Ranked #2921

Shadow Star Narutaru

If you were eleven years old, had a dopey-looking pet dragon that can fly and you get to carry it around as a cute backpack, you'd have the time of your life looking for cool adventures, right?

Tamai Shiina ends up getting a supernatural "doll" of sorts--a star shaped dragonet that she can ride like a surfboard in the skies. Seems like a nice little set up for a fun kiddy anime, correct?

Do not be fooled.

Shadow Star Narutaru does itself a grand injustice by having one of the most misguiding first episodes in anime history. What you will immediately brush off as a silly, generic children's anime about pet monsters eventually turns into an anime with episodes that get progressively darker and more disturbing than the last. The plotting leaves a rather "pleasant" surprise for the viewers that stick around.

Pleasant, perhaps, is an ironic term.

The anime sinks further and further into deeply unsettling territory as it goes on. Eventually, you're left wondering what exactly happened to the carefree inanity of Shiina's life that was set up in episode one. And we learn what happens to the happy fantasy of finding a magical, mythical creature: it turns into a living nightmare for this young girl.

This anime's story seems to be about a group of shady youth trying to recruit Shiina and her friend Akira into their ranks, as they have some rebellious plans of overthrowing the military. The world has been unfair to them. Mean. Cruel. So they want to change it, and they need to start by getting rid of those with any power to get in their way. Despite all of this, the anime spends so much time skirting around the actual issue that the story soon appears to be about the deterioration of the characters on psychological levels instead of the lofty anarchical tale depicted in the first couple of episodes.

What this anime suffers from is having less than perfect direction and handling of its story. One of the biggest flaws is that it abandons what you have accepted as the storyline and sets about in a different direction. The episodic nature of the anime is changed, and the series concludes with an arc. The result of this shift is that it makes many of the characters and situations in the previous episodes seem forgotten by the end of the anime's run.

Many things are left unanswered, though in some ways, it works out for the best. Mostly it does not, and this is the anime's greatest failing. What is the purpose of those endowed with dragonets? What about the mysterious dragons and their no-longer human owners? How do the dragonets get their power? Are they going extinct? Multiplying? Do they pick their owners or are they manifestations of someone's deepest desires?

The technical aspects of Shadow Star Narutaru are a mixed bag. On the one hand, you have an amazing score, and on the other, you have pretty average artwork. The art for the series is definitely not good. The character designs are flat and generic, and some characters even look so closely alike that it would not be surprising to confuse one for the other. The animation is less than spectacular, and the colours are pretty dull. There are some hit or miss designs for the dragonets and dragons. Hoshimaru and Ain Soph look extremely dopey, while some of the other creatures look cool, beautiful or downright terrifying. It looks like a kid's show, but Shadow Star Narutaru is not a children's anime at all.

In fact, the happy OP theme seems to mock the rest of the anime and the audience; instead of enjoying the cheery folksiness of the song, you're just left sitting there wondering what unpleasantness awaits you later in the episode. It makes you let your guard down and then hits you hard. The cleverly chosen theme song completely throws you off-track when it comes to the themes of this anime. The general music for the anime is chilling at moments, and it really creates a tense, suspenseful mood throughout the scenes.

Groups of characters are introduced and contribute to the anime in different ways; some are significant while some have no effect whatsoever on the happenings of the story. There is the group consisting of Shiina, Akira and Hiroko; Sudo and his group make up the antagonists for the series; and Takeo and Norio who seem largely indifferent but are always aware of the happenings of the anime.

Shiina is a self-confident, brave, reckless and selfless girl though curiously, this is presented as a detrimental aspect of her personality as she is faced by many dilemmas that cause her to question and challenge her morality. The supporting characters are given just as much attention as the main character, notably Akira and in later episodes, Hiroko. Akira is a depressed introvert with a loose grasp on her personal stability. She is older than Shiina, and feels the pressure of growing up much more than her counterpart. Hiroko is a quietly ambitious doormat who tries to stay out of the limelight and yet is the centre of attention for hateful or scrutinising eyes.

The side and background characters have quite disturbing characterisations. Something you'd never expect to see of children and teenagers. Lecherousness, apathy, cruelty, and viciousness smear many of their personalities. However, the emotional, physical and mental bashing most of them go through will just have you open-jawed, looking on with helplessness at the terrible things happening. Each main character goes through a series of provocations and manipulations that test their strength. Some, like Shiina, still struggle to keep that grasp on themselves. Sadly, most of them are weak, succumbing to abuse and pressure.

