They're cliches, to put it simply. The result of all of this is that it's tough to say with certainty what Flag is even supposed to be about. If it was meant to be about photography, they should have taken out the deluge of trite antiwar content. If it was meant to be a statement against warfare, they should have taken out the commentary on the nature of photography. If it was meant to be both, they should have hired some better writers.Two elements of Flag that I can truly compliment are the art and animation. The background art is well detailed, with wide expanses of desert and mountains looking about as close to real life as possible. The city, likewise, is an appropriately drawn maze of housing. Say what you will about Flag (and I've said a lot), but it doesn't slack on creating a setting. However, it's in mechanical design and animation that the series really shines. The show, set in the near future, prominently features some military mecha in the battles, and these look unbelievably good. The series captures the motions of vehicles more realistically than any I've ever seen; every moving part seems to function with the perfectly regimented order typical of machines.Unfortunately, the music is another downer for Flag. The first problem with the musical score is that it exists. No, seriously; since Flag is presented to us as a collection of images and raw footage found in numerous video cameras, the fact that there is any background music at all works against the original concept of the series. The second problem with the music is how typical it is. Some of it's Middle Eastern sounding, lead by traditional drums and wind instruments, sometimes with wordless vocals, sometimes without. The other half of it is more Western, spearheaded by horns and crashing drums. It's generic and not at all memorable, and if you've seen any film about war in exotic nations, you've pretty much heard this music. What's worse than that, it's sometimes so ridiculously overbearing that it's unintentionally comical. Why is there a booming, uplifting patriotic song playing while the main character huddles helplessly in the fetal position to avoid being killed by shrapnel? The mind boggles. The most tense moments of Flag are actually those accompanied by either silence, or light atmospheric noise. In one memorable sequence, we hear nothing but a pilot's shallow, unsteady breathing alternating with the roar of her vehicle's minigun as she kills a group of insurgents. This conveys both her hesitation and dislike of killing, and her determination to get her job done even if it means doing something she dislikes; it tells us far more than any patriotic music could. Flag would have been well served to rely more on the atmosphere and setting that it went to such great lengths to create, rather than on some very heavy-handed music.When all is said and done, I cannot, in good conscience, recommend Flag to anyone but a select group of people. I actually give it a lot of points—probably way more points than I should—for its visual originality. So if you are actively searching for something that is unique in its visual style, then Flag is definitely worth a bit of your time; if nothing else, it's a good looking show. But if you're the average person, wanting to be entertained and/or informed by a series with a strong plot, and you're looking at Flag with curiosity, rest assured that your curiosity has been evoked under false pretenses. Flag's method of storytelling, and its cast, are exceedingly poor efforts. Its themes are a miasma of generic antiwar sentiment and undeveloped artistic ideas which play a dysfunctional game of tag with each other during the running time of the series. A domineering musical score that browbeats the entire concept of the show is the last nail in the coffin of mediocrity. On the outside, Flag is about as polished as you can get, but on the inside...well, refer to paragraph one. Reviewer’s Rating: 6 What did you think of this review? Nice0 Love it0 Funny0 Confusing0 Informative0 Well-written0 Creative0Show all  Sep 9, 2010 Not RecommendedPreliminary (4/13 eps) This anime had a good concept but terrible execution. I wanted to review it for a long time so here it is. There's spoilers in this review BUT you'll be warned beforehand and you'll be glad I spoiled it for you LOL! This anime was so misleading and bad that I just had to review it for you to save you pain and time.Basicly there's some kind of war going on in some kind of 3rd-world country and some kind of war journalists (I think they are Japanese but that doesn't matter) go to this country to get pictures because that's their job or as... they like to say, their ''passion'' or whatever.So the entire show is told through a camera lense, which was artsy and original at first. It's a very detailed digital view but gets old after a while and serves less & less symbolic purpose as the show goes on. The main character girl who is holding the camera takes pictures throughout the show and we see these nice pictures. They are portrayed as nice pictures, which they are, but none of them are really meaningful. Beleive me I'm a photographer, filmmaker and cinematographer. Only a few parts of the show are shot normally (not through a camera).The story is this girl war journalist got a lucky shot on the country's flag the moment a back-lit girl was praying and her silouhette could be seen through the flag. Suddenly this picture became the people's symbol for peace, or morality, and the flag became a symbol for.... hope i guess, for the war to stop.... Anyways some terrorists stole it and now a special U.N. team is assembled to retrieve the stolen flag. The girl who took the picture is recruited onto this team to document the mission(s).What's supposed to make this U.N. team I mentioned earlier 'special' is a giant robot vehicle thing they have as part of their main arsenal. It transforms into a humanoid mode and a car-ish mode. The movements it makes sound more like a little toy than a war machine. Also it's only weapon is a machine gun, Big Whoop! At least give it a laser gun sheesh.... At least it sort-of looks cool.You'll notice something wrong right away: the war-torn country is too clean. Even the destroyed parts of town are clean and lack any grim detail. The characters, whom most of which are either jounalists who put their necks out into dangerous situations, or soldiers who put their necks out into dangerous situations, are not dirty at all. This anime about the horrors of