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- BirthdayApr 11, 1986
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Jan 21, 2025
I struggle to describe what makes this series so special to me because it runs deeper than its content. I could go through it and describe what makes each episode effective at conveying something about the characters and their circumstances, I could go through the various arcs and explain why each of them hit. I could praise that beautiful animation and all the settings and excellent fight choreography, the still superb OP, ED and its incredible OST in general, the voice acting that continues to impress decades later, or just give a deep dive into what makes each character somehow more than the sum of
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their parts...
But I don't think that would do it justice because the whole series is more than these elements.
I watched this series when it aired on Toonami in 2001. I was 15 at the time. I definitely wasn't well-versed in anime, though I'd seen a fair few series up to that point, most of them Shonen, so I was looking for some epic fight scenes and space battles. And, this being Cowboy Bebop, I got a fair few of those, some of which remain among my favorite examples in anime or any genre.
And then I grew up with this series.
I rewatched certain episodes. I've never really committed to a full rewatch (though I really should), but I've run back over and through random episodes of this series. I've retraced arcs to follow each of these characters along their paths. Spike has long been among my favorite characters, though the reason for that has changed as I've grown to see him less as the debonair badass and more as a tragic character who couldn't leave the past behind him. I've learned to appreciate Faye as more than just a femme fatale who screws over the crew, seeing more in both her desperation to get out of debt and in her struggle to recapture her past. Jet's arc is probably the one I least understood on first watch, and the shift of his episodes into noir with a matching color palette as well as his difficulties dealing with corruption in the police force are something I can appreciate far more now. And then there are Ed and Ein, who... let's face it, I largely love for the same reasons I always did. They're not terribly complicated beyond some bits of their origin stories, and that's part of the beauty of them.
And yes, the plot meanders. The central plot involving Vicious is essential, but I would never suggest that anyone just skip the other episodes to get through this faster. All the side-tracks the story takes have their own points. Hell, arguably, they are the point. It's a story about people and a dog forming a found family of sorts and trying and largely failing to escape their pasts, but it's so much more than a short description could really cover. It's an Alien parody involving something disgusting and hyperactive in the fridge. It's a crazy fight with a balloon-like clown of a man with the mind of a toddler who might just be the most terrifying thing in the show. It's about an impromptu sprint up a building racing against another cowboy bounty hunter because you hate that he's stealing your thunder while ignoring the demolitions expert turned terrorist. It's about a mushroom-fueled drug trip, a chess game played against a dying master, an immortal child, and a space trucker. It's about syndicates, ecological terrorists and hard-boiled detectives. It's about love and revenge, death and revival, the past, the present and the future.
But most of all, it's about jazz, and that's not just in the music. It's about the rhythm of the show, the improvisation of its characters and plot, and yes, the emotions it elicits throughout. Whether the chords it plays are simple or complex, I vibe with it now more than ever.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jan 18, 2025
There's something magnetic about a true mad scientist, someone who is willing to do twisted and terrible things to their subjects (and even to themselves) and does it, truly, for the love of the game. These characters can easily come off as Nazi-esque, inflicting torture on the basis that they didn't see their subjects as humans worthy of consideration to achieve scientific advancements, but it's eerie and somehow more disturbing when the character does recognize and care for their subjects... or at least, they appear to do so.
Bondrewd is distinctive even among other mad scientists. I'm a big fan of Kurotsuchi Mayuri from Bleach who
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I would consider another quintessential anime mad scientist for a lot of reasons, but the two are cut from very different cloths. His interactions and history show a real affection for Prushka, so even knowing that he's responsible for everything that happened to Nanachi and Mitty, you get this sense that he has a special place for his adoptive daughter, and she believes it as well. Maybe that's just misplaced optimism, but she seems genuine in her trust of him.
But there's so much going on with this character that only becomes clear the longer you sit with him. For all that he seems to find wonder and excellence in so many of those around him, he wears a mask almost constantly, covering any actual expression of his humanity. His pursuit of knowledge and understanding of the abyss has resulted in the physical and emotional loss of his humanity, and what remains is pasted on like a parody of a human being barely covering the monster underneath, a monster he is all too quick to reveal when the chips are down...
