I’ve got to stop dropping these boring-looking series without giving them a chance… looking back at what I wrote on my first impression on this series, I realize what an idiot I’ve been, dropping this series in favour of… Binbou Shimai Monogatari. In any case, if you’re looking for good romance, then look no further, because Bokura ga Ita has lots of it, and then some more.

And what romance it is. The beauty of this series is that it just feels like it’s about a real couple, and throughout the series, they explore all of the common aspects of being a couple: rivalry, understanding and compromising for each other, truthfulness, breaking up and saying goodbye, but the common theme for this series is the fact that love can turn sane people into a bunch of inconsistent idiots; the contrast between common sense and your own feelings, and the 24 episodes do an excellent job of exploring said themes in-depth.

Obviously, the characters in this series are deep. About 50% of this series’ dialogue happens inside the characters’ heads, so at the end of the series, you’ll know exactly what went on in those multi-layered minds of them. They way they evolve throughout the series is also pretty amazing, and you can see the subtle changes that occur in just about everything in this series. The pacing is slow, but every single episode hardly ever loses focus on what’s really important in this series.

Let me place a warning, though, and a very important one. The pacing is incredibly slow, so you obviously don’t want to watch it if you generally like fast-paced series, but there’s one more thing to be aware of: the female lead Nanami Takahashi. She’s by no means a bad character, but the creators made no attempts to make her into something like “the perfect girlfriend”, or something similar. She’s weak, incredibly wishy-washy and hardly ever gets to the point she wants to make. I realize that this is exactly the creators’ intentions, but you do NOT want to watch this series when you’re frustrated, because she’ll just make these frustrations worse.

In terms of the production-values, this is a typical Artland series. The character-designs are very stylish, and the animation is consistent, yet you’ll hardly ever notice it. There are so many EDs that they make any Shaft-productions pale in comparison. I now also understand why Gunslinger Girl - Il Teatrino’s action-sequences felt so low-budget, because it’s just not something they’re good at, and instead they excel in style and subtlety (something that was plenty available in Il Teatrino as well).

This pretty much is exactly what a pure shoujo romance should be. My only real complaint is the ending, as it’s a bit too open-ended for such a series, but mostly because the manga at that point featured a very interesting plot-twist that was omitted in the anime, and which would have had so much potential if the creators included it in a second season somehow. But then again, then it would look a bit too much like a Makoto Shinkai rip-off, and this way Bokura ga Ita really has its own identity as a series.

Ah, of course. Robot Carnival had Robots, the Animatrix had the Matrix and Genius Party has imagination. Every short movie is about imagination in one way or the other. Shanghai Dragon is the work of Shoji Kawamori, the guy behind Macross, who is currently directing Macross Frontier. There are indeed plenty of grand mecha-battles in this one, but I don’t think that you can predict what this one will be about, just by looking at Kawamori’s other series.

First of all, Shanghai Dragon is about a pair of Chinese kids (who also speak Chinese), but it’s also a satire, parodying the trope of the useless kid who suddenly finds the ultimate weapon. It’s just this time, the ultimate weapon is more ultimate than ever, and the kid also couldn’t be more useless. And yet, these have been some fun 20 minutes of airtime, mostly thanks to an adorable cast of characters, which manages to be dynamic, despite the short length of only 20 minutes.

It’s strange, though: the space-soldiers in this short speak Japanese, while the kids are Chinese, and they seem to have no problem understanding each other. The biggest flaw of this short, however, is the rather intrusive CG that sometimes doesn’t flow well with the other animation at all. Shoji Kawamori obviously couldn’t get the same budget for this episode as for an average Macross Frontier episode, and this shows. And it’s a shame, because the other graphics look pretty interesting.

Overall, Shanghai Dragon nothing special, but without a doubt a fun way to spend 20 minutes. Like Genius Party (the first short of Genius Party), it’s also full of symbolism. It may not be the most subtle storyline, but it’s both a parody and homage to an overused cliché in anime. It may start out like a joke in the beginning, but it ends strangely heart-warming.

