Afterimage

And it doesn’t let up as Courier rides out into the city’s outskirts, the silent desolation of his landscape; that leave-less tree, the broken moon shining in the twilight and being hounded by those clearly pilotless flying machines, the sense of hopelessness seeps right in. I was rooting for Brother and Sister to make it to the mountains too, but it was a bitter-sweet feeling, because so much had been sacrificed to carry them there.

Cutthroat isn't exactly a typical protagonist, is he? None of the Akudama are, but Cutthroat's probably the most egregious: an insane serial killer with a clearly unhealthy fascination with Swindler that eventually explodes into mountains of dead bodies and a swirling, intoxicating lust for blood... So yeah, not exactly typical! 

Swindler is the touch paper that ignites a revolution, and in doing so, truly becomes the Akudama Swindler (and finally gets her own cool intro-sequence too!) but behind her smile is the self-confidence of a person that's finally found a purpose in her life and seems content even with a lightsaber(!) stabbed through her heart: it's the face of a person that's won. You can't ignore the Christ-like symbolism of her being pinned to a cross-shaped slab of blood-splattered concrete either, and it doesn't half look cool; just like everything else in Akudama Drive, everything, even death, is a beautifully rendered moving image.

There’s an undeniable sense of ennui about Rikuo and Shinako, a melancholy that bleeds into every scene, be it the blue moonlight as Rikuo throws out the trash, the warm glow of the streetlights as he bumps into Haru, or the flash of a speeding train as it passes Shinako, her head down on her way home from work, there’s something just slow and lonely about Sing “Yesterday” for Me, an overriding feeling of inertia as life just passes by. It’s a story told through what isn’t said.

Tsubame asks her parents, “What did you think of my animation?” You often read people saying, “Art for arts sake” but I think that’s misleading. Creation is a form of expression, an expression that’s crying out to be acknowledged. Something can be so abstract, yet so personal.

Sumito Ōwara’s art has a lively and loose feel (one may even say, easy breezy!). He isn’t concerned with drawing beautiful, delicate girls, rather, he’s emphasizing their frantic energy, burgeoning talent and playful sense of humour. Every page is packed with little touches.

Dorohedoro is idiosyncratic. In other words, it’s really weird, to the point where there’s nothing else in anime that compares. It’s gory and full of grotesque monsters, but it’s also quite funny. Definitely more funny than scary. Everything is run-down, dirty and overcrowded, yet there’s life around every corner, happily crawling by. Q Hayashida has created a dismal, filthy world and populated it with a bunch of cheerful monsters. That’s really what comes across most of all in this first episode, that Dorohedoro is full of life. It’s a master-class in world building.

I love that, for once, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! isn’t a high-school anime drenched in melancholy and nostalgia. The girls seem like real, imperfect little brats, awkward and stick-like, living in the moment. They aren’t walking on eggshells, their voices are rough and passionate. Passion is the keyword here. Well, passion and love.

Somali and Golem live in a candy-coloured wonderland where danger and magic are but a heartbeat away. It’s really imaginative and fun to watch.

In a story filled with violence, Vinland Saga preaches pacifism, that to be a true warrior is to find some meaning to your life beyond hate, even if it means forgiving the man that killed your father.

Kaiba is not perfect. It’s rushed towards the end as a resolution is sought, and some episodes aren’t as coherent as others, but it’s easy to forgive an anime series that’s still so unique. Even after 11 years, it’s a refreshing example of what anime can be: nothing looks like Kaiba, it has such a unique aesthetic that separates it from the time in which it was made and, combined with what it's trying to say, imbues it with a timeless quality.

In Kaiba, almost everything is disposable. Chroniko’s memories are discarded in such a nonchalant way: removed by a crooked doctor, her memories join millions of others floating in orbit around her planet, her unfulfilled dreams glowing like fireflies in the endless dark of space, indistinguishable from millions of others. It’s just the insignificant manner in which her whole life is just thoughtlessly discarded that destroys me. It’s as nihilistic as anime can be.

That enigmatic quality is a large part of Boogiepop’s charm. The Boogiepop at Dawnstory arc begins with Boogiepop and Echoes meeting in a strange place: the sky is red and there is rubble everywhere. Could they be wandering through a post-apocalyptic Earth millions of years into the future? We never find out and it’s probably for the best that we don’t: the truth is never as interesting as what we might imagine.

Emma’s strength is her empathy. She trusts in others when Norman and Ray won’t. She may seem carefree, but there’s a sense of empathy, and therefore responsibility, about her that marks her out as the leader amongst them.