If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, call a horse a horse.

The beauty of a human-emotion based story is that it’s context-irrelevant. Mizuhito Akiyama, the writer of the light novel Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu (Iriya’s Sky, Summer of the UFOs) managed to create a tale of intense pathos and understated love can live inside a saga of manipulation, secrecy, and conspiracy.

I spent a bit of time early on worrying about how Iriya is not a sci-fi story: science (speculative) fiction generally means creating some sort of technology or alien-based situation — plausible or not — and speculating what might happen to humanity in that situation. Iriya, however, follows the pattern of moe-based bishoujo series and eroge: create a cute girl with a terrible backstory and portray the simple inevitability of what will happen. In this case, rather than some vague but potentially girl-killing disease, it’s a potentially girl-killing war between aliens and earth. Or is it?

It’s appropriate then, with this downward path to tragedy, that Toei’s OVA adaptation of the light novels was helmed by Naoyuki Itou, the director of their Kanon adaptation. The sickening sense of the inevitable that Iriya no Sora pushes in its second half is pretty similar to the Makoto arc of Kanon (though I didn’t see that adapation — I’m going by the Kyoto ’06 version).

But it’s pointless to bemoan what something isn’t. Regardless of your opinion of the bishoujo meta-genre and whether it has any place in your precious science fiction fandom, the OVA has its own merits and faults. Aaaaaand… the faults are many.

For one, Toei is not who you look to for balls-out great animation. Their heyday is long past, and even footage of Kenshiro was recycled quite a bit. It’s not awful, not by a longshot, but the CG is uninspired and character designs just aren’t that appealing. Newer guys like Kyoto and SHAFT can make a prettier heroine and a less irritating-looking male lead these days, and Toei’s generic shocks of hair in the front just aren’t doing it anymore.

The bigger problems, which probably stem from the short length of the OVA, are the baffling pacing and forced situations. The events of episode 5 are a bit of an enigma, not so much in the “what?” department, but the “why?” one. If you want to be an apologist, you can just let it be — the story is simple and you probably won’t have an issue following it. But if you really expect events to flow naturally, you’ll feel pretty jarred by a sudden change of heart that just as inexplicably changes right back. Ultimately, these events are water under the bridge in the overarching plot, but taking up a whole 6th of the series with badly conceived plot development makes for a bad ratio.

The good stuff is a little more sparse, and mostly comes from the strength of the original story. It’s nothing new (did I mention Makoto, or maybe inevitability?) but it tugs at the heartstrings at just the right times, and the characters have just enough guts to elevate them above the noncommittal Key-types. Punching, slicing out tracking implants from your own neck with a box cutter, even killing are all possible in Iriya’s world of love conquering all.

In the end, tragedy is inevitable, but it’s not quite that manipulative kind of tragedy from the “cry game” VNs. It’s still rich in moe, an attribute which in my mind will keep this from being completely sci-fi. And with all that pathos and cute-girl factor, I wish the character design was a little more appealing. But overall, you could do a lot worse than Irya No Sora, considering its small time investment and fairly consistent level of enjoyability.

Solanin covers the same post-college years as Honey & Clover II that I sometimes get nostalgic for (I call them the “adulthood isn’t really gonna be so bad after all” years). It’s the time when you’re unburdened of the responsibility of school, and the current burdens of work-life don’t seem so bad yet. Doesn’t take long for that to change. But I digress.

Solanin is an empowering, uplifting story that makes following your dreams seem like a realistic and manageable proposition. A small chunk of your dream is still your dream, after all. It’s a feel-good story with lovably flawed characters, and a live performance scene that really makes you feel like you’re in a club watching a band give it their all (which, let’s face it, many bands don’t always do).

But there is a moment. it’s the moment when drummer Billy decides that playing a show is the right thing to do. It’s a mixed bag because he’s also come to the realization that he’s done. The “dream” is over, he’s become that guy who gave up on it. And his only choice left is to reclaim that tiny slice.

This moment haunts me. Dead serious. As a musician, I’ve never planned for huge success — in fact, the types of music I’ve played have never enjoyed widespread notoriety at all — but I always hoped I could get some albums out on real labels, travel around in a van playing music, and hopefully meet some people in other places who’d heard me and were into the same kinds of things. I still don’t know if I’ve given up on that. But that one page of Solanin made me realize that I was Billy too.

