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[5.0/10]
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A blasé boy stands on a bridge, overlooking the ocean. Licentious thoughts pervade his mind, eager to be breathed to life, articulated so nonchalantly to whatever girl latches onto him. The aggressive one; the pariah at school who is spoken about in hushed voices that dart in and out of student’s mouths, settling at the breach between tact and uncivility. The boy views himself as an outsider and relates to this pariah, her plight is his own and due to that, he feels indebted to her. An ethereal toll which he must pay in order to regain a semblance of self-worth. But this outsider--this vagabond--edging ... along her school life eager to not make an impression on anyone, reveals herself as a lost, despondent figure who must retain a steely resolve, as any weakness would be immediately exploited and abused by the ones who have shunned her prior. This absence from reality; this vanished being, incapable of making an impression due to her affliction, is everything the boy needs. And he must save her.

From there, a cascade of style erupts at the audience. A heterogeneous artistic smear across the pragmatic industry, transgressing norms whilst simultaneously accepting them, indulging in them and acquiescing to a standard that is so easy to punch through. A blithely swipe at normativity through the perspective of someone bored, sardonic, and fatigued by the constant battle against the restrictions, yet excited at the notion of being an erudite voice in the sea of retrograde production. What a perspicacious voice; what an apogee of style; what abrasive and caustic, annoying, biting, frames which flash between purpose and nonsense! An artifice of subversion and solipsism and hedonistic virtue.

But enough about Monogatari.

Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai is a Light Novel adaptation by A-1 Studios’ subsidiary, Cloverworks. It attempts to interpret puberty as fantastical phenomena, hinged on emotion and hormones, which causes young adults to be afflicted by peculiar maladies. Similarly to Monogatari, Bunny Girl features a protagonist who is positively flooded with female archetypes. Each one struck by this sickness and each one in desperate need to be saved. And of course, Sakuta, our protagonist, does his best to aid all these poor, helpless, idiosyncratic, feeble, powerless women. More tepid wish-fulfillment than its sources of inspiration, but as a result, far less engaging in general.

It seems as though the writer wanted to create a more mainstream, acceptable product while inhabiting those same ideas which brought so much energy to Monogatari. Instead, the misogyny remains but the interest disappears, as none of the artistic flourishes exist any longer. Shinbo’s eccentric dynamism isn’t there to give the unorthodox structure and profoundly witty and playful dialogue an arena to swell within. It all dissipates into mediocrity. Vibrant, piercing backgrounds turn into CG meshes with myopic gradients. Little to no shading exists at any one time, creating flat, innocuous scenery. An insipid grain of banalness infuses with what’s presented; a lack of portentousness and hedonism which made its inspiration so memorable creates only the mundane.

Bunny Girl lampshades cliché for only so long until it gives in and buckles under the weight of its production. Our ephemeral time spent with these characters feels even shorter once the final credits roll and they become nothing but fleeting thoughts and concepts. Threadbare metaphysics are mentioned to justify the ailments and, unfortunately, this misguided scientific slant is extraordinarily detrimental to any semblance of verisimilitude the series sought to create. The implementation of quantum mechanics was equally groan-worthy, as misunderstood explanations had a negative, ramifying effect on the rest of the series. Considering the definitions provided, we are left in a more frustrated state than we were when the phenomena were just that: phenomena.

Not all is bad in the world of Bunny Girls and obsessive sisters, though, as the first arc did well to ease us into the structure of the series. The relationship between Sakuta and Mai was, if anything, cute. Due to the series’ more restrained approach towards the harem elements which it was inspired by, their relationship could play out convincingly enough as to not feel dissonant from the rest of the show’s tone. And while I wouldn’t classify it as funny, Bunny Girl has enough permeating wit that some of the interactions felt borderline inspired. Long train rides full of stodgy exposition became bearable due to the nature of the script and how it used the prosaic nature of its acerbic characters to its benefit.

I appreciated how Kaede’s (Sakuta’s little sister) story starts in medias res, as we are treated to continuous revelations about what she went through and why exactly she’s such a shut-in cliché. While the explanation isn’t necessarily all too surprising and her arc is floundered by laconic and rushed melodrama, the standouts did particularly well. Sakuta’s care for his little sister created for one of the show’s more deceptively detailed sequences, as it gave us an extended scene where they spend their final moments together before she relapses back into her old self. Her entire arc revolves around her going back to school after her affliction and while she struggled to get there during the day, they sneak into it at night together. It creates for a gripping kenopsia as they creep around the empty schoolyard—one we see many times throughout the series—and peak into her future classroom. The sense of dread hangs loosely in the air, and for once the series’ pithy observations take on a more artistic, expressive existence.

Rascal is an easy watch, and that’s undoubtedly why it’s so popular and well regarded. The emotions are tangible, the plot is accessible, and the characters are smooth enough to digest without any need for interpretation or challenge. That’s not to diminish or belittle the series, but to examine why it isn’t just a facsimile of Monogatari. It sheds the weight of complex structure, characterization, and presentation in favor of a mainstream, safe, and maybe even relatable experience. There is no conniption to be had here; Bunny Girl isn’t heterodox or complicated. It’s essentially puberty: exaggerated, melodramatic, and sweaty, but far easier than what is initially expected.

[10/10]
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Years ago, I took my first steps into my college dormitory. It was beige, undecorated, and musty, one of the many dorms that stood side-by-side in the repurposed theatre building. I felt numb, barely recalling the goodbye I uttered to my parent’s moments ago. A nervous mother, a proud father, an anxious grandmother, each face ushering me into a new world, one without their support. I remembered my previous graduating class of seven students and how poorly my high school prepared me for my new class of hundreds. I remembered how familiar everything felt, and how comfortable I was just last night.

Chihiro is similar ... to me, to all of us, really. She’s uprooted from her past, her school, her comfort, and thrust into a new town, new people, new expectations. Her parents offer consoling thoughts, ones which are echoed by every parent. The banal, trite notions of betterment; the cascading compliments and reassuring nods that would seemingly work on a child, but ultimately do nothing but stoke the flames of anxiety. They’re excited, yet you aren’t, and she isn’t. And so, the parent’s vapid confidence and false encouragement is annihilated at the hands of the new world. Chihiro’s father takes a detour and they stumble upon an old, decrepit tunnel, one which he declares as a path they should take.

Through the darkness they trot, Chihiro clutching helplessly at her mother’s sleeve, begging to turn back. They continue, figuratively leaving their child behind, and lurching to the exit which leads them into a gargantuan field of green. An old amusement park, the father remarks and points them to a nearby town. A towering building at its edge acts as the climax to the settlement, however, for all its ageing beauty, it seems to house no one and nothing beyond some freshly cooked food. Food, which in the parent’s gluttonous assuredness, is there to be consumed by them. After her pleading does her no good, Chihiro decides to explore, as any child would. It doesn’t take long until a boy, Haku, greets her, but the greeting is short-lived, as he remarks on the sunset and orders her to run before night time. Chihiro, blinded by confusion and fear, attempts to find her parents. The sun sets, the dilapidated buildings begin coming to life, as their lights flicker on and spirits shimmer into existence. She shouts for her family, yet they are nowhere to be seen. It isn’t until she stumbles upon that same food stand that she notices her parents have become pigs, engorged by their food, not recognizing her.

Chihiro is spirited away, wisped and torn from comfort twice, an otherworldly experience being the catalyst for her anxiety and discomfort manifesting into dread and horror. She cowers, away from the spirits, the fantastical creatures that just sprung to life, and does her best not to be seen. It isn’t until that same boy, Haku, finds her, that she’s given her first sense of motivation and assuredness that isn’t stooped in well-intentioned but fraudulent optimism. She’s in danger, but she can succeed.

Miyazaki is a god in the medium. Beyond simply being the one to disseminate anime across the world, Miyazaki has a certain dogmatic, old-school appreciation of art and animation. He dislikes computers, the complexity they remove, prompting instead to express himself through naturalism as seen through the spectrum of computer generation versus hand drawn. Through this specific, touted approach, Miyazaki makes immensely personal films. Personal not only in ideas, but in presentation, as the art is often granular, sharp, and intertwined seamlessly with the fantasy world. He pulls from museums, which he often visited during his creation process, as the pseudo-western style often depicted in Meiji-era architecture influenced him heavily. That towering, Meiji-era building at the edge of town, connected by a lone bridge which leads its inhabitants there, is a bathhouse owned by the greedy witch, Yubaba.

Beyond his visual intention, Miyazaki’s personalization was established before creation even began. He remarked about how he spent many summers in a mountain cabin with his family and five girls, and how they influenced him. Their wishes for growth, not physically, but from the inner-spirit, were beliefs which stemmed from certain situations, such as Chihiro’s, that draw from something that’s already within you. The irony being that Chihiro’s alien experience, so different from the rest of her life, is what causes her to grow spiritually.

