Fractale

As an anime fan, I personally love finding shows that take me completely by surprise. Sure big hype shows are great too, but there’s something about finding an anime with little to no hype that turns out to be amazing that really strikes a cord with me. I wasn’t expecting much from Fractale, but what I found was what is sure to be one of the best animes of the decade and an easy contender for anime of the year.

Fractale is the story of an island governed by the Fractale system, a computer super-program that is worshipped as a religion by the people. ... Our main character is Clain, a boy who collects what he antiques (even though they’re things like Ipods and laptops) who meets a girl named Phryne. Phryne has a mysterious connection with the Fractale system and gives Clain a doppel (essentially a holographic representative of a real person) child named Nessa. Eventually Clain and crew meet a group of so-called revolutionaries called the Lost Millenium trying to bring down the Fractale system for good. So is our story for this anime, and while it may seem simple, it is anything but.

What makes Fractale so fantastic is just how brilliantly it is written every step of the way. Clain, Nessa, and Phryne are three of the best written and believable anime characters I have seen recently who all act believably to every situation (no over-the-top anime reactions here). In addition, the cast involved with Lost Milennium are also really well defined and avoid the usual noble rebel tropes in really interesting ways. At points, the group acts more like guerilla terrorists than noble rebels. Even though they are supposed to take down the Fractale system which they claim robs people of their humanity, are they any better by resorting to extreme tactics? Though it is true that the Fractale system takes away people’s ability to be “human”, this aspect of the plot makes it much more interesting and thought provoking than it otherwise would have been.

Another striking feature about the plot is the themes the show tackles. While the more apparent themes of nature vs. technology are present, there are also hints of thematic elements dealing with the nature of organized religion. The Fractale officials act as a theocracy even though the religion they promote doesn’t actually cause violence to others. The themes of organized religion vs. free will in combination with nature vs. technology are a unique combination and the fact that it’s the people running both sides that aren’t innocent and not the ideas they represent make the conflict much more interesting to think about. This leads to a conclusion that smartly addresses this dichotomy and represents some of the most well thought out and three dimensional writing you will find for anime this season.

In addition to the fantastically written story line, the art in Fractale is in a word beautiful. It’s very similar to a Hayao Miyazaki film asthetically with bright water color visuals and great character designs. The entire show is just a joy to watch every second and really makes you appreciate how beautifully realized the entire production is. On top of this, the music is fantastic with great orchestral scores that hit all the right notes, whether it’s the more action-orientated sequences or the quiet moments where the characters enjoy each other’s company.

This show just works on every single level. The story is one of the best written animes in recent memory despite doing away with many fantasy anime tropes. This, in addition with the fantastic characterization, art, and music all come together to make one of the best animes of the year. Seriously, I cannot praise this anime enough, but I can’t because I don’t want to spoil anything for people. Simply put, Fractale is one of the best animes you will see this year and you are doing yourself and the anime community a huge disservice by not watching it.

I give Fractale, an A+.

I'm gonna come out and say that Fractale isn't that bad... and all the hate people have for it is kinda unjustified. The problem is that the show didn't manage to become the kind of masterpiece Yamakan wanted it to be, and that failed promise put the show in a very negative light. At least he's a man of his word, and "retired for the time being". It's a pity if he actually goes away for good because I still think he's still someone with plenty of talent, and even some of that does show in the flop that is Fractale.

I've said this on more ... than one occasion, that I'd like to compare this series with Last Exile or Allison to Lillia, because I strongly feel that that is Yamakan's vision for Fractale. It isn't so much about the story, but it's about the fabulous combo of pre-industrial age technology meets young man's (or girl's) adventure. Series like these usually focus a lot more of the setting of the story, like the common people's way of life, community relationships, the environment, the history than most other shows do. This is probably Yamakan's take on the cincept, with a little furturistic element to it. And I really like that. Fractale shows the fun in a frugal and simple way of living, clean and honest community life, its conflict with furturistic technology, and a young man's adventure in his role and approach towards this conflict.

Whereas the show fails hard on its execution and characters. First of all, there is too little revealed about the Fractale system itself, and we the audience are left with too many questions about practically everything that is going on. That won't be a problem if the characters are interesting enough to drive the show along, but they aren't. Clain is constantly being led by the nose by everyone around him, and his actions are always a result of how the story drives him, when it should be the other way around. Phyrne and Nessa are as mysterious as the Fractale system itself, and everyone else is there just to fill up the screen time. In the ending, there's wasn't a resolution or anything. It feels like it all happened as a matter of course. I'll keep this spoiler-free, but it's a happy, but really dumb ending.

Another thing that's sorely missing from Fractale is satisfying animation, which is something I'm expecting to see from an anime using this concept. I'm totally expecting spectacular backgrounds, detailed characters or equipment, or at least smooth animating, but Fractale delivered none. I can't explain how disappointed I was.

So in all, Fractale is okay. If you understand and love the concept of animes I was talking about, you'll enjoy Fractale to a certain extent. Otherwise, it probably isn't something for you.