...except even that seems wrong. Bondrewd doesn't come off to me as someone putting on a front or carefully orchestrating a guise. He's genuine in his love for his daughter, genuine in inviting Riko, Reg and Nanachi to stay with him, genuine in trying to recruit Nanachi back onto his research staff, and even genuine when he's actively trying to murder them. They're all him, but they're all just surface level. None of them go deep, and any associated concepts like morality and empathy that might play into these choices are absent. He really loved his daughter, and likely not just as a means to a gruesome end, but had not trouble pulling that trigger when the time came because his love for her meant nothing to him. For him, inviting them in and treating them like guests doesn't clash at all with dismembering and dissecting them. Nanachi's pain and torment from her time there shouldn't impede her willingness to rejoin him because it doesn't matter to him, so why should it bother her?
I discuss Bondrewd because he's central to my love of this movie. Sure, our central cast get moments to shine and there's plenty of dark and depressing moments including a berskerer fight scene from Reg that looks amazing, but this would not work with a standard villain, someone who was evil for the sake of it. It probably wouldn't work with someone who had relatable motivations, either. Bondrewd represents the twisted nature of the abyss in a way that characters up to now, even Ouzen, can't fully display. He's not just representative the lengths a scientist will go to in order to understand an alien and impossible place. He has become a thing of utility, sacrificing his very humanity on the altar of progress even when he's lost the capacity to understand why that progress truly matters. It's the kind of brilliant villain writing that I rarely see, and it makes this movie an incredible watch.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jan 12, 2025
Made in Abyss is hard for me to recommend. That's not because it lacks for quality - there's a reason this series is among my favorites - but rather because of the clear and obvious ick factors. This is a series that puts its young lead through hell, as well as many of the other kids around her. Torture, abuse, rape and experimentation is done on very young kids, and I've quit shows for doing far less before...
...so what makes Made in Abyss so special?
Maybe it's because it really leans into the darkness. There's a sense of forward progress and momentum from our leads, but
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that comes with a refusal to let them (or us) sit comfortably. The abyss itself only becomes more horrifying the more we learn about it. The creatures within are certainly dangerous, as are the various relics they find in its depths, but it's the Curse of the Abyss that that makes descending itself feel like insanity. Why would anyone willingly choose to subject themselves to it, knowing that every step they take down is going to be much harder or even impossible to take back up? Those effects are portrayed in horrifying detail through our lead, who spends so much of the early series feeling drawn to explore its depths and, especially given the excuse of finding her mother, plunges in head first knowing the costs full well.
If that's all the series did - mangle its characters in innovative ways on their doomed adventure - I don't think this series would have nearly the audience that it does. This would just be a physical horror show where you shout at the screen not to go in any further, to just go home.
...except there's a reason that Riko, specifically, is the one we're following on this mission. A reason that cuts to the core of what makes both the abyss itself, as well as the items, creatures and people in its depths, so terrifying. I'm going to avoid spoilers, but this is some of the best psychological horror I've seen in anime and far more brutal than the bloody mutilations we see.
That alone would be sufficient to elevate this series, but Riko and Reg aren't the only ones we explore. Nanachi, a strange rabbit girl with a mush-like friend in the form of Mitty has some of the most powerful moments of the season, and they connect with the existence of some of the most powerful and dangerous players in the abyss: the white whistles, a group of legendary and largely human delvers who have been twisted by their experiences to the point that they become largely inhuman. That can yield results like Ouzen, my personal best girl from the series who has had to transform herself but retains some of her humanity, or Bondrewd, a scientist whose willingness to subject himself and others to experiments have made him decidedly inhuman. Competing interests cause many of the interactions in this series to become tense and gripping in their own rights.
And I haven't even mentioned my favorite parts of this series yet: the worldbuilding and the music. The backgrounds in this series are absolutely jaw-dropping, the menagerie of creatures incredible and diverse, and each layer in the abyss brings several things to marvel at. This is easily one of my all-time favorite worlds to explore and I feel like I get dragged into it as thoroughly as any of its characters. And yes, the music by Kevin Penkin is amazing. The man set a new gold standard here as this has risen to become my favorite soundtrack in anime. I play these songs on repeat and Hanezeve Caradhina alone is among my top 5 songs in anime.
Just a gorgeous series top to bottom. If you can stomach some of the more disquieting aspects and push past accusations of pedophilia (I get where they're coming from, I just don't think it's a fair read), this is a must-watch.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jan 10, 2025
It's kind of crazy just how great this series is.
