Feb 24, 2015
I'm writing a review in an attempt to express my feelings on an anime I feel few have heard of. Zettai Shonen is in my opinion a masterpiece of storytelling and is my favorite anime/tv show of all time.
The guidelines say not to summarize, but I'll give my take in this paragraph if anyone is interested: The story is split into two halves. The first deals with a city boy spending a summer in a small, somewhat boring town, quiet but for the constant, tremulous calls of cicadas, but the summer becomes more interesting when supernatural occurrences begin to take place. In the second half,
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we are taken to a city in the winter to follow a reclusive girl who has stopped going to school, whose life also changes due to similar supernatural events. The two arcs are related but loosely.
The story is not ambitious or complex, and it is actually this simplicity that lends it such strength. The conflicts are small, perhaps even microscopic; but in the attention to minutiae I perceive such a deep love for the characters that I've rarely if ever seen matched in another visual storytelling work of art. I actually do not like supernatural events in animes I watch and prefer slice-of-life; however, the supernatural blends so well with the day-to-day that it doesn't feel like a gimmick or a ploy to keep you interested. Instead, the characters interact authentically with these happenings in a way that deepens your perception of them, rather than distracting you from them for the sake of a showy plot.
The story-telling is slow. Don't watch if you are looking for revelatory twists, sabotage, or some slow build-up leading to a fantastic climax where all the questions are answered. The twists are more "hmm" than "aha!", there are no grand schemes, and the climaxes come, but again, they are focused more on the characters than on the universal ramifications. We're not here to scientifically chart out something new but to just spend some time with some individuals.
With that said, I will state that the characters are somehow a bit simple in their depth. They are SO un-distracted in pursuing their personal truths that they don't seem like people you would actually run into on the street. Watching I felt almost as if I was getting to see humans who were more human than actual humans, due to the busy chaos of how life goes. But that's more of a pleasure than a complaint.
The art and sound are somewhat marked by the time the anime was made, though I personally like it that way. They seem old-fashioned but still beautiful. Even though the rural setting of the first arc is more naturally arresting in my opinion than the city setting, the team has a way of making even the crowded metropolis seem humanized and rightful in its existence.
I feel there really isn't a drop of hate, fear, or outlandishness in this anime. I suppose the closest it comes to outlandish are the supernatural child characters, which I forgive them for. As for hatred, the characters can be quite cruel--don't get me wrong. But it is the patience the anime has for these characters, somehow even supporting these cruelties, and its inclusiveness of them as a part of life, that make me feel as though the anime reveres the human experience like no other I've seen.
I'm sure I haven't done the anime justice, or perhaps I've soured its qualities by speaking too highly of them. If I've exaggerated what it is, that's my mistake. But I truly believe it is an anime worth watching--certainly not for everyone, but perhaps for some, even worth watching again and again. If you are in the market for a slow-paced anime to chill you out or perhaps get you to think about things you don't always have time to think about, I recommend Zettai Shonen. In its embrace of the mundane, it is a character-driven powerhouse.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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