The trials she faces are reflections of what being lost is. The will not to be seen in crowds, for example; as Haku tells her to hold her breath on the bridge to the bathhouse so she isn’t spotted. Of course, her anxiety gives way and her fears become palpable. Her journey is inner as much as it is outer, as reflected by her inching her way down a steep staircase to reach the boiler room. Her fear prevents her from making any progress, just one step down proving to be far too daunting. It isn’t until the staircase begins crumbling, splintering underneath her that she is sent screaming down, running for her life, yet making it out without as much as a scratch. Her inner growth persists through a scene-by-scene basis, as the moments after involve a similar trial. She observes the dust sprites throwing coal into the boiler as an initially frightening spider-man, Kamaji, makes his usual rounds. Chihiro is forced to make an introduction, one step, as proven visually, is not enough.

This is how Miyazaki mastered his narrative craft, as he finds ways to show the coming of age story which speaks to kids, not down to them. There is no abrasive comedic relief character thrust into scenes simply to have someone lighten the mood through stilted remarks or the usual self-aware pandering which plague so many modern animated films. There’s only the Chihiro, her story, and the world at our eye line. His willingness to let his scenes breath, giving them space to exist beyond simply serving an expository or comedic purpose, is exactly what grounds his fantastical narratives. When there is drama and trepidation, it isn’t bookended by a gag.

It is no coincidence Miyazaki chose a bathhouse as the central force of his narrative, as spiritual healing is directly related to ablution. As read by the Japanese myth of the Buddha and the Bathwater, where a Japanese monk encounters a Bodhisattva and, through his own trial, becomes “the holy man of the hot springs”. Hot springs and, tangentially, bathhouses are linked to physical and mental cleansing, as there is a conscious transformation of mind and soul which comes from the earth. They act as reagents for change, a change which in Chihiro’s case, is initially unintentional and bred from fear. Fear giving access to formative experiences isn’t a new concept, as the majority of character-building drama and, more realistically, mentality-changing experiences within the real world, are birthed off the backs of great stress, anxiety, and self-doubt. Formative experiences must hinge on moments of weakness facilitating new-found strength.

As Chihiro is faced with the most frightening trials of all, she finds that same inner strength and spirit that Miyazaki comments on, and uses it to spur spiritual growth. She’s still a ten-year-old girl by the end of the Spirited away, but one more capable of self-sustaining. While Spirited Away is palatable for all, what Miyazaki does, once again, is personal. A coming of age story that depends on overcoming the fear of the unknown. The notion that even in a situation where there is nothing to recognize, you can find something in yourself to succeed through.

I reflect on Spirited Away the same way I reflect on myself years ago, taking that first step into a dormitory. I was left alone in a city I’ve never been to, around people I’ve never met. The first year felt like Chihiro’s descent down the fracturing staircase, and similar to her, once I landed on solid ground I realized just how little I’ve been hurt in the process. As she did, the future steps forward I took more confidently, with more vigor and determination, reaching inward to grow spiritually. So, looking back, I remember the doubt, the anxiety, and the unease. I remember my first friends and how rigorous my studies were. I remember how familiar everything came to feel, and how comfortable I was just last night.

[4.0/10]
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We wage war that tears down walls and buildings brick by brick, as our own inventions create and destroy. We put roofs over our heads only to light them ablaze. We create a hierarchy only to rebel against it. It's an endless coil, a snake eating its tail, feasting on the notion of betterment. If we dismantle our creations enough times and iterate upon them, surely we will reach that stretching plateau of perfection that our own ideology believes in. Yet once the dust and soot settle, we can only regret our impulsivity, our misunderstanding; the ladder of progress we eagerly climb is infinite, and ... there is always someone looking down on us. Yet from that rubble, a flower blossoms.

From a New World is desperate to tell us what we've been told before in a unique way. Whether it be that despotism is bad or that uncompromising control of sentience is evil, the results are virtually one and the same, and in this case, necessary. Furthermore, much like any tale of dystopia, we are presented with similar character beats, analogous narrative structure, and identical revelations. Yet none of this is a negative to me. See, I like dystopia. In fact, this signature sci-fi concept is one of my favorite tropes in entertainment. I like seeing similar ideas be iterated and expanded upon. I even find joy in witnessing ignorant, blinded characters have that signature horrifying revelation of, "Oh shit, my entire life is a lie!"

From a New World reinforces that joy, as the narrative itself is, in concept, quite good. An impressive, detailed world that was clearly birthed and seasoned at the hands of a novelist. Their pen bursting with ideas, as they terraform a white mass into something rich and structured. You could make an encyclopedia out of the knowledge given, albeit a short one, and still feel as though the folded over edges that hide that last inkling of wisdom are just out of your grasp. A flurry of creative concepts that give and give until you are figuratively stuffed and questioning what is truly right and wrong in this imagined world.

I don't feel as though I'm discussing the series, though. For all the creative strength that Yusuke Kishi, the novel's writer possesses, little of it is adapted. By that I mean, it feels as though A-1 picture's, in all their incompetence, simply took the words on his page, stripped out the prose and detail, and injected them into their abridged script. I see nothing but the story in From a New World, and for a product that is an audio-visual experience, utilizing both audio and visuals in such heavily flawed ways is beyond inexcusable.

An infection spreads throughout the presented world. That infection is power, the ability to control and manipulate objects and people. These infected people destroy out of fear, out of want, out of desire, and the world collapses at their whim. Through that collapse, a new society and hierarchy are birthed. New rules are created, new ideologies formed, yet the remains hang just below the shimmering surface, waiting patiently. That permeating mysticism is the backbone of From a New World. Especially once we are introduced to Saki Watanabe and her merry clique of character archetypes; each one varies in hair color, personality, and talent. That talent, of course, is what they are together for. You see, in Kamisu 66, one of the many sleepy towns that dot this new world, children discover their innate powers about when puberty hits. From there they are inducted into an academy and begin learning how to harness their strength.

As viewers, we are thrust into this setting with enough exposition to clue us in on just about every action taken that isn't purposefully shrouded behind the pervading mystery. This group is sent out exploring, adventuring, getting in trouble, all with the notion that they will come into their own. What becomes clear is that this society is constantly on thin ice. Any unwanted movement risks the collapse into the freezing water. If the allegory behind power isn't clear enough, let me also mention the subservient colonies of "Monster Rats" that reside in this world as well. Ugly, mole-like creatures that show intelligence, yet speak with slurred, barely comprehensible speech. They don't have power so they serve the ones who do. Get it?

"Are we the baddies?" May as well be the thesis to From a New World, and that is inherently interesting. The notion isn't spelled out immediately but seasoned veterans of dystopian writing can most likely deduce that the progressed, oppressive side is generally the one you should not trust or at least question. Whether their actions are necessary is half the intrigue in From a New World. Once again, all of this is taken from the novel, from the source. These ideas are lifted and splayed out in front of us. Examining the series itself, though? We are left with eerie orchestral vocals and stringing chimes to enrapture moments of total flaccidity.

A-1 Pictures can't seem to get it right. Their feeble attempts with Your Lie in April, smothering every element of music behind manga-esq exposition about how beautiful the music we can literally hear is. Or, in this case, deciding to ignore the fact that anime is an audio-visual medium. The fact of the matter is, From a New World is unbelievably boring. It is, for the first fifteen or so episodes, one of the single most flat and tedious series' I have ever put myself through. Virtually everything about this series is flaccid. The animation, directing, even the musical stings are often used ad nauseam. Nothing is given room to breathe; everything that the adaptors thought needed to be explained was explained.

You see, a novel has the ability to have large exposition dumps because the reader sets their own pace. A fast reader can shoot through these segments and siphon all the necessary information from them. Especially when large sections of supposedly good, mysterious plot progression is back ending these bursts of exposition. Yet the series doesn't have that quality. It's a twenty-minute anime, and that fact ruins the entire product! The writers need to get this massive amount of information across, so they have to cut out those valuable segments of proper writing because there is no time to have them. They rush from beat to beat and those beats are the least interesting part of a visual medium. That's not to say it is unable to be adapted. It simply requires a talented, unique approach to showcasing information diagetically.

In episode three our group stumbles upon what I can only call a glowing information hedgehog. While they call it a false minoshiro, all it is is a glorified exposition machine. That entire episode was them sitting in a generic, boring anime forest listening to this man-made device literally tell them everything they want to know except what just so happens to be a crucial piece of information the entire series wants to keep a mystery. It's genuinely unbelievable how weak this presentation is. Now if there were redeeming factors to the shot composition or animation maybe I could remain engaged for what is a glorified reading of a Wikipedia page. However, there is none of that.

