Another random sampler piece found by using my careful selection criteria. Namely
if it's anime I'll watch it.

Synopsis

The show opens with two people coming into existence. One is a naked male with a
old-style portable television in place of his head, and is thus cunningly named Retro.
The one who has been applying concussive maintenance (eg hitting him until he works)
is a female with a large red spot over one eye, earning her the name Pandy. They don't
know who they are, remember how they got here, or even exactly where here is. However
since there are things they need, with clothes being the most pressing, they decide to
take them.. and it seems they still retain their mastery of violence and death, and a
casual attitude to random application of the same. However when they are caught, and
sent to the notorious \"dead leaves\" prison they find a place every bit as violent as
themselves... and which seems strangely familiar.

Review

A one paragraph synopsis. This is a subtle hint that the story isn't exactly that complex.
However in this case even one paragraph is perhaps being generous, this title really isn't
that interested in telling a story or developing characters. Instead it is primarily a
technical piece, exploring the possibilities of a particular style of animation. As such
its much more focused on style and movement... and large servings of animated violence which
allow the creators to experiment.

The particular style is a paradoxyical choice. This title basically explores the "arthouse"
animation style. I suspect that this style (and I make no claim to deep knowledge of
the genre) evolved in an environment where animation aimed at a mature audience was largely
non-existent. As such the work had to rely on a strong visual style, mature content and
ideally strong writing to make up for the limitations on budget and availability of skilled
animators. It's certainly influence by anime, and has become much more practical with the
advent of computer assistance. I would indicate Aeon Flux as a high quality example
of this type of animation, and have also seen a lot of much weaker examples at various
animation festivals.

So how to treat this title? The first thing is to observe that, by anime standards, the
animation is incredibly rough. The low frame detail, extremely low frame count and brutal
editing feels somewhat like a flash animation... or perhaps an intentional attempt to trigger
eplileptic seizures in the susceptible. It is extremely jarring, using an immense number of
visual tricks to add energy, and incidentally cover up its technical limitations. The character
design is likewise simplistic, exaggerated and the vast majority of the characters are meaningless
and disposable. Taken as a total package it doesn't even particularly feel like anime. The
style is international, and thus neutral, and the presentation owes as much to the arthouse
anime mentioned earlier as it does to the Japanese anime style. Even the content, which is
as rough as the animation, feels like a lot of the fringe animations I have seen which are
so desperate to make an impression that they explore the boundaries of bad taste.

It is possible to assume that the energy, roughness and irreverent content of international
arthouse animation might be quite an exciting new experience for a Japanese audience. After
all, to that audience anime is the stable and familiar foundation. However for an anime fan
outside Japan it is anime that is exotic and interesting, and thus breaking the traditions
of the media is not nearly as exciting. Put in even simpler terms this title left me feeling
pretty unimpressed. It certainly is energetic, reasonably watchable once you adjust to the
rather horrible animation, but not particularly interesting. The plot is largely pointless,
the characters other than the two mains just a shifting mass of freakish monstrosities and
the action is hampered by the technical limitations they've chosen to adopt. If this was by
a small start-up studio in England, I'd be pretty impressed, but coming from Production I.G.
I'm not... especially when it is being sold as a full price DVD release.

Production

This is the focus of the show, the production style, but I can't find it in myself to be that
interested. The character artwork is basic, jarring angular lines, primitive curves and flat
color. And this is for the mains, the lesser characters are just a menagerie of doodles whose
primary purpose is as cannon fodder. Shadows are deep and motion is agressively overacted and
extremely jumpy from frame to frame, as well as having heavy re-use. I assume they had a lot
of fun planning it out, and some of that energy comes through in the action, but ultimately it
is shallow, pretty ugly and unrewarding. Even the complexity of the action scenes fades fairly
quickly. The initial fight during the chase with the faceless police drones is probably the
strongest in the series, while some of the later ones are just flashy and silly. The voice
acting is extremely agressive as well, which
does fit the style but also grates after a while. The actress doing Pandy was allowed to be a
little bit more laid back in her delivery which made a big difference in giving the character
some depth. The music is very much in the background, which is somewhat surprising, and doesn't
really vary much to match the scene. It's basically just a beat in the background.

Other Reviews

• There's a
  review from Mike Toole at Anime Jump! who is perhaps over qualified to find the good in this
  show. He tends to favor shows with high energy and rich style, and he admires these things in
  this show. I differ in that I didn't like the art style, even looking at the capture on his page
  repulse me, which left only the wafer thin content (3.5/5).