And the awesomeness continues. This time we have a little bloy doing something with some mushi out of his own free will, making his big sister extremely worried. This was also probably the fist time in which the main charater took a nap such a time, only to wake up as if nothing happened. That’s another awesome thing about Mushishi: every single story is unique, and some of the most subtle subjects that hardly gets talked about in anime get featured in almost every episode.
The more I watch this, the more I begin to love Ginko’s subtle, but cynical side. It fits perfectly in a peaceful show like this. Anyway, this time we have another beauty of an episode. We see another half-woman-half-mushi, and her behavior towards other people, including another moral dilemma which Mushishi delivers as good as usual. I just love the way Mushishi encourages you to think about an episode, instead of just to enjoy it.
I’ve noticed this for a few episodes now, but Mushishi is virtually the only anime in which the transition from show to ED goes perfectly smooth. Other series cue the music just a couple of seconds before the ED starts, in order to try and create this effect. Other just don’t bother at all and see the show and the ED as two different entities. So far, Mushishi is the only anime I’ve seen that manages to combine these two as one, with the result of giving you the feeling that you’re still enjoying the episodes when the credit list rolls.
xxxHolic is the sister-anime of Tsubasa Chronicle. We get to see The Witch and her Butler as main characters this time, along with a black version of Mokona and a couple of new characters. I do have to say, though: they both got a total restyling. Every character somehow got more chaotic (yes, even Mokona) and Watanuki and Yuuko’s (the names of the butler and the witch) conversations somehow reminded me of Kurogane and Fye.
As this is a movie, the character art has to be of extremely good quality, everything has to look smooth and consistent and each character has to look beautiful? Guess again. The character art is really messy and inconsistent, the body of each of the characters is even longer than with Tsubasa Chronicle, accompanied by really big hands. I’m having a love/hate relationship with this. At some times it works really well, and contributes to the overall mood. At other times, they bothered me a bit too much.
Even though the character art looks messy, everything else at the graphical department looks top-notch. Everything except for the characters has been done in CG, with magnificent results. Every background looks amazing and the battle choreography makes a very good use out of the messy character art. Even at the music department this series delivers. Every musical piece perfectly fits in the atmosphere.
This anime was probably partially intended as a comedy, and partially as a mystery-show. I have to say, that both of these sides worked out really well. Watanuki is very funny, and Yuuko, Mokona and all the other characters only contribute to that fact. But this movie really shines in the mystery department. Every place in the mansion seems different and especially the plot by the bad guy is very interesting to see. And freaky as well.
The movie ended with a couple of certain cameo’s appearing, who also got a total make-over. For a minute, I was wondering about the sudden change in art-style, but after a bit of research it turned out to be referring to the movie, instead of the series. (Hmm, do I really have to be so mystically about this? Ah well).
Overall: an excellent atmospere, which contributes to an excellent anime. The story’s awesome, the characters are awesome. Watch it.
(PS. During the research part, I took a look at Anime News Network, which suddenly started talking about a third season of Tsubasa Chronicle. I’m very enthusiastic about this. Apparently, this will be another one of those long-running series. Now then, let’s hope it doesn’t drown itself. Although I’m pretty confident about that).
Well, well, what have we here. Another anime show featuring a girl becoming a J-Pop-idol, this time featured by two shinigami in cat- and bunny suit in order to help her. Recipe for failure, isn’t it? Well, guess again. Our main character has namely been blessed with a throat cancer, which immediately takes this anime away from all of the other J-Pop-shows.
The series consists of a massive 52 episodes. The first thirteen episodes feature Mitsuki (our main character) getting introduced to being an idol, making her first single, and doing all sorts of stuff beginning artists do. Even though these episodes may be somewhat inspirational, they also remain boring. It will indeed be difficult to sit through these scenes if you don’t have a lot of patience. The second part consists of a few very good episodes, in between a number of boring ones. Even though these boring episodes may be a pain to watch, the juicy episodes totally make up for it, ending with a satisfying climax to end the first half of the series. The third part is just like the second part, but then with a bit less boringness and a bit more awesomeness. It was also good to see that the creators finally managed to include a bit of humor.
Then the fourth part comes. Believe me. The first five episodes WILL blow you off your chair, and you WILL end up crying. These are without a doubt the saddest scenes ever to be seen in anime. After these fantastic episodes the tension tones down a bit, but the remaining episodes will still be very enjoyable to watch. This goes on, until the final episode, which waltzes you down again with some of the most amazing scenes.
The following paragraph may be a bit of a spoiler, so be a bit careful. The final couple of episodes were indeed incredibly awesome. Why? Because the emphasis didn’t go to the two main characters, but the side-characters finally came into the spotlights and got to shine. The result is magnificent. I guess the creators were also aware that if this was to be handled by the main characters only, than it would have turned out to be incredibly cliché.
Because this is a singing-anime, one would not expect less than an amazing soundtrack. And the series delives on that. Even though I’m not interested in J-Pop, I found myself enjoying every note of the music. At least, most of the times. There’s a minor issue in which the creators make the mistake of using one particular song a bit too much. This results in a bit of repetitiveness, and some annoying moments.
When you start with this anime, you’ll immediately notice that this anime has a slight problem in the Seiyuu (I hope I spelled that right). Mitsuki’s voice just doesn’t sound like one of a twelve-year-old. It’s just too mature. But this problem fades away very fast, as you get used to it pretty quickly.
The characters are another strong point of Full Moon wa Sagashite. Even though you have to get used to them for a while in the beginning, the character development is awesome, and you will be feeling along with every single one of the main characters during their important scenes.
Overall, this is an amazing anime. The only bad part is that you need a lot of patience to get through the boring parts in order to enjoy the juicy stuff.