E's Otherwise Review

Next up, E's Otherwise.

In this world, Espers are ostracized as being dangerous by humanity, luckily an organisation called Ashurum take in Espers who are frequently targeted by humans or are on the wrong side of the law. In return for health care for his sick sister, Esper Kai Kudo joins Ashurum. After a year of training, he is sent on a mission to detain rogue Espers only for his kindness towards humans to back fire when Kai's colleague is shot dead and another is comatosed, this angers Shen-Long, another colleague to the point that he destroys the area leading Kai to be found by an opposing group out to take down Ashurum. After being told that Ashurum are brainwashing it's Espers into becoming stronger in order to eradicate humanity, Kai joins the cause to prevent his sister from being used as a weapon.
I smell the plot of the first live action X-Men film here.
I found this anime to be mediocre. It's a typical 00s anime issue so I'll elaborate.
The problem with E's is that it rushed into the story at breakneck pace to try and establish the main plot so many character interactions feel stale, this is especially problematic between Kai and Shen-Long. Kai's wide eyed idealism rubs Shen-Long the wrong way but lacks any history or weight to it so when a character dies it has no impact, made worst by a lack of emotion in the Japanese dialogue. Shen-Long's rage is justified when he nearly kills Kai for abandoning his sister in a mission but every interaction they had up to that point was mostly Shen-Long being a bully and deliberately trying to trigger Kai to fight him. The other characters introduced within the same time frame have similar problems. While the story does pick up further on, it's poor beginning will likely turn you off, especially if you don't like the characters.
The dub is very much based on taste in voice actors. Greg Ayres doesn't suit a character like Shen-Long but other actors have a slightly easier time and it benefits from better emotive performances.
Final Verdict: The character writing is poor so it's difficult to really continue beyond the first few episodes if you fail to click with it. While the story does stabilise, the damage is already done.

End