From a New World is ugly. It has this somewhat unique aesthetic, with flat colors and a gray, dusty palette. Yet the director has seemingly no idea how to direct color, or images, for that matter. You'd think it is easy to create compelling shot composition when you have virtually no animation to worry about, yet this series' unsightly palette is all that is to be seen. From a New World uses something I see in every A-1 show and plenty of other anime; I call it "texture muddying." They are clearly rushing the product and the artists either don't have the time or talent to draw proper backgrounds, so they instead just color a texture onto flat environments using what I imagine is a tool from their digital art software. These environments lack all semblance of depth and quality, resulting in some horrendous design. Decent character-designs stand in fields of muddy greens and shit-stain browns that are drained of all vibrancy for no apparent reason.

Similar to last season's Violet Evergarden, the director isn't grasping why one should use a certain color palette or filter, instead prompting for a stylistic choice that holds absolutely no reason or merit. Glaring, abrasive CG rocks are hurled through the air in some tensionless action scenes where the characters take a backseat to whirring, synthetic sound design that is constantly repeated for every telekinetic "move" these characters employ.

This aggressively weak presentation is compounded by endless exposition that disregards any potentially interesting writing for blunt explanation. It lasts for minutes on end with minimal flashbacks or any sort of engaging material to consume. The application of these ideas is beyond misguided and feels downright disrespectful to the author who clearly put effort into this world. More so than just that, the series feels as though it is presented through a passive voice. Nothing is imminent. Nothing is about to happen. It already happened. Multiple episodes pass with virtually no tension established.

For example, a character runs away and hides from their impending doom at the hands of their own people! Yet we don't see this. We see their friend's reacting to their disappearance and then finding them. Seven minutes of exposition as to why they left ensue. A few minor, fuzzy flashbacks reveal what they experienced and then the credits roll. This happens constantly. Everything experienced by our protagonist, Saki, always feels as though it already happened and the viewer is just treading on ground that has been stampeded on. The majority of the actions she takes aren't even out of her own volition, and the small number of actions she decides to take are either frustrating or minor in the context of the entire series.

I can only place this blame on the series' presentation. Virtually every fault is at the hands of the people adapting this novel, as they visibly fumble over themselves and fail to convey any form of intrigue when by all means it should exist in abundance. Once these tedious pieces begin to fall away and we enter the third act of the narrative, we are met with more focused storytelling. It feels as though the earlier segments only existed to convey the few ideas that were carried over into this act. I began feeling somewhat rejuvenated and started to enjoy the kinds of revelations I was expecting from this narrative. None of it was all too surprising, but as I stated earlier, I like dystopian stories and From a New World breathes some interesting ideas into this potentially stale conceit.

Unfortunately, once the final credits roll I couldn't help but ask myself whether the many hours of tedium and despondency was worth the neat conclusion and I can't help but say no. It really wasn't worth it. The presentation is so weak that reading a summary or just the novel itself would've served to be a better way to spend my time. If watching this series was like biting into a sandwich made of mud and feces which housed a delicious piece of chocolate at the center, chewing through all that only for a hint of sweetness would still result in a putrid taste.

The title of the series breeds mystery, intrigue, a will to go forward and discover what comes from the new world, both literally and figuratively. I'm sure the novel follows through with that mystery at least to a certain extent. I can't judge the novel based on the abridged, mangled body presented by A-1 Pictures, though, and I would never want to. What was initially a holistic work was chopped up to only include the most mandatory elements presented in a lifeless way with sporadic moments of inspired shot composition blended hideously with endless, muddy animation and tensionless scene structure. However, the ethical questions of greater good and excusing horrendous actions to negate even more frightening results is fascinating. A truly unique way to expound upon established dystopian concepts and pulling inspiration exactly where it is iterated upon.

Giving appropriate praise where it's due, From a New World succeeds through its ideas, and fails through its presentation. Sadly, that's hardly a feat in this medium. In film, visuals are the single most important element. The same should be applied to animation. We can have a film without sound, without story, yet it can be something that blooms with quality. A novel is bound by different chains, so an adaptation requires a specific effort to be applied to change a long-form story into a completely different medium that utilizes unique presentational elements. As it stands, the title is what breeds the mystery. The cover art was why I initially picked this series up. Yet From the New World, only disappointment blossoms.

[8.0/10]
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You're twelve. Impatient enough to zone out before class even starts. Eager to go watch the clouds. After all, doing nothing is better than doing something. The teacher goes on, their voice joining those clouds in the sky, out of sight out of mind. You've been noticing yourself change. Things look darker, sharper, maybe it's the weather, but the perpetual smog overcast on your insides doesn't seem to be clearing. A rainstorm over your ribs, ice coating your heart, hail pouring onto your liver, fog building around your intestines, a tornado forming in your-- Wait. Are the girl's skirts getting shorter or is it just ... you?

No, they have to be. Why else would they be crossing their legs every time they sit down? It's not just the sight, but the ideas that get you feeling... enchanted? Nervous? Anxious? All of the above? Why are you so sweaty? What's this pit in your stomach that grows and grows and grows until you feel gorged on your pervasive self-indulgence, wobbling to the nearest restroom to let it all out? It's confusing, but you aren't confused. You don't bother with that. Why should you? The clouds are on the horizon.

They always are. At least to Naota. A twelve-year-old boy living in a peaceful town whereby his definition nothing happens. Naota is, of course, dealing with his own issues. His older brother, Tesuku, who moved to America to follow his baseball career, leaving a mitt-shaped hole in the heart of the ones dearest to him. He's an invisible, infinitely idealized figure by Naota, who has Tesuku's ex-girlfriend, Mamimi, draped over him. She prays for the return of her love and imposing this loss onto Naota, forcing him to fill shoes much too big for him. If juggling an older, cooler, edgier, and wounded girl isn't enough, Naota's body decides to collide him with the bright-yellow Vespa of puberty.

Contorting through dozens of keyframes that purposefully lack smears or even apparently few in-betweens, Naota lands face down onto the concrete. A massive lump or horn, forms on his forehead. A symbol of his first step into adulthood and the initial journey into getting these pent-up emotions literally beaten out of him. This abrasive, loud, and forever looming figure dashes across the street and plants a wet kiss on his lips. Haruko is that figure. He awakens to the lips of his future, his pixie dream girl. A disgusting, older character that takes him by hand and forces him into situations that rip every shred of him apart.

Naota rejects this change initially. A bandage over the horn, over the newly formed embarrassment, but of course it follows him home. Waking up to see Haruko right there at the breakfast table with his parents. Kinetic, obnoxious, and constantly in your face. In tune with the show, her personality and slung bass guitar keeps us in-tune with her mindset. Get this kid riled up by any means necessary. Naota is confused, upset, and full of bitter rage. A childish rejection of the impending change. It isn't until an inciting incident forces his horn to burst through the bandage and erupt onto the street. The initial sight is of flesh. That quickly morphs into a robot, Canti, who plays as the second half to Naota's fuming interior, his hook into the unobtainable image of perfection; his brother.

FLCL decides to stay fully below its base narrative. A narrative that forms in the mind of a kid going through the biggest change every boy goes through at a certain point. The entire world takes place within a mind, and that mind is under siege. As Naota says. "Nothing amazing happens here. Only the ordinary." Read to be a representation of his mental state, the infiltration of puberty is what rips him out of that malaise.

Every character is more of a symbol than anything, which makes their applicability and connection only as strong as your understanding of that fact. Mamimi is his past, his childhood. Haruko is the impending storm of puberty and adulthood. Amarao, the agent which tries to subdue Naota's change is the rejection, a facade of adulthood, and Canti, the robot which was birthed in the first episode is the ultimate signpost of maturity. With that knowledge, the narrative falls away and tunes you into the abstract, chaotic imagery as pure reflection.

That's both praise and criticism, as this OVAs intention is not only unclear but ultimately directionless in both a positive and negative way. While I firmly believe that any young boy would find this series not only engaging but a perfect representation of their current mentality; I can't help but feel as though a lot of the meaning will float by them. I can only see it as a point of reflection for an older audience, thinking back to youth and appreciating the chaotic nature that defined its entirety. Take that as you will. A piece of reflection that may not be suited for the youth it's intended to examine.

What great reflection it is, though! A post-Evangelion victory lap of anachronistic indulgence. If Gainax is to be blamed for the modern-day zeitgeist that anime has not only consumed but suffered from, then FLCL may as well be the peak of that established style. Unashamed and eager to please, a lapdog of Anno protege Kazuya Tsurumaki, FLCL jumps at any opportunity to indulge in the otaku-driven landscape of the anime we know today. The awkward sexuality, the male-driven demographic, the perverse camera angles. All of this is serviced by the meta-narrative, sure, but it still exists in the same feedback loop that funds the industry now. Apart from the kinetic, spectacular animation and direction that distinguishes Gainax and to a certain extent their offspring Trigger from the slobbering, talentless hacks that feed off the industry, we get this extra push for a meaning behind consuming. This meaningful indulgence was perfected early. Everything else is pale imitation that struggles to even iterate. Understanding that you see the creation and iteration so early on.