This story starts with the premise that everyone in this world is an anthropomorphic animal and the characters barely mention it. This isn't like Beastars where the world is built on the premise that everyone is an animal and that certain complications arise from them living together. It's not even like Bojack Horseman where the fact that they are animals is largely just window dressing, but nonetheless is clearly acknowledged fact within a world that still seems built for humans. So from the first moment these characters appear on screen, you're given a mystery.
And the
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mysteries pile up as the series goes on. Odokawa talks to someone in his apartment who we never see. The way the narrative progresses leads us to believe this has some connection to a missing idol from a group called Mystery Kiss, potentially tying Odokawa into another plot that has been playing out. And all of this interweaves with a plot involving infighting between criminals, a fishing scheme involving Eiji, an interesting relationship with the nurse and capoeira enthusiast Miho, a long-standing comedy duo fighting to achieve relevance once again, an effort to become Internet famous, and... a gacha gamer who loses an opportunity to get a rare pull?
This all feels so random, like an amalgamation of so many different ideas that could maybe work independently, but should be a mess when put together. There's just too much going on, too many characters to keep track of, and all the plots and schemes can't possibly work as a cohesive whole.
And yet, somehow they do. Better than that, they're all enhanced by working together. Some have compared the dialogue of this series (which is a master class in its own right) to that of Tarantino movies, but if we're doing the comparison, I'd say the best one is comparing this to Pulp Fiction. It doesn't have the same tendency to show things out of order, but like Pulp Fiction, there are a lot of characters and independent plots at work that interweave over the course of this series. And unlike that movie, Odd Taxi gets the chance to tell its narrative over a much longer time, giving us downtime with these characters to get to know and understand them on a deeper level. Odokawa quickly became one of my all-time favorite characters for so many reasons, but he's hardly alone in getting the kind of attention and care that make him a fleshed out hum- I mean walrus.
But this series wouldn't be such a crowning achievement if it didn't stick the landing. Ignoring the follow-on movie, I love virtually everything about how this series ended. In particular, the reveal of why Odokawa sees everyone around him as animals, borne of past trauma, and the cross-over with the idol plot in the waning moments of the show are just excellent. Sure, it left us on a cliffhanger, but it was the kind of cliffhanger that I just reveled in, and I don't think giving away what happened after this scene improved on the material. If anything, it felt too abrupt and jarring to appreciate after a series that paced itself so deliberately.
Odd Taxi is damn near perfect. Whip smart dialogue, incredible characters, and a plot that dragged me along feverishly from start to finish. Just a masterpiece of a show. Not every plot gets to be rounded out as nicely, and some of the characters come off a little frustrating, but there's way too much to love for that to dampen my enjoyment.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jan 10, 2025
I've been dismissive of the CGDCT genre as a whole for a while now. It's not like there haven't been stand-outs over the years, especially with the likes of A Place Further than the Universe, but those series lean into the drama to connect with audiences. So when I saw a series like this with such excellent animation and a relatively light plot (a few girls in an anime club creating their own anime), all I thought was that this would be a fun ride, but likely one that I would put out of my mind the moment it ended.
It has been 5 years, and
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I still can't get this anime out of my head.
No, it's not just because Easy Breezy is a bop that I've watched the OP and music video for many times, though that's certainly given it some staying power.
I chalk up what works about this series to three things: the characters, the pacing, and, of course, the animation.
For the characters, this is just a shockingly well-balanced and amazing trio. Midori's effervescence is infectious from the outset, and watching her imagination come to life episode after episode is essential to the absolute joy that is this series. She has a lot of energy and creativity, but needs direction, focus and drive to realize her ideas. Tsubame is a little more down-to-earth (emphasis on "little") in terms of how she connects to real world motions, often grounding scenes with her concepts of movement that stem from her history with acting. She's probably the least interesting of the trio (fighting against familial expectations), but slots in nicely as both a supporter of Midori's creativity and a bit of foil in seeing it realized. Sayaka, meanwhile, is one of my favorite characters in a long time. She doesn't play much of a role in the creating of their animations, but she's essential to seeing them made, pulling strings and levers all over the school to ensure that her friends get the opportunities to see their ideas realized. She also keeps the creatives on task with a sharp tongue and a sly smile. Love her to pieces, but the show really wouldn't work without any one of them.