I suppose if I lived in a manga it’d be easy to claim that slice of a dream, but my band (who play the most accessible, potentially-successful music I’ve ever done) lives the reality of the situation weekly. We’re no longer the bums that Solanin’s characters are, and jobs, spouses, children, and other commitments threaten at every turn to strike even that small chump-change dream down. But in those moments, I suppose I can always think of Meiko, Katou, and Billy living their moment.

In terms of quality — animation, writing, characters — as well as that pure glued-to-the-screen factor, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 stands out in a (mostly) unimpressive field of competitors this year.

But I think what will stand out in most people’s minds is the moment when they realized… it.

When exactly it happened is something that some viewers had to go back and establish. But for many, this handy infographic sums it up.

Legend:

A: Oh my. This is bad. I wonder if…
B: Oh, it’s really true. And the denial… it’s so heart-wrenching.
C: How, uh… how long are they gonna keep this up?
D: argaaargrgrgashflakjsdasdfklhja

Now the question is, did that slight overemphasis lessen the impact? I suppose it did, but the feeling of disappointment passed. That’s partially due to the strong final episode, which I know left my household all dewey-eyed, and partially due to the simple fact that the series as a whole was great. I haven’t seen that level of emotional intensity, whether it be the very real sense of fear and danger early on or the tragedy of later episodes, in a long time. So regardless of how you feel about “the thing” and its corresponding moment, at least there’s a strong series to go with it.

This is a short one, because honestly I don’t feel much like writing about Honey & Clover right now. I already did it, (warning: same pancake) and though I feel like there’s more to say, I’m not sure how to say it because H&C kind of flew by in my brain.

Why?

Because it’s the first thing I “marathoned” in a really long time. The marathon is the catnip of the anime fan, and the bane of the ones with real lives and jobs. It’s what happens when you are so sucked into a series that you’re preoccupied by its characters during work or school. You’re distant in conversation with real human beings because you don’t care what happens to them, you care what happens to HAGU DAMMIT. And you have to bear witness to the constant fight between your unstoppable desire to keep going and your sad knowledge that you’re bringing the end on sooner.

In this case, bring it on because it was worth getting to the end again (as evidenced by how many re-watches a mere mention could trigger). So the moment in this case…? It’s realizing that I was in the thick of a marathon and I wasn’t going to stop until it was over.

Plenty of people told me plenty of things about ABe’s Haibane Renmei. There’s Martin, Pete, TheBigN, Coburn — it almost seems to have a 1:1 viewer-to-fan ratio. And I found it for cheap many moons ago now, but it sat on the shelf until I was bed-ridden a couple months back. In the end, being sick and watching it was a wonderful way to do it. Thanks to its mood and themes, Haibane could almost sit in the vague non-genre called “iyashikei” (healing) alongside such plotless delights as YKK and Aria, but it does have a story and some really heavy drama to go with.

In fact, searching for a “moment” in Haibane could only mean finding its harrowing climax. Amidst the surreality of a painting come to life and a Satoshi-Kon-like reality warping, there’s intense human drama. The series’ overall meditation on sin and salvation comes to a nail-biting crescendo here. And then I understood.

Well, to be fair to Haibane Renmei, I understood a good bit before, that just drove it home. More than ABe’s other  more cyberpunky hits, it’s tied together with threads of love, hope, and melancholy that make it easy to get caught up in. And now, if you haven’t seen it, there’s one more asshole telling you how much you’re missing out.

Neo-Venezia

Cropped. Click for full size on pixiv.

It probably won’t surprise any Aria viewer that this one would go at the top of the list. Yes, there are cute gondoliers and suteki~ oneesamas like Alicia, but the lead character of Aria is not the titular cat, but Aqua — and its fake Italian city. Built by human hands, and mostly as a tourist destination, but not to be a gaudy Vegas/Cancun/Dubai statement of “look what we can do” or a faux-experience Disneyland. Instead, Neo-Venezia is an authentic locale born from the dedication of a few intrepid souls to recreating a simpler time and place. It’s the best kind of future, really: Technology ensures that all of the wonderful baked goods and none of the diseases of the past live on in a pleasant and welcoming place that neither gets you too dirty nor reeks of touristy “plastic”-ness.