Which extends to another favorite of mine, Kill la Kill. Similarly having a sexuality-driven narrative held up by a powerful and well-done meta-narrative that entangles the series with themes that are necessary to make the indulgence palatable. Without this secondary structure, we'd have only the base narrative which isn't saying much. Without the meta-narrative in FLCL, unfortunately, we wouldn't have anything at all. Where it falls behind is where the majority of symbolism-driven products do. Once the symbols are understood, applied, and consumed, you are rarely left with anything else to latch onto, especially if the symbolism doesn't have a lasting effect on you.

This is where I'd argue for traditional stories or at least a combination of the two. To continue the brief comparison between Kill la Kill and FLCL, the symbolism in KlK is what keeps the narrative intact but ultimately is also held up by the bevy of characterization choices that power through the arcs and give us a connection to characters and symbols alike. Meanwhile, FLCL doesn't have a similar connection to the characters because the narrative is solely hung onto the themes, similarly to how Naota is latched onto Canti. It's there for the ride more so than anything else. With that said, there may be a very fair argument to be made for the strength of the symbolic narrative being substantially more effective in FLCL, which I'll leave for every unique viewer to decide for themselves.

The clouds are always waiting, but the perfect day to witness them never comes. There's always something else that throws you onto a different path. That chaotic path is often the one that doesn't let youth go until they've fully matured. FLCL captures that viscerally, with epic, kinetic, and heavily abstract visuals. Snappy, fourth-wall obliterating dialogue, and odd, abrasive choices in framing and art style. A combination of western cartoons and anime, Gainax wears their love and inspiration proudly. A blaring, unapologetic beam into a kid's mind. One could say the show's confusing, erratic style is not only intentional but mandatory. If the narrative couldn't do so, perhaps the visuals and head-nodding soundtrack could make you feel young again. That's the beauty of reflection. Stepping into shoes much too small for you and marveling at how much you've grown. Leaving your childhood behind, as it leaves the bounds of your mind, with its pyromaniacal idealism, and embracing the future, whoever that may be.

[2.0/10]
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Art is born on a bed of nails. It comes from discomfort. A place that is the opposite of complacency. A wide-eyed child that cries in pain. It forms to fit a mold and that mold is then inducted into our society. Accepted for being palatable. Then you can look to a child that isn’t molded perfectly, one that deviates just enough from the norm to be appreciated by both societies’ most stern contributors as well as the rebellious cynics who are sick of the banal grind.

Much like the television industry, contorting and fitting a mold is necessary to be accepted by the masses. Express ... yourself as you may, but at the end of the day if you aren’t employable then you may as well be wasting your time. If a series can’t be marketed and sold then it is doomed to fail, and doomed products rarely get picked up by investors. So’s the perpetually churning gears of the animation industry in Japan, and so’s the small, niche culture that funds it.

A product for such a niche following must stick to the formula. The formula just so happens to be colorful, unrealistic girl archetypes and generic male blobs; grey-masses of easily-insertable conformity. It must be ironic that a series so interested in telling a story of rebellion, anti-conformity, and growth from the norm is yet another series so pathetically unwilling to practice what it attempts to preach.

Follow Hiro, our blank-slate protagonist who has a chance encounter with a colorful anime pixie dream girl that proves to be the sole appeal of this soulless series, Zero Two. They flirt, she exposits her character archetype and we are off to the races. Set in a post-apocalypse where humans reside in gargantuan fortresses due to a seemingly alien presence, the Klaxosaurs. There are mechs, dystopian themes, and sterile environments. Darling in the Franxx desperately wants to develop stakes. As it should. Unfortunately, establishing a non-protagonist to be puppeteered by the true protagonist isn’t a promising start.

Slogging through the first few episodes, episodes which drag on longer than they ought to for such short run-times, you begin to realize that this series has the same intentions as any other series of its ilk. Vaguely remind people that Evangelion exists, harkening back to a superior series, meanwhile shoving as much fanservice and pandering down your throat with the distinct “reasoning” to separate it from its more looked down upon brethren. “We can hide just how phoned in everything is if we explain it with sci-fi terms that are the single most forced metaphors imaginable!” Ahh yes, three episodes in, all helmed by A-1 pictures and I feel as though I have it all figured out. A sporadic cacophony of barely thought out sci-fi concepts perpetuated in male power fantasies and cringe-inducing metaphors.

Of course, I can say the show gets better. It doesn’t, it simply gets louder, but I could say that. Chances are you’ll hear it from people. Especially after the first core when a titular episode connects everything back to our blank-slate protagonist, Hiro, and the “veil” begins to lift. It lifts half-way and then the turning gears snap and buckle under the weight of farcical storytelling. A resounding, waifu-driven “hurrah” to every person who fell in love with Zero Two because she’s the only character who had any design effort put into her.

Every other character is just a static uniform-clad archetype that plays footsy with the soap-opera melodrama that occurs throughout the series. We wouldn’t have an awful show without a forced love triangle that is oriented around fighting poorly designed aliens. How else are we to connect with 02 if not by seeing her as a little, crying kid with an outwardly cute design? Good character writing? Who needs that when you have exploitable animators working for slave wages on a series with the narrative depth of a BB gun wound. Yes, DiTF is not a bad looking show from an animation perspective. The directing is boring, harkening back to Trigger’s most easily parrot-able clichés, to the point where I honestly couldn’t even tell which studio was helming episodes. Not because both A-1 and Trigger were working well together, no, but because the entire series boils down to the worst parts of both Trigger and A-1.

Trigger’s incessant need for bombastic recreations of the same shit that got them popular isn’t that interesting when it is coated with A-1’s absurdly boring paint job. If Trigger and Gainax are known for some of anime’s most impressive and lively character designs, leave it to A-1 to cut that off immediately. Everyone wears grey uniforms. Bafflingly, they decided to have the boys wear shorts. Which looks funny but is fucking stupid nonetheless.

From character arcs left by the wayside in favor of love interests and some of the most tedious action-writing imaginable to hilarious anti-atheist dialogue that almost makes the theories about this series being a fully corporate product ring surprisingly possible. Darling in the Franxx has the proverbial checklist of anime clichés and marketing tools in hand at every possible moment. The need to sell 02 to the audience slobbering over her peaks with her character, similar to many “strong” female characters in anime, becoming nothing but an object of affection. A limp, spunky noodle to save from the big-bad neon-streaked blocks that we are supposed to believe are scary aliens and not some Bionicles offshoots. Every scene with her, post the initial hackneyed love interest, is just a reaffirmation of her undying love for our blank slate.

That’s without mentioning the perverse nature of the series as a whole. What with robots being piloted in doggy-style, with the female taking the submissive position and males taking the dominant one. It is all very “anime”, in the sense that anime means “weakly pandering to an outwardly male demographic.” Awkward, cringe-inducing sexism aside, the series attempts to subvert these elements. Kind of. Of course, they are breaking out of these sexualized positions and becoming their own people! Right? Except not at all in any way. The way these moments are framed paints the audience as the villain since we can’t help but look onto these suffering characters as bait. As the showrunner, you can criticize the perverse nature of the world so much until you realize that you are indulging in these perversions more so than just about any other villain in the series.

I’m not trying to take a moralistic standpoint against a series that doesn’t deserve it. DiTF doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously enough to criticize just how abrasive its messaging is. How meaningless its already well-trodden points are. How painstakingly fake the entire product feels. It is both sterile and outwardly sexual in a way that I haven’t seen before. It’s getting a vasectomy while watching one of the nurses attempt to give you a lap dance.

Watching this series was akin to hate-fucking because I was going to finish whether I like it or not. Especially when every single episode decided to remind me of yet another grossly popular series from just a year or two ago. Re:Zero. Yet another show that tries to be different but struggles to break free from the mold it was born within. A bed of guaranteed success when the girls are cute, and the ideas established enough. Similarly, 02 parallels Rem’s obnoxious trajectory as a character. Unlike Re:Zero, though, which had redeeming qualities in some of its very hard-to-find edges, Darling in the Franxx is fundamentally broken.

When I say that I don’t mean it doesn’t work. What I mean is that it is a poor recreation. A rip-off brand Rolex that cartoonishly erupts with springs and gears after just a few minutes of use. Not of just story archetypes and narratives that have been expounded upon by hundreds of films and series’ before it, but from a marketing perspective as well. Which is as fake as you can get. If Re:Zero could get popular off the heels of pretending to have new ideas and cute girls, maybe Franxx can too. Except the ideas are less original and there is only one character worth marketing. So much so that we had a nude figurine teased before the first core even finished.

