Note: this is a review of the 1997 World Masterpiece Theatre version of Ie Naki Ko, not the Osamu Dezaki version of 1977. I’d love to have watched the original version, but unfortunately I couldn’t seem to find it anywhere; it’s gone up in smoke, so I needed to settle with this inferior version. For those of you who don’t know, Ie Naki Ko has a whole backstory to it.

In 1996, the World Masterpiece Theatre franchise was in a lot of trouble. The previous WMT-series, Famous Dog Lassie, had been suddenly halted after only 26 episodes, and it was replaced by this series. 23 episodes later, and it was suffering from bad reviews and low television rates, so it got taken off the air completely by the television network. After 23 years of non-stop series, the World Masterpiece Theatre went into a hiatus that would last for nearly ten years, until it was picked up again by Les Miserables. Even among the WMT-fans it seems to have been rated as one of the lesser series of the franchise.

However after watching the series, I do want to say that if the version that’s universally considered as a cheap rip-off is already this good, then I can only imagine how incredibly beyond awesome the Osamu Dezaki version must be.

But yeah, this series definitely has its problems. The creators here tried to stuff a story that’s meant for 52 episodes in only 26 of them. They changed a lot from the original novel, including the actual gender of the main character, and even with the shortened episode length, it still includes a few fillers. I think that this was done in an attempt to make the WMT-franchise more mainstream, which obviously failed.

Nevertheless, despite this the show has an awesome cast of characters, which stay true to themselves no matter what gets thrown at them. Remi may have changed into a girl, but she’s a really strong character, who is able to carry the weight of the series easily. There are still plenty of slice of life moments, which really try to flesh out the different characters. Despite the fillers feeling rather random when you watch them, each of them has its own purpose of foreshadowing later plot-twists.

Where this series falls behind in comparison to the other WMT-series is that it wants drama a little too badly. With this, I mean that no matter where Remi arrives through the series, you’ll know that something bad is going to happen to her. Be it a robbery, stolen item, or whatever, and especially the way in which Remi meets her real family feels really strange. Compare that to Porfy no Nagai Tabi, where you’ll never know if a person Porfy meets is going to have gentle or ill intentions, and yes, it does fall flat in that aspect. There’s also a bit of romance that pops up near the end of the series. On one hand, it’s incredibly heart-warming, though it can also be way too soppy at times.

But what impressed me the most about this series is that even though it usually has a warm but naive idealistic nature, there are times where the cold, hard feeling of reality crashes down on the characters, and at those times it really spares nobody. It may fool you at times, but this series is typical WMT in the sense that it can be incredibly dark for a children’s series. We’re talking about brutal child abuse here. The contrast between these dark and cold parts and the heart-warming mood is what really made this series something special.

So yeah, while overall flawed this nevertheless is a very capable series. What it lacks mostly is polishing. If the creators could have spent some attention to make the drama less soppy, the different coincidences less apparent and added 26 more episodes, then I can imagine how the Osamu Dezaki version could easily be one of the best anime of the seventies.

2008 has been a bad year for Shaft. While I can’t speak for Hidamari Sketch, their only two other series this year were simply sequels for series that didn’t really need one, and both of them featured a drastic decrease in quality. While ef - a tale of melodies didn’t decrease in quality as much as Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei, it still is rather underwhelming and a disappointment if you’re a fan of the great first season.

Like the first season, a tale of melodies is also split up in two parts, and tells the story about two different couples. They’re the side-characters of the first season. The story about Kuze is pretty good. Even though it has a few humps and bumps in the middle and isn’t as impressive as the stories of a tale of memories, it nevertheless comes together in the end with a pretty nice conclusion.

My real problem with this series was the story between Yu and Yuuko. While on paper, it may seem worthwhile to finally learn who the mysterious guy with white hair from a tale of memories is, the creators handled it really in the wrong way. It seemed to me that the creators never really knew what they wanted to do with this story. They keep throwing one plot twist after the other but forget to make the viewer accustomed to the characters. They’re hardly fleshed out, unlike the stories in the first season.

The characters, although they change through the series, feel more like cardboard cut-outs than real people because of this. It was a nice idea full of ambition, really, but the creators simply tried to stuff too much in such a short timeframe. The conclusion to this story becomes downright ludicrous because of this, and we’re not even answered the simple question: why did Chihiro end up with Yu in the end?

