Monday, December 24, 2012

Anime Review: Kyousogiga ONA Series

Last December a one-shot OVA came out from Toei which was sorta-kinda a Buddhist themed Alice in Wonderland story, ish, which I really enjoyed and wanted more of. So I was happy when a series was announced and then saddened when I learned it was going to just be five OVAs from August to December. There's also a manga adaptation out there it turns out which also helps fill in the gaps between when Koto came to mirror Kyoto (which was the end of the first episode here, from now on episodes here will be referred to as  season two) and the original OVA, none of the materials is recycled in the second season or the OVA so fans of those should check that out as well.


Kyousogiga



Summary: Less a sequel to the OVA and more an all over the place prequel, season two focuses on fleshing out the major players from the OVA and talking more about the strangeness of Mirror Kyoto.

The Good: There were a lot of questions I had after the original OVA (not that it was bad, just that it deliberately left a lot untold) and this season answered quite a few of them and some other questions I hadn't even thought to ask. Most of it was character related, although it did help flesh out just how odd Mirror Kyoto is as well and I enjoyed it. I didn't think that any of the episodes were wasted, although I would've chosen to focus on different thing for a few of them, and it showed that the OVA wasn't just a one-off thing, the writer(s?) really do have some interesting ideas and I'd like to see more of it. 

The Bad: Ack, so short! I think the longest episode was only 12 minutes and I'm really sad that this idea hasn't been given a full series which details the story from start (wherever they think it should start, technically this series went back to the very beginning) to some sort of end beyond where the OVA did. All of this world and character building is quite nice, don't get me wrong, but there seemed to be a few rumblings of an underlying plot and I'd love to see what it really is. So, financial backers, get on this please, I want more!

The Audio: There were only two new characters with large speaking roles so there wasn't much change from the OVA. Everyone still sounds just fine, all of the characters have a wider range of emotions than you'd expect out of a short series and all of the actors did a fine job at making the characters sound like themselves no matter what was going on . 

The Visuals: I only found some low-quality streams to watch so I don't know if the show looked quite as nice as the OVA did, it did seem a bit less detailed but the OVA was extraordinarily detailed so that's no surprise and not a failing either. Everything still felt as creative as the OVA however so I'm satisfied regardless, I can live with a less detailed series as long as it feels like the team put just as much effort into it quite happily.

I'm not sure I can even rate this series given how short it was, hopefully it will suffice to say that yes I liked it and if you have a few spare hours to check out the original OVA and this season, it'll take less than three hours and it'll be a fun three hours. And, if you have the time, give the manga a look as well (as I mentioned earlier, none of the mediums repeat any of the stories so it's all new and the manga also really helped flesh things out for me, now if only they would put all of this together into one, cohesive story).