The dragonets and dragons have no personality, and seem to exist mostly as props and tools save for one or two of them. However, Hoshimaru's unnervingly placid expressions, goofy facial features and controlled mobility makes it probably the most disturbing of the dragonets as you never know when to expect a moment of disobedience from it. Needless to say, when Hoshimaru acts on its own accord, you'd be left wondering if it's a good companion for Shiina or a cursed wretch of a creature.

The anime explores themes of intense peer pressure, parental, filial and marital bullying, awkward platonic and romantic relationships, questions of bad versus good parenting, the burdens of leadership and responsibility, self-loathing, self-esteem, the thin line between sanity and insanity, suicide, murder, misguided righteousness, and the uses of violence. There are controversial topics depicted, from sexual scenes that will leave you feeling uncomfortable to rape scenes that will leave you feeling utterly horrified and murder scenes that will leave you wondering what has become of humanity.

This is not a happy anime. The characters endure so many emotional break downs that it almost becomes utterly depressing to get through another episode, though it is darkly fascinating to see all the social and supernatural horrors explored. And the beginning is not as good as the end; it is sad that the first few episodes might turn viewers off the rest of the series. The powerful concluding episodes are however worth the wait.

Shadow Star Narutaru surprisingly handles a coming-of-age story with heavy supernatural and psychological elements. The retribution that comes for each character is cruel. There is no celebration for the "justice" that is eventually met. As seen through Shiina's eyes, there is no pleasure when someone gets their black and white comeuppance. That is something we are forced to understand as we grow older. The bad guys are not all necessarily bad, and the good guys are not always as good as we think they might be.

The childhood years are a memorable and sometimes painful period in a person's life. However, if one thing's for certain, it's that we can never escape just how important that time is in shaping who we are as people. It is at that time, when we leave childhood and enter adolescence and adulthood that we no longer can excuse ourselves. Innocence ends then. read more

(this review may have some slight spoilers. I apologize)

Now here is an anime, that decieved the masses completely. The opening, and the entire first episode, leads one to believe this is a childish anime. It gives off a little "pokemon" or "hamataro" feel to it, and apears that there is little here that will apeal to older veiwers. BUT, this anime is nothing like that. It turns into the most distrubing, scary, dark, insane, and twisted anime series ever made! This anime should NEVER be watched by children, and only mature veiwers, ready for some freaky stuff should watch it. Don't look for a happy go lucky series, this show is very depressing at times. The anime makes a change at the end of episode 2, and with each episode it gets darker and darker. The final few episodes will make the most insensitive people cringe. Horrible things happen in this anime, and they happen to kids 12, or 13 years old.

Plot/Story:

6/10

This anime is about a girl named Shiina Tamai, and her new-found "friend" Hoshimaru, an odd creature (known as a dragon child). The anime follows Shiina and her eventual encounters with other children who have also befriended these creatures. Some of these children have planned horrible uses for their dragon children.

This is a really great anime, but not without lots of faults. One of the major problems with it, is the plot. There apears to be little direction in this anime. The plot goes all over the place, and opens up multiple plot lines, that by the end of the anime, only one is "solved" or completed. In fact what apears to be the "main" plotline is not even closed. It feels very "thrown together" at times. Perhaps the inexperience of the director is to blame, or the low budget, or both. Perhaps the director was hopeing for a sequel, or thought the manga had too much going on to properly adapt... Whatever the reason the plot has major problems.

However, for what it is it's pretty interesting. The story starts off a little slow and childish, but picks up by the end of the 2nd episode and start of the 3rd. From then on, it's mad decent down the rabbit hole. This entire anime has you questioning "how far will they go", and by the last episode, you finally know the answer, although you might wish you didn't. For what it is, incomplete and badly directed , the plot is decent. It gets you very interested at what's going to happen, and has lots of surprises and plot twists. Sometimes it is a little hard to follow, but by the middle of the anime, it all starts to make some sense. It's still a good story, very brilliant, just the incomplete story and directing really brings it down.