war, is just not graphic in any way. The only graphic part about this anime is the lack of vibrant colors, but even the washed-out colors that are present are solid and clear.The graphic quality isn't only lacking in the art style, it's also lacking in the plot and narrative. You won't see much violence. (SPOILERS) The most violence you'll see (for 4 episodes) are one guy getting shot in the arm and bad guys getting shot in the desert with the desert sand getting kicked up to block our view. Then the soldiers return from the mission stone-cold and melancholy to show how terrible war is. Seriously, you'll see 1 blood stain after 4 episodes. I am dumb-founded that an anime like FLAG, which is supposed to be about the horrors of war, actually censors violence, and then follows-up with scenes like the soldiers moping around as if we just saw something truely horrifying that will scar the grey matter of our brains forever and give us post traumatic stress syndrome. There are comedy anime with more blood and violence than FLAG.... This is just unacceptable. Also the show usually prefers to show the aftermath of skirmishes instead of the battles themselves because the main focus is the poorly-implied conflict going on in the characters' minimaly-present souls.Another thing disappointing is the intelligence of this so-called super secret team of soldiers. (SPOILERS) This is one of those spoilers that you'll be glad i spoiled for you: In one scene the team (I'll just call them ''the team'' from here on) thinks they know where the terrorists are hiding. They go in an unarmed helicopter to check out this fortress in a twisting valley. They stay at a safe distance and send out a small scout drone. It flies over there and discovers heavy anti-air defenses. So what does this super secret team do? Head back to base? Report this intelligence to command? Call in reinforcements? No. They fly this unarmed, non-armored helicopter straight into the hostile airspace. Guess what happens next? They get shot at and the pilot is hit in the arm and only Then do they retreat!I could not Believe what I just saw! And nobody acknowledged this as a stupid move! Bunch'a idiots. It was at this point that FLAG lost all credibility and I stopped giving it chances (many chances were spent in vain....)This show also tries to portray war journalists just as brave and valiant as a front-line soldier, which can be true sometimes, but this show fails to do even that. (SPOILERS) Maybe if they showed the main character being shot at or help an injured person or something, but she is never in danger. One scene shows the main character go to a building where a fellow war journalist was killed in an explosion. Her friend war journalist puts a flower in a cup next to the dead guy's camera and has a big monologue about how war journalists are to be respected and are very courageous and all that. Well sure but, could we at least see the explosion so we have some kind of remorse for the guy? We never even see this guy, therefor I don't care about him much.(SPOILERS) Action scenes (of which there are very, very few) have no music whatsoever and like I mentioned, you'll only see 1 blood stain. I know I didn't see even a single dead terrorist! And you will only see (in the first 4 episodes) one far away terrorist as seen from night vision in only one shot. It's like the show can't wait to get these parts over with and get back to the boring-as-hell parts.Another thing that REALLY bothers me is this girl was recruited to document the missions of this team, but guess what? (SPOILERS) They don't allow her to go with them on their missions because it's too dangerous! WHAT THE HELL?? The show makes itself redundant right from the get-go! So she stays at the base taking pictures of the scenery, I am not joking about this at all. She takes pictures of the sourounding mountians and wildlife while waiting for the team to return. You have got to be kidding me. All sense of risk, danger and excitement is swiftly extinguished right from the beginning.So that's my review. FLAG was a good concept but they were afraid to show violence in a show about violence, they were unable to show intelligent characters in a show about intelligent characters, and they were unable to show graphic images in a graphic show.If anything, FLAG should have been the bloodiest, most disturbing & grotesque anime ever created! Documentaries on the history channel are vastly more entertaining than FLAG. FLAG makes war boring (not to say war is supposed to be exciting in a good way, but you get my point)This show fails to execute everything it sets out to do. I don't even know what country they were in and I don't care so they obviously failed to set the up the plot in such a way that I'd be interested. This only reviews the first disc (Good God there's more!?).I give this anime a score of 1.5/10.If you want to see a piece of film that best portrays the horrors of war (which FLAG tries to do) I reccomend Apocalypse Now. This film captures the essence of the Vietnam war (don't ask me how I know lol).Or if you want to see anime with great character conflict (which FLAG tries to do) then watch Elfen Lied, or Higurashi (aka When They Cry).I can sort of see why people would give this anime high-ish reviews; because of what it tries to do and tries to be. There is no show like it. It's one of a kind. Granted, it is a unique show and in a good way (theoretically). Unfortunately in my strong opinion which I will state as fact, it fails and somebody should remake it properly. It has potential, but that's about all it's got and did not deliver for me. I tend to be very critical so if you have second thoughts about my review, go ahead and give it a chance. Many people are happy with FLAG and you might be one of those people. Reviewer’s Rating: 2 What did you think of this review? Nice0 Love it0 Funny0 Confusing0 Informative0 Well-written0 Creative0Show all Interest Stacks Recommendations Recent NewsRecent Forum Discussion Poll: FLAG Episode 2 Discussion zippy - Mar 22, 2008 7 repliesby DrThurl »»Dec 12, 2023 3:17 PM Poll: FLAG Episode 13 Discussion FighterZ - Aug 10, 2008 24 repliesby W3TFT »»Feb 19, 2023 5:17 PM Poll: FLAG Episode 1 Discussion zippy - Mar 22, 2008 12 repliesby Gundam_Sage »»Apr 5, 2022 3:59 AM Poll: Flag Episode 12 Discussion _HeroKenzan_ - Jul 28, 2015 2 repliesby TitanInsane »»Jan 28, 2021 7:17 AM Poll: Flag Episode 11 Discussion _HeroKenzan_ - Jul 28, 2015 2 repliesby TitanInsane »»Jan 28, 2021 6:21 AM |