Glie

If any anime gives off a similar vibe to Aria, it’s Haibane Renmei. I don’t mean in the sense of stories, characters, or even mood (Haibane actually has a story, which doesn’t make it superior to Aria necessarily, but different for sure). It’s that indescribable something special that makes you feel like you’re the only person who’s ever watched this, regardless of how many other people you know who find it wonderful. And like Aqua, Glie is a place that affects the story as strongly as any of its residents. Unlike Aqua, it has a complex set of rules and physics that separate it from the rest of the universe — at least, people assume that, but seeing as how they can’t freaking leave, it’s hard to prove anything about the outside world. Glie provides a wonderful mirror to the characters’ minds. Rakka loves it at first, but mistrusts its intentions more and more as she comes to empathize with Reki, who finds the town to be a comfortable cage from which she can’t escape.

Mayan

Leave it to Kawamori to name his island ode to vanishing culture and environment so plainly after a nearly-decimated American culture. Obvious message is obvious. Mayan serves two main purposes: it inspires a desire in Shin, Roy, and the viewer to protect it (wait… geographical moe?), and it provides a unique perspective on the story of the final world war on Earth. So it’s not the most well-developed location, but it does what it does well. In Macross Zero’s pre-SDF timeline, the world has yet to unite behind the giant ship to fight the Zentraedi, and is instead fighting itself. Honestly, it’s probably a more compelling story, and that’s largely because it’s told from the perspective of the Mayan Islanders — the collateral damage who can understand neither the motivations nor the sophisticated weapons of the mainlanders. The low-tech, spiritual world that they inhabit lends a mysterious new meaning to the Protoculture for fans of Macross, and their mythology does more to explain exactly what the Protoculture is (and means) than Exedol’s visit to the edge of the universe in Macross 7.

There are more, many more…

Even a completely real place (like Tokyo) can be an effective focus of a story, especially if, like other fictional characters, it’s put in a unique situation or circumstance (a massive earthquake). The question of place is often what elevates an otherwise ho-hum anime beyond average, whether it’s a school life or post-apocalypse setting. So what are your favorite anime places? Is there anywhere that’s crucial to a plot, fascinating to think about, or just well-drawn enough that it catches your brain as much as the characters and story? I, for one, would like to watch it, so I can take another vacation without having to get the days off work.

Well, the holidays got me sick. Not fun. But being bed-ridden was a great excuse to do my first legit series marathon in a very long time. I chose the supernatural action thriller Ga-Rei Zero. There may be minor spoilers, but considering the bulk of the story is laid out within a couple episodes, there’s not a lot to spoil in this series.

Story

Ga-Rei Zero is the origin story of the Ga-Rei manga, showing the path a young girl named Kagura took to become a powerful exorcist in a world full of demons and government “spiritual defense” organizations. Told mostly in flashback, Zero recounts the love she shared for 3 years with her surrogate sister Yomi.

There’s not much way to talk about this series without talking about the bizarre beginning: The non-traditional structure is a make-or-break point for Zero. By starting somewhere near the end, telling in flashback, then finally joining the two ends, writer Katsuhiko Takayama (also series writer for ef) constructed a horrible ode to inevitability that anime doesn’t deal in often, and some people just aren’t gonna go for. I can think of a live-action parallel: In Scorsese’s Casino, Robert De Niro’s character dies in a firey car bomb in the first couple minutes. The ensuing movie is entirely a flashback, and three hours later you remember: oh, yeah. He dies. Ga-Rei Zero takes an even more desperately depressing approach. Scorsese aimed to shock you with your forgetfulness, but this series constantly twists the knife to remind you what awaits.

On a superficial level of motorcycles, government demon-fighting teams, heroes-turned-bad, and depressive mood, Zero strongly resembles Blassreiter. It has a few key traits that separate it, though: half length, devotion to standard anime-“isms,” superior animation, and more personal themes of love and individual destiny versus Blassreiter’s focus on faith and duty.

Characters

I really wish Kagura were a more interesting character, but in truth that goes for most of the characters of G-RZ. Rather than a complex collection of emotions, they often feel like they’re just a product of the things that happen to them throughout the series — can you honestly say there are many people out there who wouldn’t have taken Yomi’s route, given the absolute emotional and spiritual pummeling she suffers?