My issue is also with the themes of creative expression that were so prevalent in the first season, because they play a much smaller role in the second season. Sure, there’s a character who plays a violin, another one sketches, another one paints, but the creators never actually use it. They’re no longer the central themes of the series, and the new themes of this series (taking distance from someone you love) feel superficial and not fleshed out enough.

Thankfully, there’s one definite bright spot of this series: the graphics. While the animation isn’t of any particularly high quality, the creators throw an even bigger amount of special effects at the viewers than even in a tale of memories. There are lots of cool shots and filters, and there’s lots of eye-candy in this series. The background music is also of the same high quality as the first season, so at least that part didn’t suffer.

It’s a shame that I can’t say the same for the rest of the series, and I can only hope that 2009 will be a better year for Shaft. They’re a great and unique animation studio and all, but at times they seem to get lost in their style, forgetting that they’re also supposed to have substance. ef - a tale of memories was a great example of a series with an excellent combination of both style and substance. ef - a tale of melodies, unfortunately isn’t.

Short Synopsis: The final bit of build-up before the big climax!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
Well, so it really looks like the creators planned to reunite Porfy and Mina at the very last episode from the beginning. Ooh! It’s going to be epic!

The episode starts as Porfy is very glad to meet up with his old friend again (who changed significantly, actually. In fact, Porfy’s character-designs have also very subtly changed throughout the series). As it turns out, Zaimis has managed to win an international competition that’d allow him to study music in Paris (if I understood correctly). He asks about what happened to Mina, after which Porfy answers that he might have found her, and shows him the poster. Zaimis wants to see the movie to check for sure.

After the movie is over, Porfy still doubts whether it was really Mina, but Zaimis is utterly convinced that she’s the one, and that Rose was the one who was wrong. Porfy refuses to believe that, and figures that maybe it was Amelie who made a mistake. Porfy then introduces Zaimis to Rose, taking him to her apartment. She’s been waiting for him, actually. It also seems that Porfy has written a lot about Rose to Zaimis, so he’s already heard about her. He tries to convince Rose that it was really Mina who he saw, but then she starts yelling and leaves.

Zaimis then suggests to confirm it once more. Instead of leaving it to rose, he plans to go along with Porfy to the movie studios without letting Rose know. Porfy is a bit puzzled as to why he has to keep it a secret for her, because he still doesn’t suspect that he lied to her. Mina meanwhile is in awe at the huge Christmas tree that Tiffany had planted in her back garden (that’s rather cute, ending the series at Christmas).

The next day, Porfy tries to find an excuse of getting out on his own. It almost backfires, since Rose offers to go along with him to show Zaimis the city of Paris, but luckily she realizes that the two of them haven’t met for a while. She then gives Porfy some money, and asks whether he’d like something for a Christmas present. Porfy really doesn’t have anything he wants, aside from meeting with Mina.

Because of this, Porfy is late and has to apologize to Zaimis, who avoid the question of why Rose know about their little trip. At the movie studio, they face the same problem as before: the annoying gate keeper. In the end Porfy gets in by letting Zaimis distract the guy so that he can sneak behind a large prop. In the studio, Porfy accidentally meets someone who takes him for someone who works at the place, and ends up accompanying him, carrying boxes.

The next person Porfy meets is a guy who mistakes him from yet another someone who has fallen in love with a certain actor, and managed to sneak in (apparently, the guard hasn’t been doing his job that perfectly). He doesn’t know Porfy, but he does know Amelie. Amelie then tells Porfy the same that she told Rose, and also how she told Rose about Mina. This is where Porfy realizes that Rose lied to him.

When Porfy returns, his sad look first makes Zaimis think that it was indeed a misunderstanding, but instead Porfy is wondering why Rose lied to him. Mina meanwhile is asked the same thing as Porfy was earlier: what would she like as a Christmas present. Obviously, she only wants to meet Porfy. ^^;

That evening, Rose returns and is shocked to see Porfy in a room without lights. Porfy then says that he’s met Amelie. He first believes that it was because of Tiffany, but then Rose tells him the truth, while crying. That she doesn’t want Porfy to leave. After that the episode ends.

There’s only one downside to this whole final arc: NO ALECIA! Apart from that, it’s been such a creative and solid finale for this series. I’m also really surprised. I originally believed that the creators were planning to turn the finale into an even bigger tear-jerker than the earthquake-arc, but instead they’ve chosen for a much more quiet pacing, that instead is building up to the two of them finally meeting again. After the very dark episodes of Porfy’s journey in France, I really never expected this.

And yeah; so what if the creators are recycling their old background art with different colour filters run through them! They still look freaking awesome!