Characters:

8/10

Just like NGE, almost all the characters seem to have something mentaly wrong with them. From sadistic freaks, to suicidal teens, to unfeeling mothers, to Khmer Rouge wannabees. This anime has a characetr for almost every mental disease on the book, and makes them all very interesting. It may seem a bit out of place, unrealstic, and forced, but it does work. Sure some more work may have been needed to develop the characters, but they do their best with the short amount of episodes. I have little if any problems with the characters, besides the fact it feels a little forced to have almost every character sick or crazy in one way or another. Shiina, the main character is remeicent of Shu, from Now and Then, Here and There . Her endless optimism, cheerfulness, in the face of danger, while dealing with horrible things, while not being the brightest lightbulb in the pack, makes me think of Shu all the more. And just like Shu, Shiina will have to grow up real fast, as some horrible things are about to happen to her and her friends. This is not a bad thing however, as she is still very much her own character, she never comes off as a copycat character. If anything she feels like the most "real" character in the anime, and you can't help to feel for her. Her father is another great character, and it's like you can almost touch the love they have for each other, it's just oozeing from them, and it feels so very real. Hoshimaru, the main dragon child, is a cute, yet some-how spooky little creature. The expression on it's face, while first silly, later comes off as more disturbing then anything else. Akira Sakura, a friend of Shiina(from fencing class), is a very timid and shy character. She is two years older then Shiina. The director described her as a very "inward" character and Shiina, as her foil, a very "outward" character(straight from the director's commentary on CPM's dvd box set). Akira has no other real friends besides Shiina, is sick (she passes out and throws up inexplicably), and is very depressed. Hiroko Kaizuka (often called "Hiro") is another of Shiina's friend (from her school, they are in the same class), who is very bright, yet is bullyed in school (unknown to Shiina of course). Her parents only want her to get better grades, no matter what, with her father especially putting a lot of pressure on her. Both of her parents seem unloving, and the only real friend Hiro has is Shiina. There are many other interesting characters in this anime, but I won't go into them all. I will say this though, that you get a really eerie feeling when you notice a character has just SNAPPED, gone out of their minds, and starts doing something insane and disturbing! A factor that probally inspired those who later created When They Cry(something that anime seems to focus more on, it's not however a main focus of Narutaru, althought it is there). In fact there are many things that link this anime to When They Cry...

Art:

4/10

This anime's biggest problem is it's art. While it shares many things with the much later anime When They Cry, amazing animation and art is not one of them. The art while passible, is just plane bad in this anime.I've seen worse, but even long running series can have better animation then this has. Sure the character designs are "ok" and the dragon-child designs are decent, but everything looks bad together. There are problems they wait all flows together, and it's noticable. I guess this helps with the illusion that this anime is for children in the first episode, but it really weakens the series as a whole. At times the characters legs even seem streched way out of proportion. While this anime screams low budget, I still think they could have done better. The opneing and closing animation look very nice so I will discuss them as well, sense there is not much to say about the animation of the episodes, besides that it is pretty bad. The Opening is very interestingly done, in a "child-like cute" manor, useing paper cut outs of the characters. The Ending is also nicely done, but done in the style of the anime, rather then the opening sequence.

Music:

10/10

If anything is perfect in this anime it is the music. The music is amazing in setting the mood. From a childish (yet later eerie) opening, to amazingly creepy background music, to a spooky yet some-how settling ending theme. I have not heard any other anime where Susumu Ueda has done the music, but I think he is a master at what he does. I hope that he is in charge of the music in anime in the future, becuase this was just great! Sure not everyone is going to acually like the music, no one ever does, but it sets the mood of the show, and feels a perfect fit to the series. While I don't think people are going to listen to the music from this anime, like they would from FLCL or Cowboy Bebop, the music is still perfect.

As far as the dub goes I didn't include that in with sound. I ranked music a 10/10, the dub would have brought that down a lot, and it's just not fair to include it in this review. I normally include dubs (since I am a dub fan after all), but for this I'll make an exception. The english dub was pretty bad overall, with a few spotty actors, and great actors giving their worst performances of recent memory. Although at times it really does sound good, but sadly not for the majority of the show. So I have to question jut what the hell happened? Shiina is a like it, or hate it kinda voice, althought the acting is decent, it won't win any awards. However I will say this, Kelly Ray (Yuri Otani in "Alien Nine") is perhaps the best person on the planet to play Shiina. So the casting of her had a lot of thought in it. However, half the time she seems like she is giving it her all, and other times it feels like she doesn't know where she is going with it. Shiina's father, played by Josh Mosby, is very well cast, and the actor does a great job when he gets a chance. Overall I find Mosby to give the best performance in this entire anime (which sadly doesn't mean much :( ) . I always felt Flora Stanberg was a little miscast as Hiroko Kanzuki personally. She does do a decent job some of the time, and a terrible job at other times. Which is a real shame as she seems to have a lot of talent, sad it's wasted like this. Renee Gloger however, was a perfect fit for Akira Sakura! Her voice really maches well with that character and I couldn't ever imagine another person playing her. And her acting is alright as well, at times. Other times the quality of her acting slips to pretty bad levles, like most of the actors in this dub. Renee Goldstein is very well cast as Satomi. She fits perfeclty. Her acting is very strong all the way through too. So it's even sadder that she almost is always too far away from the mic when recording her lines!!! And you can even hear background sounds when she speaks sometimes (Like really WTF background noise? I mean I hear her moving around in the booth! Your shouldn't hear such things in a dub!)!! The school bullies (shown in the last acrh) seemed to fit perfectly with the japanese actresses, despite what other critics have said. I found they did more then justice with all the scenes involving them (and they are very important). The side characters are sometimes alright, and other times outright terrible. It's not consinstent at all.