That said, their generic qualities might serve to make them more sympathetic (same question applies here), and as the climax approaches, it’s hard not to feel for Kagura and, to a degree, Yomi’s erstwhile fiancé Noriyuki.

Technical

There isn’t a whole lot to say here. Nothing animation-wise, or audio-wise, went over-the-top for execution, but it’s appealing and more than solid the whole time. Character designs and overall style project a Production IG vibe, but maybe that’s just because Kagura = Saaya (Blood+) to some degree in my mind and it colored everything else. Fight scenes are well-directed and there’s no slippage in the high quality over 12 episodes.

Themes

Amidst all the standard anime junk — dead mothers and distant fathers, swordfighters in seifuku (not complaining), a world of improbable science-meets-magic — Zero manages to raise some interesting points. It’s really too bad that it spends a lot of time broadcasting those points through viewer proxies, dramatic monologues, and its lovely Engrishy tagline, “Would you kill someone you love, because of love?” Not that I expect the average anime to stop holding its viewers’ hands, but Ga-Rei Zero teased that it was going to give me lots to chew on, then took that away by outright verbalizing almost all of it.

While the show really wants us to ponder the question of whether Yomi overcame the Stone’s power or it just granted her true wish, what’s the difference? Either way, love tragically triumphs over greed and revenge, not that it helps anything. In hindsight, it’s kinda like the Haibane Renmei question of intent, except with damnation in place of salvation as the end result.

The Y Word

If you’ve read anything on blogs about Ga-Rei Zero, you’ve probably heard the word yuri tossed around a few times. In fact, ANN’s page lists “yuri” as the only theme. Glad I wasn’t watching it for that, or the other themes of “senseless suffering,” “inevitable tragedy,” and “sweet swordfighting” would have really distracted me.

But you can feel the sisterly love, and it really has to be ramped up for the horrific result to be felt. In the end, out of 4 hours of series there are about 30 seconds worth of anything that could be called yuri. There is one mouth-to-mouth kiss (a sort of Lady and the Tramp thing with Pocky), but that scene is there for a reason: it’s paralleled later, with horribly sad (if slightly overplayed) results.

So don’t watch this for yuri anymore than you’d watch it for guro — there’s enough blood, bathing, and shortness of skirts to cover your perverted needs, but it’s just not that kind of show. You’d have to be pretty depraved to get your jollies from something so damn depressing.

Bottom Line

Ga-Rei Zero caught me with its surprises in the first couple episodes, but after those were over, it continued to entertain and satisfy with good animation, cute girls with swords, and my ultimate anime fanservice, ludicrous tragedy (geez, maybe I am an extremist after all, clearly some people are not up for that and I guess I can’t blame them).

1990s OVAs full of tits, blood and total apocalypse fed my early fandom, and while this isn’t strictly an update to that it does provide the same kinds of thrills with a little more depth, a lot more heart, and a modern edge. Plus, it’s a lot better than Mnemosyne. Take its 12-episode length into account, and it’s hard for me not to recommend Ga-Rei Zero to anyone who likes their anime dark, action-heavy, and depressing.

I’m not going to go too much into why it’s made of awesome and win — many have seen it, plenty of blogs praise it even if they don’t agree on the methods, and most people already know lots about JC Staff’s occasionally brilliant skills of execution that can make something as rote as Hatsukoi Limited into a winner and something well written into animated gold. The true strength of Honey & Clover is not its humor, underplayed dramatic moments, or unwillingness to insultingly explain key points to you out loud; it’s the writing, plain and simple. As a fan you’ve probably spent at least a little time justifying why anime isn’t kids’ stuff, but you’re often repaid by archetyped characters bouncing around a high school and crying a lot. Honey & Clover is your true reward. Even the theme that I most wanted to talk about is a little more “mature” than what you normally see: That’s letting go, one of the series’ many central threads that runs throughout. I’m picking ONE because apparently I can write almost 2,000 words about it, so to take on the whole thing would be extreme fucking insanity.

Something atypical for me: I try to leave them out normally, but there will probably be big spoilers.

What do I mean, specifically, when I say “letting go?” Easiest way to explain is through the characters, and how their ability to “let go” is directly proportional to how much they grow as people.

