This from Darkmirage caught my eye – a typical mahou shoujo tale at first glance, but with some very unique choices for artwork. But DM sells it well, just short of overselling:
Beneath the cutesy surface, there is an unspoken air of uncertainty, paranoia and even fear. There is a subtle hint that something dark and horrible lies just out of sight and things are not as simple as they appear to be. Refuge from the unknown is only temporary and peace can at any moment be replaced by chaos. The music and the otherworldly art style bring that message home perfectly.
Adding this to my Watch Eventually list… anyone else seen it?
I’ve seen it, and I found it good. I’ll try not to give too much away…
DM puts it well. I’d be very hesitant about watching the series with younger kids, though; there’s no blood and gore (from what I remember), but I can see the series being very traumatizing at parts for them.
I found the series extremely well written, well planned, and nearly perfectly executed.
I can’t seem to call it an ‘instant classic’ right now, though; I’ll probably give it re-watch at some point, but it seems to be like Perfect Blue, where what you get out of it diminishes greatly after rewatching it once to piece together the whole story. I do have to say, the series is a deconstruction *and* an embrace of the mahou shoujo story.
Basically, the series doesn’t give me much more to chew on when I was finished watching it, like Haibane Renmei or Makoto Shinkai’s work did. But don’t let that stop you from at least giving the series at least one watch through. My own opinions might change, I just want to find time to be able to marathon through it once.
It’s a masterpiece, rating up there with Haibane Renmei.
It’s also deeply, deeply disturbing. Definitely not a kid’s show. Emphatically not a kid’s show.
Steven, I didn’t see it in your Reviews page, so I didn’t think to ask you about it. That’s high praise indeed. I just grabbed the Chihiro torrent and will slurp it down tonight.
Also thanks to you both for the non-kids warning – will definitely keep it separated š I confess that WoW has eaten into my anime time, but i do need to schedule some time for anime as this is after supposed to be an anime blog.
incidentally Steven – did you ever catch Secret of Kells? Not Japanese, but was superb. Its only 90min so not a huge investment.
A few months ago I lost the ability to make changes to my server. I have no idea why. But that means the review page won’t be getting updated from now on.
Anyway, I’ve been posting my comments about shows on my blog instead.
Sorry, I have not seen Secret of Kells.