Maybe I shouldn’t have written this diatribe. Maybe it just isn’t worth it. This series is so hollow and hackneyed that I shouldn’t have forced myself to write about it at all. It’s frustrating that people don’t even want to perpetuate mediocrity anymore. I could only wish this series was mediocre. If only it was just the bare minimum of creativity. If only it had an inkling of quality past a semi-finished coat of paint. If art is born on a bed of nails then Darling in the Franxx was born on a chinchilla coat, looked over by a smirking pink-haired protagonist that decides to speak in derivative catchphrases.

Darling, no thanks.

[6.0/10]
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Sometimes you are better off leaving your expectations low and not getting enraptured into something too quickly. For someone that has watched a lot of television and film, I still haven’t broken the habit of brushing my cynicism aside when I see something exceptionally well made. Whether it be the first episode of Kill la Kill, which is vibrant, eccentric, and perfectly paced, or the hook in Nichijou, as we witness a well-known anime cliché get upturned in its opening sequence, setting lofty expectations for the series. The point here is, when a show gives you everything in its opening, you either buy into ... it or don’t. It shapes the future of the product for the viewer. Next time you sit down to consume an anime, try and pay attention to the way it attempts to hook you. How does that introduction affect your outlook on the rest of the episode?

Hinamatsuri fits snuggly with the “load-blowers” of the industry; clearly wanting to showcase an especially impressive fight sequence that was not only exceptionally animated but solidly funny as well. A sporadic, nimble cut filled with substantial smears and smooth frames. It instantly captured me. Unfortunately, it peaked right then, for nothing else in the series reached that level of entertainment. I can’t help but feel as though I would’ve enjoyed it more if my expectations weren’t taken through a proverbial lap dance only to get a high-heel to the nads.

That’s not to say that Hinamatsuri is bad. It just doesn’t really attempt to be anything it established past the first episode. We meet Nitta, a Yakuza member who finds a metallic pod in his home with an odd girl trapped at the center of it. That girl is Hina. Her origins are unknown. We do quickly figure out she’s a bit of deadpan brat with telekinetic powers. From there, Nitta proceeds to unwillingly take care of her in continuously absurd situations as he makes use of her powers, her naivete, and their general relationship stays at a comfortable medium between hating each other and genuinely loving each other.

Hinamatsuri proceeds to introduce a decent secondary cast. A second, power-infused girl with Anzu, who gets left in our strange world as she tries to make ends meet with a bunch of homeless men, and Mishima, a classmate of Hina who gets thrust into a bartending job while still in elementary school. The idea here is that every character must face a situation firmly out of their comfort zone. Nitta, who is somewhat of a lady’s man and rogue, living alone in his apartment, is forced to become a pseudo-parent. Anzu needs to learn about this alien world and survive. Mishima must adapt to the new job she was burdened with. Each one has a miniature arc and plenty of B-stories. Some work, others resoundingly don’t.

The show is at its best when it is shooting the shit. Mishima is constantly the most entertaining character, not because she’s well-written, mind you, but simply because the situations she’s put in are farcical and almost always comedy-oriented. Meanwhile, Anzu, who is stuck living with homeless people, must go through a less-funny and more saccharine arc, as she deals with loss and growth. Her arc is perhaps the show at its weakest, as I found myself cringing at the overly-sugary emotions that were not only undeserved but completely dissonant from the appeal of the series to me.

Hina and Nitta are well-balanced enough. One moment they hate each other, another moment they have a connection. It isn’t perfect, but it is serviceable. With above-average animation for TV anime, Hinamatsuri elevates its presentation just enough to retain my interest. Unfortunately, the character designs are boring, to put it kindly. If I were in a worse mood I’d easily call them flat-out ugly. This doesn’t do too much to detract from the series, however, the generally serviceable animation, when compared to other shows of its ilk, is truly the only stand-out element in the presentation. Everything else in Hinamatsuri, from directing to shot-composition is uninspired, to say the least.

Peaking so early didn’t do it any favors, either, as the initial spectacle wears off and we get what I can only call a slightly above average slice of life. The comedy here is passable for anime, a medium which seriously struggles to be funny on its best day. The characters are generally unmemorable barring a few situations they find themselves in. Particularly earlier on the series before the character dynamics began feeling repetitive. There were flashes of inspiration in the general malaise, what with Hina begging Nitta to go to a “girl’s club”, and Mishima’s journey through unwilling student to a professional bartender. It was a positive experience, if only barely. I see copious praise for a series that does the bare minimum to stand-out from the crowd, but honestly, for a medium that loves repetition so much, maybe that’s enough.

[7.5/10]
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Behold first love. A first kiss. A tender touch. Without it, we would cease to grow. A metaphoric stomping on roots. Painted through cliche, breathing through understatements. Each veteran, wandering eye gazing down at innocence and wishing to relive moments missed. Missed through longing or melancholy. A bittersweet visage of young love remarked dismissively by jaded tongues. If only my own wasn't so jaded.

These moments, mandatory, yet romanticized. It's in the genre, after all. Yet that's so often the failure. Perfection is wanted, but only through shallow wishes. Wanting perfection in a relationship is like wanting world peace. An empty claim that flirts with ignorance ... more so than profundity. It's hollow, and maybe that's the point. The more hollow something is, the easier we can attach and fill that shell with our own viscous desire for something which we unconsciously know will never be experienced. It's a fleeting world of returned passion and beleaguered, yet gleaming puppy love.

That's the world which Azumi and Mizuno inhabit. Two last-year middle schoolers swept up by one another's awkward glances and burning blushes. Where handholding is first base and meeting lips may as well warrant contraceptive. Where their world veers right where many anime tend to drive forward is in the presentation of the setting. Where romance anime often pulls back on verisimilitude to create melodrama, Tsuki Ga Kirei attempts to create a bond through experience. Walking along an empty street, something as innocuous as eating lunch with one another, yet painted with a thick enough brush to be seen as romance.

These scenes border on Iyashekei, as they hold no value to anyone who doesn't want to spend time with these characters. In those moments, the moments in which we look to a budding relationship, not through admittance or confession, but through the experience of human emotion, are the series at its peak. Its ability to let these characters and their stories breath in a short twelve-episode runtime shines brightest once the final credits roll. While not devoid of melodrama, as the all-consuming love-triangle looms heavy over this lovable romp, it is dealt with so relaxed, with such an incredibly small pool of tears, that it ceases to even feel as abrasive as it actually may be.

If action anime can often be conflated with B-movies, shlock entertainment, and pulp, then romance anime would fall under the equally divisive umbrella of soap opera and cable-access drama. Something that generally feels vapid and empty, banking more on the attractiveness of the leads than the narrative or characters. This approach may be assumptive and, to a certain extent, overly amalgamating an entire medium and genre into one pigeonholed view, it does, however, hold some truth to it. This may be based on the small pool I've consumed, but these elements within anime are so abundantly clear to anyone who's watched an expansive amount of any kind of entertainment, that I feel like it is difficult to argue against.

With that notion established, you are left to your own devices. They must be used to determine whether or not this kind of entertainment truly appeals to you. Do you revel in the shlock? The pulp? The medium which can easily become trite and redundant if you look just past the surface? Or will your critical lens prevent you from doing that? Perhaps the answer is more complicated. Taste, after all, is multi-faceted and you can appreciate many different forms of entertainment, different genres and even subgenres presented in unique ways. I, like many others, have exactly that outlook on my own taste.

For example, action anime rarely does anything for me. I have a very specific outlook and belief in the way I understand and enjoy action sequences. Whether it be the nail-biting thrill of a bank-robbery to the fist-clapping bravado in an action spectacle like Pacific Rim or Fury Road. There's an exact understanding of what makes my dopamine rush and unfortunately, that "something" isn't prevalent in the action anime I consume. The over-the-top nature of so many series' that I watch quickly becomes a bore when I'm regularly forced to witness such below-average presentation.

The same can be said about romance. A genre which I'm most critical of simply by being something which I harbor little interest in. The outcomes fostered by generic romance writing are continuously so banal that the entire genre has fallen into a kind of malaise which I'm not even attempting to break free from. This malaise, of course, is my own mea culpa. Now that's not to say romance can't be done well. However, add anime's tendency to focus on abrasive melodrama and over-the-top cloying emotionality and my interest in the genre is borderline non-existent.

Thus Tsuki Ga Kerei decided to seemingly be the antithesis of what I've come to expect from romance anime. While the usual, outlined elements are there. Specifically, the too-good-to-be-true moments which romance enjoys basking in. There is a very distinct approach to go against the grain in a surprisingly effective way. The focus on experience over melodrama does so much to establish characters which would otherwise have little to no personality to actually connect with. It's so refreshing to see an anime where I can't pinpoint the otaku-driven character archetypes.

Parents, not only being present but being major players within a romance? An emphasis on legitimate, non-sexual awkwardness? It would seem as though this series traveled through the nether. From a dimension similar to ours but where romance anime actually gets a chance to explore non-market-demanded characters in situations that aren't simply made to pluck at whatever heartstrings aren't calloused over from the suffocating saccharine nature of this genre, and, to a certain extent, the medium.