Rika and Shuu. Rika’s pretty easy: she is still hanging on to her dead husband. In a way, Shuu-chan is hanging on to him as well. They both lived a depressed life, feeling half complete without their counterpart and unable to even be around each other. Rika fully planned to off herself after completing their last joint project, which seems counterintuitive to me (seems that finishing that would be the last thing she needs to move on, but she’s taking “move on” in a very different way). She’s the only person who’s somewhat unclear at the end of the story: did Mayama really open her eyes to the kind of love that can free her? Not sure. But she did get the benefit of a very shock-treatment method of therapy when they visited her childhood home. Shuu of course, freed himself by admitting his feelings about Hagu, — he’d already been dedicating himself to her, but to truly live for her was his way of finally facing the future.

Kaoru. He’s the next simplest to explain. Though his father specifically told him not to pursue a grudge, he dedicated his life to just that. Was it about redeeming his father, reclaiming the company, or revenge on the villain? It didn’t matter. He wasn’t even sure anymore, and besides, everything he did from a very early age was colored by his envy of Shinobu. He couldn’t stop his hanging on to the past until the deed was done, and then he was left without a purpose for quite a while. Clinging to something, especially a grudge, for so long causes you to really lose sight of everything and get serious tunnel vision.

Yamada. Speaking of which. Boys from her childhood, good looking suitors with successful careers, even a better job — they all existed outside her narrow field of vision that encompassed only Mayama. What was it that finally broke the spell? More than likely being around Rika and throwing herself into her work had the largest effect on her, but of course cool guy Nomiya’s clumsy and vulnerable persistence finally opened the door. She might be the most cartoony of the characters, like a shoujo heroine (Kotoko from Itazura Na Kiss, anyone?) who just can’t stop. But when she became free, it happened in a realistic enough way: not a snapping realization, but a gradual stepping into the light.

Mayama. Here’s the flipside of that equation. What is there to talk about? Mayama’s hangup is obvious. It’s Rika. Wrong. At least, not all the way right. Yes, he had a serious problem with his one-way feelings for Rika, but that (sort of) paid off in the end. The moment when his folly ended was when he loosened his iron grip on Yamada, the poor, beautiful bench warmer. Even he wasn’t 100% sure whether he was keeping an overly big-brother hold on her or if he really was keeping her on the back burner, but neither one was healthy. He found it very easy to blame her until Nomiya went on the offensive and he stopped bemoaning his own situation long enough to realize how badly he was fucking her up by maintaining his hold.

Shinobu. The younger Morita seems to have had the opposite problem of everyone here; instead of clinging to something that’s holding him back, his unwillingness to cling to anything is what stopped him for so long. His feelings went unexpressed, responsibility was an ignored nuisance, and he even tried to bring Hagu on that train of irresponsible apathy with him. In that way he’s actually like Takemoto gone unchecked, but more on that in a second.

Hagu. For most of her life, until college, drawing was her only escape. And when she was told that she was better at art than most people, she reacted in a way that infuriated her “fans.” But Hagu’s desire to move back to the country and spend her adult life painting the forest and the mountains shouldn’t be confused with a clear-headed decision or an adult way of thinking. She just hung on to that life from before, and the more time she spent in Tokyo the more she seemed to  block out her own opinions and keep her focus on that goal that she might not even want. Combine that with being unwilling to trouble her beloved Shuu-chan, and by the time of her injury she wasn’t even sure what she wanted and what she was doing for others anymore. Morita put a stop to that with his selfish but caring request that she just stop her art and be with him. Paradoxically, she was able to feel her love of drawing again just by being told that she didn’t have to do it. And that same paradox freed her.

Takemoto. Poor Takemoto. It’s easy to think of him as Anthony Michael Hall in The Breakfast Club (RIP John Hughes), the nerd who went through the same (actually, more effective) journey of self-discovery as the rest of the crew but who didn’t get the girl and ended up writing everyone’s report for them.

Takemoto was cursed by his own self-awareness. Every year since Mayama’s graduation was progressively more sad, and it became harder and harder to hold on to his memories of carefree days filled with the love of friends and dominated by the image of Hagu. For Takemoto, even the very literal journey of self-discovery brought him only to realize the value of the things and people he wanted to come back to. I thought sure he’d wind up replacing Shuu as a teacher, his attachment to the school and reluctance to commit to the future were so great.