The third movie of The Garden of Sinners takes place between the first and the second. It continues the tradition of the second movie by shedding light on the unanswered questions that the first movie left behind, as it shows another stage in Shiki and Mikiya’s life. The story is about yet another string of mysterious gruesome murders, but despite this, it was the best movie of Kara no Kyoukai yet in my opinion.

The antagonist for this movie is the biggest reason for this. This movie really looks into the question: “what could someone drive to commit these gruesome murders?” And it comes up with a fascinating character study with a bit of supernatural elements here and there. Shiki and Mikiya also benefit from the second movie, which fleshed out their characters a bit, so they too make this a highly enjoyable movie.

There are a couple of bugs in the storyline, though. I’m not sure whether it was a good idea to have the major antagonist turn out to be a friend of Mikiya, of all people. It makes no sense, could have easily be omitted without affecting the rest of the movie and the movie can’t seem to decide what kind of relationship the two exactly have. It feels like some sort of cheap plot-device, especially for such a short 50-minute movie. The ending is also a bit of a downer-ending, with its Deus ex Machina-ish plot twist.

The plot feels a bit weird, but nevertheless the characters keep improving with every movie. It’ll be interesting to see this trend continue for the rest of the seven movies of the Garden of Sinners. Remaining Sense of Pain isn’t the most visually stunning instalment of Kara no Kyoukai, and the mystery isn’t as impressive as in chapter 1, but it makes up for this with great and solid characters.

Short Synopsis: Akiyuki tries to make sense of his new body as the assault causes many casualties.
Highlights: Shows all the basics of good storytelling.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
I can imagine that if there ever was something like a “Basic Guide-Book to Telling A Good Story”, it would use Bonen no Xamdou as a major source of inspiration, or in any case the first two episodes. Everything so far has been done exactly by the books, and although this makes these two episodes predictable, it also makes them very solid. The setting for Bonen no Xamdou is huge, and so far we’ve seen the characters introduced and properly defined (and some of them already have evolved a bit), all the major parties have had their introductions, and yet the pacing has been frantic in order to keep the viewer interested.

I also really like the use of budget in this series. Bonen no Xamdou has a huge budget, but interestingly this isn’t used to create stunning backgrounds, like Porfy no Nagai Tabi or Macross Frontier, and instead it makes sure for a lot of detailed motions on the foreground. Very nice to see that for a change, especially in a series that’s as busy as this one.

And with this episode, I know for sure: it’s a pet peeves of the director to pay homage to some of the classics of anime. We saw this first in Eureka7, where Eureka’s three children were based off of the original Mobile Suit Gundam, and here you can spot it too: Nakiami’s outfit is very obviously inspired by the costumes in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Princess Mononoke. On an interesting side-note: the children seem to return for Bonen no Xamdou as well, though this time there’re just two of them. Let’s see how these brats ended up on such an international war-ship.

Short Synopsis: Grace uses Ranka’s abilities as Sheryl gets more and more jealous.
Highlights: Best soundtracks of the series yet.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Ah, of course. The reason why Grace went after singers like Ranka and Sheryl was for their deculture-ability, in an attempt to get rid of the Vajra. Apparently, the deculture didn’t work with Sheryl, so she tried Ranka instead, and this episode proved to be a success, as Ranka’s song created a fairly easy victory in a battle against the Vajra.

I must say that the soundtrack for this series is as huge as its animation-budget. This episode introduced even more new songs and tunes, and strangely they felt like they were the best tracks of this show’s OST I’ve heard so far. Especially Ranka’s song with a new instrumental track added to it, it’s amazing what a few different instruments can do to the tone of a song. It finally gave a sort of sci-fi feel that I’ve been missing in this series. But then again, this is just the opinion of a guy who isn’t a fan of j-pop. ^^;

The love-triangles are also getting heated up more than ever. While I find it hard to imagine that Brera would be going after his sister, the guy does create an awful lot of jealousy for Alto, in the same way that Sheryl’s jealousy continues to grow. It’s good to see that they’re both starting to realize that they’d better get serious if they want to prevent from losing.