The pacing is probably what surprised me the most. There's always a sense of momentum throughout the series, with the characters having to prove themselves bigger and better than before on some new project. That shouldn't work more than a couple of times, but each new barrier that they encounter feels so real and frustrating that you can't help but root for them to overcome it. Seeing them run through the process of creating anime is both a fantastical experience and a mundane one all at once, and the series manages to never lose my attention throughout its portrayals of their efforts.
Finally, the animation. It's strange to say that a high school and the surrounding city is one of my favorite settings in anime, but that balance of the fantastical and mundane is what blows me away. We see these things as everyone sees them, but then we also see it through the eyes of Midori and Tsubame as they transform their surroundings in ways that boggle the mind. It would already be impressive just to see those transformations, but the characters are building a world and piece together all the hows and whys of its construction, modifying what they've built to make it more realistic.
So, why has this series stuck with me? Because it just pops off on so many levels. Honestly, I'm struggling to think of things I didn't like from this series. Some of the barriers put before them are a little absurd, but they all feel like what a high school administration might do. The anime they create is diverse and interesting, and it's an absolute joy to watch it be realized and take it in while the audience of kids and adults around them do the same. The drama is simple, but that's part of what makes it so effective: it just connects very easily. I've never wanted to make anime, but I get so much out of watching these girls realize their goals.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jan 4, 2025
This series is a great watch, mainly on the back of its narrative and relationships.
Despite being a relatively basic revenge quest from the start, this one goes through a lot of interesting twists and turns, particularly as the circumstances around the various crime families become more complex. Plans go sideways and characters die who weren't supposed to, people have changes of heart, and we get to know a lot of these characters through it all, learning their histories and connections. I was often surprised in a good way by how the series upended my expectations, and in particular, how it can involve a lot of
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players who look significantly smaller and are trying to fight their way up the ladder. Not all the relationships work - in particular, it seems like Angelo and Corteo's relationship goes through discrete periods where it matters a lot, while spending most of its time mattering rather little - but the relationships that do hit work surprisingly well. In particular, Angelo and Nero might have the most interesting interactions of the whole show, and an understanding of one another that's beautifully painful in the end. The entire finale of this series is a masterclass in setup and payoff that elevates the whole series.
Despite all this, there are a few issues that set it back a bit for me.
It has a pretty drab color palette for the most part. I get that a more vibrant set of colors would necessarily fit the time period or the mood that the series is trying to set, but it does mean that the great character designs and period attire don't get to pop as much as they could.
The character writing in this series is a mixed bag, particularly with some of the antagonists (Fango in particular is pretty shallow), several of the others look interesting but don't get enough screen time to really explore them (Vincent and Vanno, Testa gets shockingly little screen time despite being central to the plot, and I wish we'd gotten more insight into Ganzo) and the MC, who is largely just on a winding path to vengeance throughout and, apart from one of the relationships formed early on and one formed over the course of the series, is largely just a means by which the status quo gets continuously upended. Characters like Nero, Frate, and Corteo are more interesting and, thankfully, central to a lot of what happens in the plot themselves.
Unfortunately, we don't get as much insight into the crime family structure as I'd wanted, either. There's a good amount of insight into how the various crime families at this level work, but the Galassias play a big role in how they're governed and then just kind of show up and dramatically wreck shit in the end. Particularly as we were going through Frate and Nero's battle for the soul of their family, since so much of it was built on how much control the Galassias had, it was just a shame that we couldn't get more table-setting for it. There were a few internal plots that felt like they could do with more explication of why certain characters set their sights differently, and while the insights from the Shoal of Time OVA start down that road, the series missed opportunities to fill in more relevant gaps.
Still, it seems like most of these amount to a wish that there was more to this story. There's only one character who doesn't really work and the aesthetic problems are more personal rather than an indictment of the series as a whole. There's just a lot I wish the series had dug into more and earlier in its run, but it does so much so well that these issues aren't major concerns.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jan 4, 2025
I loved the ride through so much of this series. It thrives on a few key elements that make the most of its 50 episode run: careful pacing, character development, and local worldbuilding, and all of them work together very well.
