Respect Sakura

So as you all know, I promised to write a review on whatever people recommended to me in this posting. Unfortunately, the three names that cropped up out of that post were Yakikate Japan, Claymore and Noein. Now, Yakitate Japan fell under the defined rules of precisely what I wouldn’t be reviewing, in that it’s 69 goddamn episodes long, and I really don’t have the time to even watch all of it, let alone write a decent review on the thing.

Out of the remainder, I was instantly biased against Noein purely on the aesthetics level. Now, I don’t care how art-fag you think this show is, the fact remains that I have seen better animation being excreted from my asshole than what’s contained in this show. Call me whatever nasty names you can think of, but if a show looks like the art direction was done by an 8 year old, I’m going to have a hard time watching it. Also, what the fuck is with that first episode? It goes out of its way to make no goddamn sense whatsoever, yet offers no incentive to put up with the show to learn more about it.

Claymore.. well. Again, I’ve seen the first three episodes of it, and it felt very formulaic to me. I’ve been told this isn’t the case, but I also have a natural bias against fantasy based stuff. I dunno.. I guess I’m more at home with sci-fi than Conan the Barbarian. I’m willing to accept that my ingrained biases and initial thoughts on this series could be wrong, and yes.. I will watch and review it in time, and post verbatim on this here very site. During the ongoing discussion, I threw the notion of Denno Coil up into the air, because at that time, I had just finished.. er.. “acquiring” it, and I’ve been told before that it’s a must-see show. However, I had my doubts because the source of this recommendation also came from the same place that insists I watch an anime series about flying snail shells, powered by lesbian kisses (not naming any names, of course).

But, that said.. when I read a quick synopsis on Dennou Coil, it sounded interesting enough to check out, so I started watching it after the first positive response - figuring I could at least marathon it over the course of the week, and do Claymore straight after - perhaps doing some kind of comparative review. It didn’t take long before coming to the realization that rushing this show, wouldn’t do it justice. In fact, if you’ve been watching my anime list, you’ll notice that it went from Good (7), to Great (9), to Masterpiece (10) over the course of last week, and finishing up on the weekend. You may also notice that in comparison to the amount of shows I have, only a relatively small number make it to that high.

Now.. unfortunately, this is NOT a proper review of Dennou Coil. I plan to do a review of episode 1, similar to the old Precure review.. but as intriguing as the first episode is, it didn’t hit me up as what I consider a Masterpiece at first. It took quite some time, and drew me in deeper and deeper until I ended up giving it that score. Furthermore, just to clarify what I consider a masterpiece to be: it does not mean I consider the show to be perfect in any way, shape or form. It’s the effect that the show has on me, that I rate. Evangelion is a classic example, because while I hate the show, the movie, and all the spinoff crap to death, even I cannot deny the profound impression that the show left on me. Hence, it is a masterpiece in my eyes, regardless of whether I like Rei or Asuka better.

So.. the point of this verbal diarrhoea? It’s to state that a). I chose Dennou Coil, b). I considered it to be a masterpiece, and c). I’ll be reviewing the first episode, but it really doesn’t underline how powerfully this show affected me. The added bonus of it, is that I also loved it to death and it really is a must watch show. In fact, fuck it. I’m calling it, right here and now. Dennou Coil was THE show of 2007, hands down. I’m even naming my next system “Isako”.

First episode review is forthcoming. I’ll finish it sometime this week, I swear!