Merry Christmas everyone. Christmas really is a time of peace, love and friendship. So yeah, I found this a good time to finally watch Kanashimi no Belladonna. It sounded like a good idea when I started watching it!

But seriously though: wow. We’re talking about 1973 here. Anime at this time was just giant robots and silly action shows. The industry was only ten years old, at a time when animation really was only meant for kids. And here this movie comes, with its sex, suffering, extortion, love, betrayal, pain, seduction, sex and more sex. It must have made a huge impact on the animation industry at the time!

The storytelling is just surreal. Even Studio 4C’s stuff is tame, compared to the style of Kanashimi no Belladonna. It’s obviously not for everyone. You really have to like artsy stuff, and as you can imagine from the screenshots: there is no way that the creators could animate images of these details. There are lots of still frames, while the animation that’s there is simple and often resorts to repeated frames.

But seriously, who cares! The art in this movie is absolutely beautiful. Even now, more than 35 years later, there still hasn’t been an anime that could call itself equal to this. Every frame is drawn with so much inspiration. I’m really going as far as saying that this is the best-looking anime of the seventies. It’s gorgeous in every way, and the soundtrack itself consists out of a bunch of great songs and background tunes for its time.

Despite being artsy however, this movie also excels in its characterization. Jeanne’s progression throughout the movie really hit me. The way that her life is spiralling completely out of control as she gets lost within her own greed, somewhere in medieval France. She desperately tries to be meaningful, despite the sacrifices she has to make. There’s a ton of symbolism and tons more of different ways to interpret these.

So yeah, obviously this isn’t a movie that you want to show your little brother or sister, because the story is told with tons of sex scenes. The same sex scenes will also turn off those who aren’t into artsy stuff, because seriously, they can get really bizarre at times. I seriously have no idea what went through the minds of the creators as they came up with this. I personally really enjoyed the movie. It’s really surreal, but very haunting at the same time.

Kappa no Coo to Natsuyasumi: ET the Anime. We have a boy who finds a alienkappa. The two live together along with the boy’s mother, father and annoying sister. Eventually however, the boy must protect his new friend from the evil scientistsmass media and help him find his own kind back. But don’t let my overly generalized synopsis fool you. It’s a very charming movie.

What we have here is a charming family movie with a pretty nice characterization, that also isn’t afraid to touch upon some more mature themes. Between the gentle slice of life, this movie (clocking in at over two hours) discusses bullying, friendship and having to live in a completely new environment, but it also criticizes the mass media (and in a way that makes them come across as wrong, but not stereotypically evil), the “bystander effect” and other aspects of modern society. The themes are a bit one-sided overall, but they work well enough.

But most of this movie’s focus really goes towards the characters, which are nicely enough developed for a movie. The lead boy suffers a bit from how he looks like so many other young lead characters in other movies like this, but Coo, the Kappa, is well portrayed, and you have to love the antics of his bratty little sister. His parents are also strong characters, and combined they make up for his genericness.

This really is a movie for the fans of slice of life who also like some dark parts once in a while. If you’re not into slice of life, then it will be a bit hard to enjoy, considering that for a movie, it’s over two hours long. Kappa to Coo no Natsuyasumi takes a well known premise, but executes it well.

Darker than Black was an excellent example of a mature series when it first aired. The entire setting was very original and creative, and so it was awesome to see an actual second season eventually got announced. I do want to warn fans of this first season to not expect exactly the same, however: Ryuusei no Gemini has no intention whatsoever to rip off the first season and going for the tried-and-true formula. Instead, it comes with its own concept, story-lines and focuses. and it does this so well.

Ryuusei no Gemini is about people with powers (called Contractors in this franchise) versus those who don’t. It explores its own boundaries that it set for itself, in the way that these contractors behave and act. It’s got a great direction throughout the entire series; there’s hardly a weak moment and it feels like every second is either there for building up or as a climax. I also really like how this is one of the very few series with a truly “people die when they fight to the death”-mentality that seems to be missing in anime way too often: when characters fight, the chance is big that someone (even a major character!) is going to end up dead.