This series is very deliberate in its pacing, allowing plenty of time to get acquainted with the characters and the elements of the world around them before throwing them into the thick of some larger plot. From the early series focused on Erin's village with her mother to her time spent with Jone to her training in Kazalm and, finally, to the climax involving side
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characters who play bigger and more essential roles in the world on a regular basis, there's a lot to love about this plot. The progression never feels fully halted because Erin's always moving forward on some front, gaining knowledge about the world around her and fleshing out her own worldview in the process, which makes the ultimate clash of that worldview with the main antagonists of the series so much more effective. It helps that, while Erin never loses her sense of optimism and desire to improve things, it's consistently tempered by her experiences that often fly in the face of what she wishes. And while she is most definitely the most fleshed out character, there is a lot of character depth to be had throughout this series, even with characters who aren't around all that much.
With all this going for it, this was already a certified classic before the finale with a lot to love. The trouble is that that finale isn't necessarily as strong as the rest of the series. It's not terrible by any means, but everything ended a little too neatly, and this is where I have to get into spoiler territory.
It's not so much that I was expecting a major death or anything, and Erin's survival actually works given that it was her relationship with Lilan that really distinguished her from her mother with the Touda. That's all grand. What I find a little frustrating is how easily everything else slotted into place. We don't get any kind of wrap up with Ngon who tried to kill his brother or actually killing his father, the giant Touda force that surrounded Erin is just left behind (notably without being paralyzed) but isn't a threat anymore for whatever reason, Damiya just dies and his forces apparently subdued, Ial just seems to be gone at the end without a wrap-up to his story, and Erin goes back to work in Kazalm taking care of more BLs despite her desire to see them freed and the knowledge of how to tame them as she does buried. It doesn't help that the broader impacts of this aren't given any time to breathe; we only get the barest of ideas of what Shunan and Seimiya are trying to do and not even an inkling of how the population responds to the union of two very divided factions, and the Aowrow seem to have nothing to say about any of this.
I like a lot of what we got, and I'm more journey than destination these days, so a few dangling plot threads didn't kill my enjoyment of the series as a whole by any means, but it's a pretty disappointing place to leave us. It feels a bit too neat and tidy after what has been a very chaotic road to the finale orchestrated by multiple parties leaving a number of bodies in their wakes. It wouldn't take more than an episode to put a cap on all this, but seems I'll have to be satisfied with ending here. And you know what? Even as I write this, I kind of am. I like the happy ending after a hard road, and many of the moments in this finale really hit. It's hard not to focus on what's missing, but if what this series leaves me with is chiefly a desire to see more, then it's done a lot right.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jan 4, 2025
This special provides some interesting context to the series as a whole. The first and third parts are both relatively weak, but at least give some more dimension to a few of the character dynamics, with the first one in particular covering the brotherly bonds on the Vanettis well, albeit not with a strong connection to the series proper. It's the second part that keeps this at a 7/10 for me, since it gives us some insight into the character dynamics that predated the Vanetti family as a criminal enterprise and gives us some idea of where the connections to their associates came from. It
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all looks just as good as the mainline series, so even though the drama isn't exactly gripping, it's a comfortable place to end the series on a look back.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jan 1, 2025
It's a recap episode, one that doesn't really add anything beyond just being a quick runthrough of events up to this point. For what it is, especially considering that the condensed version does provide a pretty effective breakdown of events to this point, it does its job without fluff. That still makes it a relatively basic presentation of these events, and thus the episode does no more and no less than it says on the tin. It gets points for functionality and usefulness, but nothing else. It's perfectly adequate, and while that's not going to earn this recap any plaudits from me, it does at
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least work for the story being told as a waypoint meant to ensure audiences are fully caught up.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Dec 31, 2024
This was such a strange and surreal experience. It's honestly a bit difficult to know where to begin this review.
From start to finish, this was a wild ride, and it's the kind of series that knows how to play off of both an absence of knowledge (both on the part of the characters and the audience) and how to suck you in as it slowly clarifies what's happening. It baffled me several times along the way, but usually in a good way... if that makes any sense.
Beginning with the Survival Strategy that kicked so much of this off (not chronologically, but at the start of
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the series), the series does a lot with a basic premise that clearly has layers we are not privy to: Himari is dying of some unknown incurable disease, her brothers with very different hair colors buy her a special penguin hat, and when she does bite it, the hat resurrects her and proceeds to hold her hostage. She drags the boys into a subspace that seems related to trains, demands they acquire the Penguindrum with very limited specifics on what or where it is, and then peeks in time and again to tell them they're worthless and chastise them for their lack of progress. That, combined with the existence of 4 small penguins who can somehow only be seen by a small subset of people (despite wreaking all kinds of havoc) and a girl named Ringo with an unhealthy crush on her teacher who also totes around a small notebook that somehow contains her fate would be enough for most shows.