Unfortunately, Tsuki Ga Kirei can't escape every cliche that one would associate with the medium. The series' biggest fault is its production. It doesn't look good. The shots are often flatter than intended and even some of the better framed moments that clearly had care put into them are unfortunately marred by low production values. There is no need to even mention the horrific CG crowds which seem to have become a common staple of rushed anime. I still have to give Studio Feel. credit for focusing on some genuinely impressive character animation, at times, that gave a lot of needed exposition about some hobbies our protagonists may have. For example, our lead Azumi is clearly a fan of boxing. We see that not only from his poster above his bed but also how he treats a hanging lamp-switch like a boxing bag. Yet this isn't ever mentioned through dialogue.

There is still a reliance on some cloying and cliche elements here and there, and it stands out all the more when the rest of the series is oriented around a more relaxed and realistic approach to the romance. Some moments tend to drag when the focus is on spurned love, particularly in the side characters which form the love rectangle which the middle-half of the series does well to not shine an obnoxious amount of light on. Even the frustrating monologuing which so much romance anime seems to heavily indulge in is included, yet not to an extreme and the pseudo-philosophical comments on love by a character who is in middle-school are well-explained by his fascination with reading. The majority of Azumi's monologued quotes come from the beautiful pen of Osamu Dazai.

The resolution feels right, without feeling wholly realistic. To return back to the initial thesis about romance anime, the prevailing feeling of "fakeness" is still present. The situations here, while given a more satisfyingly realistic platform to bounce off of, are still not "real" enough to be truly relatable to anyone who isn't living the perfect life of a kid. Perhaps that is something which I will never see eye-to-eye with in this genre. These kids, each one having problems, from a struggling passion for writing which unfortunately goes a bit unexplored, to a lingering attraction to the freedom of competitive field and track. These problems are genuinely resolved painlessly, though. While there are thankfully realistically bittersweet moments within the series, they are often back-ended by a reassuring touch from the hands of the writer, nudging you to believe that everything is still perfect.

Behold first love, as eyes meet from across a barren dancefloor. A first kiss, in the girl's bathroom, followed by a timid apology. A tender touch, which leads to immediate recoil and guilt. Without it, I would've ceased to grow. A metaphoric stomping on my own roots. Painted through reality, breathing through experience. Each veteran, wandering eye gazing down at the loss of innocence and wishing to relive moments missed. Missed through longing or melancholy. A bittersweet visage of young love remarked dismissively by jaded tongues. Maybe that's just me, though.

[8.0/10]
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Over one Billion Yen. Ten million dollars. This was the price the industry paid to create timeless animation. This was the toll Katsuhiro Otomo paid to adapt almost two thousand pages of his magnum opus. One which he struggled to finish. Every page taking more time than the last. Each penstroke weighing heavier on his hand. All culminating in a dinner with Alejandro Jodorowsky, director of El Topo and The Holy Mountain, as he was coming off the heels of Sante Sangre. The dinner is what eventually made Otomo close the final chapter to Akira.

Yet this was two years after the release of the ... film. Two years after Kaneda's cardinal motorbike was brought to life. Screeching tires were given more frames, plumes of smoke began to move, a sound was given to still images. Otomo didn't stop there. There was no use for mere adaptation, a recreation, a facade of the real thing. He wanted to bring something original to the medium. That billion yen he pocketed was to be used. Don't cut away from the animation, don't hide the imperfections. Improve upon them.

738 pages of design were turned into over two hours of entertainment. The actors brought in didn't lip sync. That wasn't what Akira was going to be. Established norms in the industry were of no concern. Otomo was here to transgress. Pre-scored dialogue was utilized. Actors offered their full range of emotions, not just what was required for their voices to match the already animated characters. The entire film was made around that. Characters were drawn to match the actors. A symbiotic relationship between artist and art.

160,000 cells. Each one reliant on the last to complete the cut. Kaneda walks to his bike. Tetsuo grasps his capsules, as a reference to his now-defunct gang and the drugs in hand. Kinetic blasts of telekinesis showcased in smooth effects animation crack the pavement. A soundtrack by an entire collective, music that literally breathes with the film. A panting, tired chorus back-ends tension, carnivalesque, chirping vocals sting during the climax. It's all symbiotic. The sound director, Shoji Yamashiro intercut the same song cycle throughout the entire film. Each layer of the music adding on to one another creating cacophony during the third act.

Hundreds of cuts within a narrative that folds in on itself. Fades linger, yet never overstay their welcome. It's brisk, not simply to adapt the long source, but to convey a mood. The tension doesn't melt because there is no time for it too. The bike doesn't slow down, so neither should you. From one scene to the next, from laser beams to jail cells. It's all as fluid as the animation. Each cut is purposeful, the lingering fades, paused, still, like reminders from a turning page. The last glimpse of a moment in the past. Seyama's editing persists through continuity, broken only once to outline an abrupt meeting.

Take a backseat to Tetsuo and his best friend Kenada. During a usual gang conflict, Tetsuo has a chance run-in with an esper boy. Explosions, gunfire, and the military descend upon them and take Tetsuo with the boy esper. From there, Tetsuo discovers his own innate powers. Ones which he uses to rebel further, to finally take a stand for himself. He becomes a figure for the people, the same ones that want to so vigorously fight against the norm but their strength is limited. He represents the outlook of many, both fictional and real. Tetsuo finds himself, a physically weak boy always protected by his best friend, lost. Lost in the rebellion, the reform, the need to be who he wants to be without understanding the true cause of his innate desire.

Aesthetic sensibility may be subjective, but aesthetic influence is not. Akira's palette is dusky, old, and cracking. The city has spots of neon, the lights are bright, yet the story that's told isn't. We follow roaming gangs, we follow Kaneda, Tetsuo, bikers, dealers. Through delinquent schools that are of no meaning, relationships that exist from necessity, carnal desires that eat away at a society still unrecovered from the trauma of the past. The Akira. A gleaming, blinding eruption that destroyed the entirety of Tokyo, yet spurred life that forever exists as a shadow of what it was. The city of Neo-Tokyo is filled with people remembering the past. Remembering what was. Ignoring the present. Hoping for the future. Hoping for another Akira, hoping for anything, physical or not, to change their lives again.

Parallels to Hiroshima and Nagasaki are common in Japanese entertainment. The post-bomb society of Neo-Tokyo is a grim reminder that while many may like to forget, their every move is motivated as an expression of rebellion against the past. This society is a reflection of the truth behind the false visage put up by Japan. These bikers, the ones that fight and kill each other aren't of major concern to the police. This is a common facet of this society. The old city looms, both literally and metaphorically. People riot for tax reform yet the change never comes. Dystopia, cyberpunk sensibilities, these are elements prevalent in so much sci-fi, yet in Akira's case, birthed from a culture not afraid of these changes, but familiar with them.

Now we look forward. The timelessness of classic, 2D animation is on display. While Akira may have been an immensely expensive product and heavy risk for Japan at the time, it was one that so easily paid off by not looking dated whatsoever. Undoubtedly within the late-80s aesthetic, Akira breaks the notion that "old can't hold". Easily comparable to the aesthetic achievements of 2001: A Space Odyssey, not simply due to audacity and success, but due to the methods employed not being remotely commonplace. Yet, much like so many revolutionary products at the time, Akira struggled for recognition. Both in terms of viewers and appreciation.

"Unmarketable to the west." Spoken without vision, without an eye for achievement. Who else but Steven Spielberg, a visionary creator behind some of the most beloved films of all time, to say such insipid and close-minded remarks. Such an astounding, inspirational name incapable of recognizing originality and non-insular creation. Spielberg, of course, paid recompense for such remarks, not through apology but through homage. Blatant as can be. From unmarketable to marketing, Kenada's signature bike features alongside Spielberg's blockbuster, Ready Player One, in one of the most titular and exhilarating action scenes of the year. That's enough, Steven, apology accepted.

Inception, The Matrix, Chronicle, Stranger Things, all products of Akira. Each one borrowing, with love, to create their own deviations from the film. Each element taken is another expanded upon. From simple homages, such as Kanye West's "Stronger", to creating entire characters based on the concept, with Stranger Things. It's not that it wasn't marketable, it's that the market took time to recognize. So's the forever churning gears of inspiration, a budding seed to a bursting cacoon.

Take one step into an art piece inspired by many that inspires many. That's the beauty of entertainment. Kubrick may hold responsibility for some Akira, much like Otomo holds responsibility for some Midnight Special. The world design makes up for the character design, the meta-narrative makes up for the base narrative. It's the images that stick with you, the idea that style is somehow lapped by substance is ignorant. Style, in this case, is the substance. It's images that eat away at your thoughts. A bulbous, disfigured, horrific amalgamation of flesh and wires that acts like fertilizer to the roots of creatives and their eventual ideas. If there is anything to love Akira for, it's that.