Personally I place the blame on the ADR directors Kip Kaplan (who did the terrible and unintentionally funny dub for "Garzey's Wing", so it's no wonder he is responsible for this train wreck) and Ross Lefko (who luckily enough for us has not directed [and ruined] anything else). I actually think the director wasn't really there for some recordings, as I can almost "hear" the actors directing themselves sometimes...

Another problem with the dub is many of the characters talk (as ANN calls it) in a Shatner-like way. (They...talk like...this...just to match the...lip......flaps...which...makes...me...very mad.) Really what the hell was up with that? Also so many times as I watched this I thought to myself "that line should have been re-recorded" or "That line somes awkward" or " WTF background noise??" or even "GET CLOSER TO THE MIC!!!". While there are moments of greatness, most is not impressive. The dub is really something that gives New York City a bad name for dubs overall.

And before anyone thinks I hate all dubs, I don't. I watch most shows dubbed, I like almost every dub I've ever seen, and I LOVE dubs with fresh voices in them. I am even a huge New York City dub fan, and love when a dub goes to that city, as I feel they really give us something LA and Texas fail to sometimes. Vancouver is also a favorite of mine, but like I said, I like almost ever dub I've ever seen. And I'm very sad to say this is one of the worst ones, on one of the best series too :( . I would have liked to see more work go into this dub, but I can still some-how watch this. As although there are a lot of problems, there are moments of sheer awe, that inspire me, and make me hopeful that this isn't a total bust. I'll watch it dubbed, but I won't like it.

Enjoyment:

10/10

I can't say I "enjoyed" it, in the same way I would enjoy a comedy or action anime. In fact many scenes make me wonder if the creaters should be alowed to roam the streets, rather then rotting in jail! It makes me feel like these people are insane, and could do real harm to others! I mean WHAT in the hell where they thinking?BUT I did LOVE this anime!! I loved it in the same way people like movies like Saw, Schindler's List, or The Silence of the Lambs. I loved this anime, in the way people like When They Cry, Now and Then Here and There, Kite, Ganzt, or Grave of the Fireflies. It's not like I enjoy seeing horrible things happen to people (many of them innocent, and/or children), or that I "enjoy" watching people get hurt, bullyed (well they call it bullying in the anime, I call it something far worse), or die in horrible ways, but I did like this anime. It's stunning, twisted, demented, and disturbing. But it's still amazing! It's also very interesting to note this anime adresses some issues (most involving children) that many people are afraid to address. It gets a little deep, but don't look for the emphases on it, like in NGE or Kino's Journey I won't spoil what exactly they are...

Final Vertic:

Some major problems with the plot (directing needed major work, many plot holes/plot lines left open, incomplete ending), and the animation is weak, this anime still exells at breaking the norms of anime, and blows you away. This anime pushed what was acceptable to put in an anime at it;s time. The anime is a clear inspiration for the anime/game When they Cry (and sequels), among many other anime. It has some very interesting and messed up characters, and amazing music. It has some real gruesome scenes, and at times will make you very uneasy. Kitoh (the original Mangaka) is know for taking innocent ideas and corrupting them to hell. In this anime he takes the idea of having a pokemon-like pet thing from something innocent and just cool, to something disturbing, terrible, and sickening, and much more realistic. I mean what would really happen if a bunch of children could get powerful creators? Not Pokemon thats for sure, probally something more like this. And after this series, Kitoh went on to write Bokurano, which disects the mecha genre, and corrupts that. I mean it must be really cool to pilot a giant robot and fight bad guys right? I mean that be really fun right? No! Kitoh writes what it would really be like. Just like how William Golding wrote "Lord of the FLies" to write a realistic story about what would really happen if children got stuck on an island in the middle of nowhere, Kitoh writes his mangas to show what would really happen if children got pokemon-like creators, or powerful mechas to pilot. And just like Golding he wrote his stories partly to criticize other works (and as a response to them. And FYI Golding wrote Lord of the Flies as a response to "The Coral Island").

Highly recommended, especially to When They Cry fans (and other fans of the "killer loli" genre ).






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