At the end of the first series, it was in debate whether the naïve and crying Hagu was confused about her feelings or just plain couldn’t return his; by the middle of the second series the truth was heart-wrenchingly obvious. And that, long past the point of unequivocal defeat, was really hard for Takemoto to stop clinging to. It partially served as a reminder of how much different this is from most anime: as with Yamada, just working hard to win over your unrequited love won’t necessarily change anything. It just makes you lonelier and less tied to reality. But more importantly, this is about how the things that were holding Takemoto back were tied together. When he finally cut the ties to both his college life and his unrequited love, he could rest. Hagu let him do that with her trip to the train station and her goofy bittersweet sandwiches. And when Takemoto was finally able to cry and let it go, we the viewers finally got the chance to be free as well, left with our own bittersweet taste.

Close to home (do you remember love, and how it ruins everything?)

Putting aside the flowery talk that always sounds better in your head than in print, how does this contribute to me, my viewing, and the fearsome oyaji hate machine that is Honey & Clover? Simple, on one level. It makes for a story that someone like me (a bit older, out of school for quite some time) can not only identify with, but be hurt by in a way that more juvenilely focused plots (no offense) just can’t deliver. While that KeyAni gut punch is swell at first, it fades quickly. For the feeling to really sink in and last through time and repeated viewings, it has to resonate. There must be identifiable pain in your own life behind it.

I suppose that’s why Takemoto’s character creates a dull ache in my heart. He’s the reliable but not-too-sexy dude who doesn’t get the girl and can’t quite be okay with growing up. Eventually I did get the girl, but Honey & Clover showed me that I still haven’t quite shaken the Takemoto-like desire for things to just “stop spinning” for a while. That’s painful, as it refers to mortality, which is an even more agonizing subject than unrequited love — you cannot go back, no matter how much you want to. But even that realization is a beautiful thing.

And it means that for all those marvelous characters, great humor, and tasty music, the thing that really sets Honey & Clover apart is that it has the power to hurt, help, and look inside its viewers. You don’t see that too often. It also apparently has the power to end all the usual irreverence in my blog posts, so I apologize for that. Back to dick jokes and Macross references next time.

But that resonance was important for me to get across, and I know plenty of folks love the series for different reasons so I ask this: did Honey & Clover hit you very hard personally, compared to other anime? Was there a character that you identified with particularly, as I did with Takemoto? And might H&C help you move on from something?

Three things, I guess:

1. Haibane Renmei is a series that was recommended a few times. I couldn’t remember by whom, so I checked MAL to jog my memory: turns out 16 of my MAL friends have seen it: for some reason CCY did not rate it, and lelangir called it a 7 by virtue of the fact that it was not Gunbuster (understandable), and the rest were in the 8-10 range. I realize MAL is a severely unscientific research tool, but it does give me a pretty good impression of people’s thoughts. Also, I do remember that coburn and TheBigN were the biggest proponents, although others call it a 10.
2. I watched it too friggin’ fast to do any mid-series posts.
3. I’m trying in vain to translate that little lump in my throat into an appropriate post.

So I’m not sure where to begin, but let me say this: my overall impression is that Haibane doesn’t play out like one anime… more like three. They don’t have hard demarcations, instead they flow seamlessly into one another. But if you took say, episode 2, episode 7, and episode 11, they would each feel like they could have come from a different series.

First, there’s the introduction. This lasts fully half the series or so, and it gives off a decidedly un-ABe-like vibe (if you’ve seen Serial Experiments Lain and/or Texhnolyze you know what I mean). We, the viewers, get to see the town of Glie through new and wondrous eyes — Rakka’s eyes. The beginning of her journey is painful. She’s born lonely into the world, devoid of her memories, and her own body becomes a foreign thing as she’s transformed into a winged angelic Haibane. But others who’ve been through this shelter her, and the residents of Glie are lovely people, so she’s surrounded by love. In this way, it’s very Aria-like. And like Aqua, Glie is a unique location because it’s almost ridiculously mundane in its day-to-day life but fantastic for the simple fact that it exists. As Rakka fits into this world, there is little to no plot development to speak of, just a wide-eyed sense of wonderment and discovery, and Aria’s same simple magic that leaves you smiling.