[9.0/10]
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Present Time - Present Day

Ironic. Serial Experiments Lain isn't timeless. In fact, it bathes in its own time. You can make parallels to the lives we live, the wired culture which we indulge in. Perpetual connectedness. Forever trapped in the screens in front of us. Yet Lain is a product of its own time. The late 90s when, instead of Y2K, Japan was drenched in its own fear. The horror of technology. How it grows, evolves, enraptures, and swallows. The technophobe culture which Lain overtly commented on is the very culture that no longer exists to the same extent today. We accept technology as it ... comes. We consume it as it springs forth every second of every day.

Circuitry hangs low over the city like a spider web. A barrier that represents one layer beyond our own. A layer of the wired. The weird. The mysterious. Power lines, low hums of generators unseen, these are motifs through which director Ryuutarou Nakamura expresses the indulgence of a society bordering on dystopia. Power, mystery, and growth. The symbols associated with a spider. It's web. A perpetually connected string of vines that ensnares victims.

The shadows aren't black but splotched. They are made up of moving ink, the bubbling of a cauldron. The shadows move and hide anything and everything. Ethereal, they walk and cover or uncover. Whenever you are to wander into the over-blown, exposed outdoors, you see a world that is one step behind, the people disappear, desperately grasping progress. That progress manifests in evolution. You are alone. You are empty. You are without friends or anyone who understands you. You poor, poor girl, thick-brimmed glasses on your face and a frown that never dissipates. You see an opportunity. The opportunity for freedom, to escape, to become something more.

You jump. Fall. Fall all the way down. Windows shatter and the metal of the roof crumples under your weight. You don't know. You are no longer restricted by the heaving, useless body that no one understands. You are now a part of something more.

Or you. The one frustrated with work. The grind. It weighs heavy on your back and you can feel your ribs begin to crack. You believe in something more. That something right above you every time you walk outside. The shadows can't mask that. The wires drape over, like taunting beggars asking for you to come. You do. Screw work, screw obligations, you double down. You don't need your body. You need influence, you want religion, you want to be the religion you want. You are.


You Don't Seem To Understand.

Lain transposes the meta. View the wired as a look into the real world through the eyes of the fake world on screen. We are presented with falsehood, we see their reality, we see our own through that same reality. Blurred images of parking lots and bridges run through many filters. Hardly distinguishable as real but they are. These are the images Lain uses to show us the parallel. The meta.

Far from us but close anyway. Like an infinite loop. The presentation is purposefully confusing and fractured. The narrative lacks a timeline. We see a poor girl, fourteen, introverted, shy, a parallel to the two souls lost. One on the train-tracks, one splayed out on the streets. This girl, Lain, is given a window to the new, weird, wacky world of vaporwave fuzz and dripping cyber heaven. The wired is just that. A depiction of future as seen from the past that purposefully paints itself as completely dissonant than the path we took. Yet it is an esoteric narrative that is hauntingly believable in the minutia, but ultimately unbelievable in the idea. The ideas here, which are undoubtedly avant-garde and esoteric, are made to be siphoned from by the viewer. A string of information given to you.

What do you take from the depiction of the internet? The web that harbors answers and routes of communication that might seem completely unbelievable. What would you have said in 1998? What would you have said in 2000? 2005? Later? Lain isn't timeless because as time passes what you take from it is utterly different and not through the intent of the writer or director. It happens to be that because that is how technology works. The creators know that. We should've too. Lain works because it isn't timeless. If it were then the answers we seek would be malformed. Technology isn't timeless, much like this series, it becomes dated. Lain's room evolves as she does.


Ego Death.

To lose yourself in duality. Your self-identity melts away into pixels and becomes yet another blue screen that hums and glitches. The device which you look at the said screen is shaped like a gun. You press the trigger and the screen collapses and the gun is holstered in your hoodie. The hoodie is worn by a boy no older than thirteen.

Lain experiences ego death. Her loss is documented through thirteen brutal episodes. Each one adding layers. Layer one is weird, Layer ten is love, layer thirteen is ego. The layers evolve as does her room. Tubing stretches, viscous green coolant dashes through and feeds her system. Every time we see her room something new has been added. This persists until Lain lives in the cyber-heaven that she first got to witness in layer one. Consumed by the internet. No doubt people can relate. Anime fans especially. Let the flickering screen be the food for the day. The duality of not only yourself but the difference between fiction and reality. A topic which can be read into at any time and place. The bad side manifests and becomes you. You lose the understanding you saught.

In Jungian Psychology this is the psychic death. The fundamental change of the psyche. This could be becoming something new, becoming a god, realizing your true potential, your strength, the power, the mystery unfolds. Yet it can also be understanding who you were to begin with. The delusions fade and you see yourself for the first time, not in the third person, but in the first.


Memories.

They can be false. Once you forget them, the notion that they ever existed comes into question. The final theme of Serial Experiments Lain. An experiment in truth. Relating to truth and fiction, but only enough to draw the parallel. Once you remove yourself, truly remove yourself, you never were there to begin with. Just a fleeting thought triggered by minutia.

Lain makes this connection. Tea and madeleines. Written as an essay by Marcel Proust. The idea here is that certain triggers may cause forgotten memories to erupt back into the conscious. The memories of a childhood friend, the first time you tasted soda, the eyes of a deleted girl that is as much a part of you as she is everyone. The theme only holds weight to those who believe that the final comment of the series holds weight. A divine being that carves out a location for itself, out of reach by all but perhaps in sight. Like the wires that hang over you every time you venture outside.

Every idea builds on itself to paint a picture of more than just a culture. More than just a narrative. A holistic approach to storytelling that relies on encapsulating a present day. A present time. You laugh, but it is a period piece unlike any other. One that may fall victim to quick production or off-model animation, but one that wants to never be just another fleeting thought.

[5.0/10]
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Filters, dolls, and grooming children Woody Allen style, the somewhat contentious Violet Evergarden attempts to do so much. From the precise, focused presentation by Kyoto Animation's art team to the messy, bloated, and ugly narrative, there is a lot to consume within the series. A lot to consume, but not a lot to digest. Like an airy, mediocre castella cake, it slips into your mouth with an initial hint of sweetness but once you really begin chewing it is just a piece of soft, bland bread.

With KyoAni's dark horse in the director's chair struggling desperately to milk every ounce of emotion from this series, ... we get a holistically fake experience. One, like the dolls presented, lacking all forms of nuance, subtlety, and pacing. It is too slow when getting through exposition, too fast when the trajectory is on the action, and ultimately a confusing, directionless mess of scattering debris and disappointing characterization with equally banal storytelling.

It looks pretty incredible though.

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[Beauty Hides the Beast]

Yeah, so Evergarden is unarguably a looker. It delivers in virtually every aspect of animation. Kyoto Animation has, in my opinion, the most talented and proficient group of animators in the entire anime industry and then some. With a relatively small team, they release products that put every other televised anime to utter and hilarious shame. They even put some films to shame with this series. It really is that good looking.

Evergarden's aesthetic exists in the minutia, too. Not just how time-saving techniques pioneered decades ago are virtually not present within this series, which might be one of the most captivating things about the show, but it is in the lighting. How meticulous the effects work is. How they managed to convey manga-level detail into fully animated characters is literally unlike anything else I've seen in the television anime hemisphere.

The soundtrack is solid, even if it is overbearing. We get backing tracks over almost every scene. Thankfully, a few of them are earworms and others are simply serviceable. The opening and closing tracks are pretty forgettable and I honestly ended up skipping past them when I could.

Everything isn't perfect in the land of lens flares and filters, unfortunately. The direction is weak. I say weak in comparison to just about any other KyoAni product I've seen. Ishidate either struggled with restrictions or simply couldn't develop a coherent and unique style for himself, which is rare for the beautiful palate of directors KyoAni has the privilege of working with. The few episodes helmed by other names were substantially easier on the eyes.

That's not to say the direction is awful in the grand scheme of things. It is serviceable and this series is generally directed like a mediocre drama anime. We get all the famous, cliche, and boring shots that you'd expect from any other drama of Evergarden's ilk. I was thoroughly underwhelmed. The beauty here really masks the beast underneath, though. While the art is unquestionably jaw-dropping and audacious. There is a lot under the hood of this series that is decidedly not so. This leads me to the beast.

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[The Beast]

Violet Evergarden is a super-soldier from an unknown location that is never explained or mentioned in any detail. The world here is a steampunky post-victorian England. She was trained to be nothing but a weapon. Violet is treated poorly by all the generic military men you can imagine until she is gifted, as a tool, to a random generic military guy that isn't a douchebag for some reason. This guy is Gilbert, a handsome blue-haired anime boy that is probably around twice Violet's age. He buys her a knick-knack and because this twelve-year-old girl has been treated like the gum on the bottom of a shoe by everyone but this one Gilbert fellow she instantly grows attached to him.

