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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Rent | 9 | 5 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 8 | Devil Doll | # |
[Score: 76% = Rent. Recommended Supernatural Conflict animes: Silent Mobius, Kannazuki no Miko]
The opening episodes provide the two obvious layers of this story: A rock band suddenly becoming popular, and magical girls flying around and fighting. This scenario feels silly at times and made it difficult for me to take anything serious. Look at the keywords to understand what a strange mix of elements are involved here! And that's how the story continues: More entertainment business (music, movie, models), more fan-girls who are actually supernatural beings battling with each other. The story's remains focused on this (post) high school romance between Kyouta and Yoriko in the least probable of all environments. Lots of clichés, lots of non-human beings around (is there anybody actually who you think they are?), and lots of foreshadowing - but as the series proceeds things start making more sense (episode 8 was a big step forward in transparency). Not every question is answered in the end, but like in other good shows the makers were able to let those open questions appear less important in the end than those that were answered. I like the character visualization, and I like the way they use different music styles (Everlasting Love, Irritation Silence, Prism) for different characters (most notably for Kyouta's singing - his voice actor is best when Kyouta sings the worst due to his character's emotional crisis). On the other hand, the sub-par animation of characters moving & walking annoyed me over and over again. Hey, it's 2002 already, folks! This was even more disappointing as the air battles were animated much better. What really kept me watching were the lead characters and my wish to see how they solved their respective problems - as the trailer made a happy ending inevitable. And with time, a number of the side characters became more transparent and thus more interesting as well. Basically we still have some Sailor Moon meets Ai Yori Aoshi here... (well, yes, this is a harem scenario in some way...) with a dose of Escaflowne symbolism - and an increasing portion of Silent Mobius fate during the last episodes. Therefore my final rating turns out to be a lot more positive than I expected half-way through this show. While this isn't one of the deep, meaningful philosophic shows (although it might possibly even attempt to be one...), in the end I consider this series entertaining and interesting so that I'll rewatch it soon: Not quite enough for my top ten, but not bad either. Perhaps I'll even upgrade my rating after the second pass - I still have to learn all those names, and the meaning of those colors... Last updated Friday, June 06 2008. Created Sunday, October 31 2004. | ||||||||
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