But there's more to this one. It's obvious that the trio at the center of this story is missing their parents, but it only becomes clear later that the reason was, essentially, terrorism. And that terrorism hasn't stopped being a threat just because they're dead, as a strange cult of trench coat- and fedora-wearing men always seem to be the source of funds the kids need to keep on living and get Himari her treatments. Then there's a strange pink-haired man with two black rabbits who exists as a literal specter within the plot seeking his own ends while also becoming the chief means by which Himari remains among the living, as well as a set of apples that seem to be everywhere and a set of mechanical dolls that keep showing up in multiple scenes. Then there's a red haired twin sister of Kanba who runs around shooting balls at people's heads to make them forget (or remember, as the case may be), Ringo's older sister Momoka who perished before the events of the plot started but who also set almost all of this in motion, and Keiju and Yuri who are connected to Momoka and are not handling her death well despite it being almost a decade and a half ago... yeah, there's a lot going on in this series. It's difficult to keep track even when you're watching it all back-to-back.
Those complications do, however, lead to a lot of interesting dynamics. In particular, the relationships and the visuals are where this series truly thrives, and there's a lot to love in how it portrays both the relationships of blood relatives and found family, with the former feeling more like shackles that bind characters together while the latter becomes a means to pull others out of the pits of despair... or send them tumbling down into those pits themselves. The two brothers, Shouma and Kanba, represent very distinct takes on the sense of duty they feel to their family as well, and how much each of them is willing to put on the line to preserve it. In the end, their sacrifices are similar, but they arrive at it from very different directions.
And yes, those visuals are stunning. Every time the Survival Strategy is depicted is a treat, and the various ways they break with it are also done very well, particularly at the end. I love the various physically impossible spaces the series depicts, as well as the way it showcases the mindsets of the characters in the process. The use of the train system throughout as both a means to travel back and forth in time and to have the characters make their own journeys through the story was impressive and unique. I don't even mind the way they portrayed many of the NPCs in each scene with an ultra-basic design, focusing attention on the characters that mattered. Each scene has some very meticulous attention to detail that I think I would appreciate all the more on a repeat watch, and all this is assisted by some excellent music that I could listen to over and over.
There are two aspects of this series that drag it down a little: pacing and some narrative choices.
The pacing in this series is strange, taking very clearly signposted detours into the past on many occasions to inform much of what's going on in the present. That eventually informed quite a bit of what was happening, but it also meant that some of the scenes just stopped dead for a bit so that we could take a trip back in time to let us know why they were playing out that way in the first place. It's not always bad, but it really disrupts the flow of the storytelling.
As for those narrative choices, this breaks down to two issues. The series is weirdly sexual, spending much of its early and middle run with Ringo becoming more and more obsessive with her teacher for reasons I'll cover shortly, then having her become the object of Yuri's sexual attentions. They don't portray anything too lascivious on screen, but they walk right up to that line several times.
And that is not helped by all of this being connected to Momoka, a character who becomes increasingly important in the series as we go on. She's kind of the fulcrum for a lot of what's happening, and while she's a very interesting character, the fact that she's not alive throughout much of the story and functions more in terms of how she impacted others makes her importance a little strange. She's the reason behind both of those sexual scenes and a lot of how the plot turned out this way in the first place, as well as the reason Keiju nearly kills Kanba and Himari at one point. I don't hate it, but she drives a lot of the plot for a character we didn't really get to know all that well, and the functions of her notebook also drive a lot of what happens. They're important plot devices, but on some level, they just never worked for me. That and all the elements involving the child broiler, which drove much of the rest of the plot but was only explained as a location that somehow made forgotten and unwanted children "invisible" (essentially killing them), was never fully explained, either. I get that the idea is to be wanted, to be sought after rather than to vanish and become nothing, but the child broiler seemed like a clumsy way to present it and functioned as an essential plot element (at least in part) for bringing about what this secret society was doing in the first place. I like the idea, but it remained so vague that it just felt tacked on.
Still, I think the story comes together well, even if the journey it takes me on sometimes left me more confounded. A solid watch that needs to be seen to be believed.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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