But Haibane is a creeper. As suteki~ as that first part is, the second arc is equally crushing. Things change, Rakka enters a deep crisis of faith and personality, and like any good fictional hero, must overcome this. Unfortunately, it’s pretty hard to talk about it, or the third arc, without giving away the farm, and the unexpected way in which the story unfolds — though never jarring, always kind of morphing — is one of the series’ strong points.

One of the unexpected turns (if not quite a twist) is like Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann’s most masterful one: it turns out the series isn’t actually about who you think it’s about. Well… it is and it isn’t. But let’s say Haibane Renmei has two fantastic characters in Rakka and Reki, the oneesama-type character who takes selfless care of her fellow Haibane. It’s an interesting proposition, the idea that all the characters are half-lives whose more putty-like years were spent in a world (presumably ours, but maybe not) that they can no longer remember. That means that they get a fresh start, so the things weighing down Reki’s mind are particularly powerful, and Rakka quickly learns that life in Glie can be an easy stroll or the world’s most pleasant prison depending on where you sit.

Haibane Renmei, according to Yoshitoshi ABe, is a religious story, although it doesn’t mirror or endorse any particular religion. The Haibane’s angel-like appearance probably serves no other purpose than to make this obvious (that and he probably liked drawing wings and halos).

If it doesn’t really tell the story of a god, then how is it religious? I suppose it’s because the central topics here are salvation and the nature of sin. The Haibane Renmei (communicator) tells of the circle of sin, a thought paradox that characters like Rakka and Reki become hopelessly trapped in. It’s heartbreaking because it’s a bit like original sin in that they carry it from their birth, and are powerless to stop it when they emerge naïvely from the cocoon. But salvation also comes whether they like it or not.

The assessment of sin and salvation goes something like this: Being deserving is not a matter of intent; intent only clouds the issue. That’s not how you’re saved.

No one is entirely devoid of sin. Even if you’re just selfishly trying to absolve yourself of sin, if you’re good at it, you become good in the process. I love that. In that way, it’s a lot more idealized then your average actual religion, but makes such beautiful sense. In the end, that anti-paradox becomes the fix for the first paradox, the circle of sin. Though much is lost along the way, Haibane Renmei leaves its viewers feeling saved.

Aoi Hana features, as Arudoc noted, Perky (Akira) and Pouty (Fumi), what I would imagine is a fairly standard pairing in these kinds of shoujo-cum-yuri series. They are, so far, not the most winsome characters ever. As is often the case with anime characters, assumptions are made and we’re encouraged to stick to them. The assumption here is that Fumi has something to offer as a friend, but in two episodes she’s really just whiny and needy. She cries constantly, she changes her mind quickly based on what she thinks a cute girl will be doing, and she puts ridiculous expectations on people like her cousin Chizu-chan. Akira is her foil — a reasonably genki-girl, at least within the slow and breezy pace of the series thus far (Minorin would be, obviously, out of place).

Character designs are nice, with a bent towards the plain you might see in less “sparkly” shoujo (if you know what I mean) such as Itazura Na Kiss. There’s nothing as exciting as the dynamic always-in-motion style of Toradora! or Hatsukoi Limited’s refined eye candy. There’s nothing particularly exotic about any of the characters, even the ones that I get the impression are supposed to seem slightly exotic. But there certainly isn’t anything terribly ugly either, and I never really worry about JC Staff making animation foibles so consistency is a plus too.

Everything here seems to be executed with soft focus — I suppose that’s the style, and even more than usual, the studio’s backgrounds are watercolored and pastel.

But even amidst all this, details of immersion are done really well: you can easily feel what it’s like to be at the train station, slump in defeated envy at Akira’s beautiful school, or climb under the downy covers of Fumi’s bed with her.

Now, maybe that’s not done quite as well as Bones has done it with their Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, which despite its cartoony style really has an eye for realistic body language and scenery. But Magnitude absolutely depends on a feeling of immersion — however interesting the characters might be, the earthquake and the world are the main characters here, or at least the main attraction.

Aoi Hana, on the other hand, is probably a simple love story and doesn’t require a level of believability beyond what any other basic anime might have. It only does what it does out of sheer devotion to a quality product, and here’s the kicker for me: if you’re not ready to dedicate yourself to an immersive, visual experience, what are you doing telling stories in a visual medium? Aoi Hana is proof that you can do that without action, mecha, fanservice, or psychedelic Shinbo-isms.