While the first season of Darker than Black was about adults, Ryuusei no Gemini strangely has a teenager as a lead character. But don’t worry: she really doesn’t ruin this show in the slighted. Suou has an engaging personality and is well developed throughout the series. While you can see that she’s a teenager, she’s for once in no way inferior to the adults in this series and her story (just as all of the other subplots in this show, by the way) is very compelling. This show really succeeds in weaving all those little side-stories into one, while making all of them count. There’s lots of variety in this series. The ending may be a bit rushed, but even that one is very thought-provoking.

The soundtrack itself is even better than the one from the first season. It’s also different, but in a good way, full of haunting synthesizers. The animation is also what you’d expect of Bones: detailed, consistent and imaginative.

As for which season is best, it’s really hard to tell because the first and second season are just so completely different. The first season is episodic, the second has a continuous story. My favourite episode of Darker than Black still sits in the first season (the conclusion to the Yin-arc), however the second season is much more consistent. However, the first season in its turn is longer: that second season is really over before you know it! The first season in its turn had more adult themes, but the character-development in the second season also rocks despite the inclusion of teenagers. It’s really impossible to point at one as better, because they both have their own points at which they stand out.

The biggest complaint for Ryuusei no Gemini is simply that it’s too short. There are a few subplots that could have needed a bit more time, and if it had 24 episodes to work with it would have been even better. The really big fans of the first season are also going to have to accept that some of the more prominent characters in the first seasons have really small roles in the second season, in order to allow the new characters to shine. Nevertheless, I liked it a lot. It’s intelligent, exciting, well written, well directed, there are lovable characters. My third-favourite show of the past Autumn season.

Yeah, this episode was rushed. There’s no denying that this episode lacked the emotional impact that it could have produced if it took things easy. However, I don’t think that the creators really intended this episode as entertainment, but rather as brainfood. A lot of weird stuff happened here, and you know what? I’m actually still interested. For a Bones Ending, it’s actually not that bad. Plus, that soundtrack was just bloody awesome.

First of all, Shion. I thought that he was really a huge bastard, however his goal was pretty gentle. It turns out that he set out to Tokyo in order to get to the gate, and create a completely copied world in which Suou wouldn’t feel out of place. He hid it well, but I think that he felt really guilty about what he did to her.

The mystery-element here is of course Yin, but we have to wait for the OVAs to get some concrete answers on that. What we do know is that her powers helped Shion complete his plan: she helped him create a copy of the entire earth, and she brought July and Suou there: two children who indeed shouldn’t be involved with these adult struggles. In this episode, it’s also made clear that copies can’t retain their memories for long, so that’s why Suou was experimented with with her necklace. So apparently, Yin also made sure that Suou and the others would be able to survive without this pendant.

Then, the motives of the woman of the CIA: she for some reason was very interested in Shion’s ability to create copies (Hmm, what if one of the twins that’s with her is a copy as well?), and her actions seem to revolve around that. We now know that she helped Shion create his copies, and my guess is that when Shion came with the plan of creating an entire new planet because he didn’t want to involve Suou anymore, I guess she found it an interesting idea and cooperated with him. Her ulterior motives still are a mystery, though.

Then there’s Yin: why the hell are there two of them? The OVA is really going to have to answer that question. Also, the prophecy: Izanami and Izanagi, who we assumed to be Shion and Yin, met, and yet nothing bad happened. Again some OVA material, or perhaps the white Yin was Izanami, and so the disaster could be averted.

Then: Suou and July behaving uncontractor-like. My guess is that it’s got something to do with Hei. He’s always been a big question-mark: he has his sister who lives in him, who may or may not have disappeared completely when his powers were taken away. My guess is that he has some sort of effect on children and teenagers, that allows them to retain their their personality.

In the end, before I started to watch this episode I really think that I’ve been a bit too much spoiled by endings that just spoon-feed their information to the viewer. This episode was a nice wake-up call and it showed the power that these “rushed endings” can have. This episode didn’t treat its audience like idiots, and instead it’s just one of those episodes where if you don’t think about it, you’re going to dislike it.

Overall, I may have said this a bit too often by now, but THIRD SEASON WHERE?! Ryuusei no Gemini really was a really well done side-story, but there’s still so much potential left here in this series. It’s another one in the increasingly long list of shows that desperately need continuations. And yes, I’ve heard about the rumours but I’m not going to get my hopes up until I see official confirmation.
Rating: ** (Excellent)