He proceeds to follow orders rigidly, throwing this twelve-year-old girl into battles where she promptly slaughters everyone. How does this twelve-year-old girl do this? Never explained. Regardless, she's overpowered as hell and probably has ninja-genes because she naruto-runs all over these redshirts. One thing leads to another and in a war-ending battle Gilbert is injured and she tries to save him. In the process, she loses both arms and he kind of maybe sort of dies.

Now, post-war, she begins work as an "auto-memory doll", which is pretty much a ghostwriter for letters. She vows to find the "meaning of love", which is as corny as it sounds. Violet meets a few colorful characters, and by colorful I mean lacking personality but are literally colorful. After that, we are treated to a few vignettes that are presented throughout the series.

Here's how they go :

--> Problem/Task is introduced.

--> Violet needs to travel and write.

--> Violet takes off her gloves and everyone goes "OwO what's this?"

--> She writes something about this problem, which is somewhat related to her experiences in the past through virtue of thematic resemblances.

--> Problem resolves in a way which is either bittersweet or mostly bitter.

--> Someone monologues about something vaguely related to the story.

Ironically, these vignettes, barring episode five, are the best narratives of the series. There are two specific highlights. One is a sweet, albeit corny story of a struggling drunk playwright and how Violet reminds him of a lost loved one. The other is a short about an ill mother. Both of these hold a decent, saccharine emotional punch that genuinely is good enough for this series. Unfortunately, Evergarden quickly relapses back into the "main narrative" which actually unbearable.

Before I touch on that, I want to mention that episode five is honestly disturbing. In this vignette, Violet attempts to assist a bratty crybaby princess in writing letters to a prince she's "in love" with. This marriage they must engage with is political, clearly, but of course, she is head-over-heels for this guy. She's fourteen. He's twenty-four. The parallels here are beyond clear and they are quite creepy. More so because unlike a lot of anime which does include this kind of cringe-inducing nonsense and more, this series plays itself disarmingly straight with this. You are supposed to believe and connect with the idea of a fourteen-year-old girl being married to a twenty-four-year-old man. But to make matters worse, this princess recalls the first time she met him (and the only time), which prompted her to fall in love with him.

She was ten. He was twenty. We get treated with an absolutely delicious bone-chilling flashback to when she was alone, crying, and this twenty-year-old man comforts this girl. It wouldn't be creepy if they weren't getting married four years later. The excuse I see here is that this was "Victorian England so it's fine! It's acceptable to promote child abuse!" Yeah...no? That isn't the case.

We aren't making movies about slavery and painting that in a positive light just because "oh it's a period piece!" No. It was morally wrong then, it is morally wrong now. I don't enjoy how this series is promoting these issues as if it is some grand romantic statement. Violet goes so far as to say "Love knows no age." Violet. Stop this. Stop it. If the argument here is, "she's a dumb robot-Esq girl." Yeah, she is. But the whole point of writing something this abhorrent is to eventually correct her, not play every following scene as straight and supposedly romantic. Bad choices here. Bad.

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[The Beast... on Further Review]

This leads us to the main narrative. We never get Violet's origins. The show bothers to explain them in maybe one or two vague lines that don't actually explain why a twelve-year-old on the battlefield is somehow socially acceptable to this decently structured and seemingly morally just society. I mean, I get a general being a cartoonishly inhuman asshole. What I don't get is soldiers not questioning this in any situation. It is downright silly and, due to this, no verisimilitude is created.

It is as if every piece of detail was forcibly thrust into the animation and presentation, but not the actual writing. Even the minutia begins to slowly fall apart under any critical lens. There is this strange facial-gag that Violet does a few times where she squeezes and pulls at her cheeks and forces this wonky looking smile. It is admittedly cute. It, unfortunately, makes no sense.

She smiles. She smiles a lot in this series at crucial points. She isn't incapable of smiling. Why does she do this? This strange gag was included multiple times and there is no reason for it. It doesn't make sense and this already messy character becomes even messier. A gag isn't worth that pain. Pulling back, though, we get this limp story about almost nothing. Finding the "meaning of love" seems to be vague enough if it were given nuance to sprout. Unfortunately, it has been a dry season for nuance for Kyoto Animation's writers it seems. There is not a shred of it to be found. I get that character nuance is kind of a rarity within this medium, but this series gets really abrasive about not having it.

I'm talking flashbacks to remind you of shit you should not be forgetting. Constantly. Constant barrages of flashbacks that utterly decimate the pacing. Everything is completely over-explained, especially the emotions. There are scenes where poor ol' Violet is bawling her eyes out but has the decency of explaining exactly what emotions she's feeling to us. No one else, just us, the viewer, gets a front-row seat for clunky expository dialogue anyone with half a brain can deduce.

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[Much Ado About Comparisons]

This season we had two series about girls who have to deal with the loss of a loved one. One being Violet Evergarden and the other being A Place Further Than the Universe. If you asked me, based solely on description and preview, which one of those would thoroughly trounce the other in almost every way? I'd have to go with Evergarden.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

When this series decides it is a quasi-romance it is a very bad quasi-romance. I've seen some arguments regarding how Violet is supposed to be a "daughter figure" to this Gilbert guy, but unfortunately, when the first thing you parallel this relationship to is an underage and really creepy romance, I can't really drop the fact that it feels like a creepy romance. Even if it is thankfully never established explicitly as such. However, there are, as much as it pains me to write, even more flaws here. Firstly, I can't be brought to give a single shred of a fuck about Violet or this Gilbert Grape fellow. His personality is... "Nice Guy". While that might resonate with someone who also considers themselves to be a "Nice Guy" who wants nothing more than a semi-sentient doll-like girl to issue commands towards. For anyone else, I'm struggling to imagine a scenario where you'd connect with these two characters.

They have no chemistry.

Violet and Gilbert are at odds as a couple or even as a father/daughter archetype. A father would do all he can not to send his percieved daughter into the midst of multiple battles whilst yelling such lines as "Follow as she leads!" Yes. Let us follow this emotionally stunted twelve-year-old during our siege on a castle. Great idea. If the argument here is that he was "under orders", then he isn't much of a caring father, is he? That he'd be willing to potentially lose this daughter figure if it meant getting a discharge from the military. Nothing about this felt realistic. I didn't buy these two characters being together and Violet's attachment to him was akin to a lost puppy rather than a loved one.

The second option here is that she is a marketing choice. Otaku seem to love this kind of character archetype, much to my surprise, and perhaps that is why she was created like this. I, personally, can't imagine someone who would want to marry or get to know this kind of person. Can you imagine how boring she must be on a date? What would you even talk about when she can hardly even speak? Regardless of my pondering on the logistics of waifuism in anime, the ultimate truth here is that her development, whilst unarguably there, is messy as hell. Most of her revelations are kept offscreen and reserved to the multiple time-skips in the narrative from episode-to-episode. She jumps from incompetent writer incapable of even understanding the basic nuance of human emotion to easily writing letters between royalty. It is preposterously paced.

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[Conclusion]

Evergarden really struggles. Both as a character and a series. There are moments of real highs, especially in two one-off stories that have a nice emotional punch to them. However, every single aspect of the narrative is either wholly underwhelming or utterly ludicrous. There isn't a shred of verisimilitude to be developed and this series often reaches too far for cloying emotional drama.

If you find yourself connecting with a lot of dramatic anime that usually have bombastic orchestral or J-pop insert-songs suffocating every ounce of dialogue that usually just amounts to girls crying a lot, then you might enjoy this if you look past some of the horrendous pacing. Otherwise, I'd, unfortunately, advise you give this show a skip.If you find yourself interested in the aesthetic, maybe sitting through the first episode is worth it. If you value aesthetic as much as I do it might be worth the entire series in and of itself. It truly is unlike anything else. It is like a tech-demo of the Kyoto Animation Engine at Ultra-settings running on a super-computer. This is how television anime can look. Mindblowing. Even with sub-optimal directing.

There are themes here. The seasons play a role and plenty of the characters have names that represent different kinds of flowers. It's sweet, really. I think in concept, with a sturdy hand and a sturdier pen it could've worked. These themes don't serve a purpose, though. They shouldn't even be brought up because apart from being frosting on a cake you can point your finger and ogle at, they are ultimately nothing. Scratch the dressing metaphor, they're like those plastic toys atop an expensive cake you'd think were edible but are proven to be nothing but hazards to your three-year-old.

I think the aesthetic does wonders to carry just how upsetting and mundane the rest of the series is. So much so that I'd average it to being a wholly mediocre experience and not an outright bad one. Even if there is a depressingly large amount of crap to sift through, it looks great. It's like a Lamborghini transporting piles of horse manure. Keep your eyes trained on that astoundingly gorgeous ride and maybe you won't smell the shit.