Plot/Concept: Great
Story Style: Miserable
Audio/Visual: Fair
Value: 6

*Edit* There are spoilers in this review. I was under the impressions that spoilers required a plot that was coherent enough to spoil, but after some complaints I decided to put in this warning*

Before Fractale aired, the dir­ector Yamakan declared that moe was the can­cer that was killing the anime industry and that he would cre­ate a show that stepped out­side that and appeal to a wider audi­ence (not quite in those words, but that was the gen­eral gist of his ram­blings). He even man­aged to get him­self a slot in the fam­ous Noit­am­ina timeslot, a place ded­ic­ated to host­ing anime that don’t suck, for ... his upcom­ing per­sonal ori­ginal anime pro­duc­tion Fractale. This is all pretty ironic to look back on, because Fractale proved to be:

1. Moe
2. Bear­ing a whole lot of other stand­ard anime tropes
3. Shit

Fractale sets itself out as a sci-fi show set in a post-scarcity world where nobody inter­acts with each other because they can cre­ate dop­pels to do that for them. There­fore every­one lives in com­plete lux­ury in whatever set­ting with whatever types of people they choose to live with. It’s an inter­est­ing set­ting and one that Fractale occa­sion­ally explores but never attacks, almost as if they brought up that plot point by acci­dent and it has noth­ing to do with the overly­ing theme of the anime. Occa­sion­ally the show will come across a char­ac­ter who uses the Fractale sys­tem in cer­tain ways that seem like a fas­cin­at­ing explor­a­tion of that character’s psyche, but then aban­dons said char­ac­ter pretty quickly.

One of the points brought up early on by the Fractale sys­tem is that people liv­ing in it don’t exper­i­ence proper human con­tact. The whole point of the first epis­ode is show­ing the main char­ac­ter, Clain, and his baffle­ment and embar­rass­ment with meet­ing a real live in the flesh human girl, who pro­ceeds to strip in front of him. You would think this would there­fore be a run­ning theme through­out the show, but that was ignored pretty quickly. The closest it got was hav­ing another female char­ac­ter call Clain a per­vert in about 5 times per epis­ode. I’m guess­ing the show thought it was being funny by say­ing this? I dunno, it’s not like Clain was doing any­thing per­ver­ted any­way, was that the joke?

It did try to cover basic human inter­ac­tions as part of the plot, but this was even more laugh­ably tackled. Over the course of the show, Clain sees these people he has joined up with, the Lost Mil­len­nium group, who are against the Fractale sys­tem, mow down old gran­nies. It offered the viewer two sides of the story, the Fractale Sys­tem and the Lost Mil­len­nium group that opposed it. But that one good scene was instantly deval­ued by ignor­ing it from there on in and intro­du­cing another eviler group of the Lost Mil­len­nium, mak­ing the mas­sacre of gran­nies from the group Clain were with seem like a totally cool thing in com­par­ison. This comes to a head towards the end where Clain joins in the granny gen­o­cide cam­paign, telling the Good Lost Mil­len­nium group that it’s OK that you kill people because you’re my friends!

That’s just the themes seem to appear more often, but other parts of the plot make far less sense. The plot fin­ishes up on a rev­el­a­tion that God is not 16 years old, but actu­ally 10 and there­fore pure. What this had to do with any­thing I have no idea, but Fractale seemed to like telling us this in a very dra­matic fash­ion. The Fractale Sys­tem bad guys were equally baff­ling, also obsessed with pur­ity for whatever reason and gen­er­ally being a deranged bunch of lun­at­ics who filled their armies with sui­cidal gran­nies. For a show that seemed to be present­ing both sides of the argu­ments, surely you shouldn’t have the Fractale guys be such a bunch of lun­at­ics who like lick­ing the face of our brave heroine?

Now this could all be fine in another series. You can be silly but still have a lot of fun. First off, Fractale isn’t fun, unless 10 ref­er­ences to Clain being a per­vert per epis­ode is your idea of a good time. But mainly, Fractale pre­tends it’s deep. It’s all about Themes and Issues and is Like Totally Ser­i­ous. But it brings up these points with no idea what it’s doing with them. It’s like it has taken ideas and scenes from other anime it’s seen, real­ised that these scenes make this anime great and stuck them into Fractale without real­ising why these scenes make that other anime great. You can have psychotic vil­lains who lick their pure heroines, but not in a show where your also try­ing to present a bal­anced view of those sides of the conflict.

The reason I hate Fractale is because it offends the story-telling lover part of me. This is not some­thing that is appar­ent in the early epis­odes. This is some­thing that only rears its true ugly head in the later epis­odes where it tries to bring its plot to some sort of non­sensical con­clu­sion. It has taken a lot of dif­fer­ent plot points but has never con­sidered how they tie in together. It’s thrown out scene with Deep Mean­ing without real­ising that the mean­ing that scene pro­trays has noth­ing to do with whatever pre­vi­ous scenes the show has had, or even con­tra­dicts pre­vi­ous plot points. I’m guess­ing the Fractale Pro­duc­tion Com­mit­tee meet­ing went some­thing like this.

— OK guys, this anime Fractale is going to be so awe­some! It will have a girl who you can only touch if you like her. That means Love is import­ant and stuff

–And his par­ents will be a water cooler and a pink lampshade

–And then the rest of the team will betray him, but he was actu­ally work­ing for the priest­ess all along

–The big-breasted girl will actu­ally be an old man

–But then it will turn out it was his dad all along

–She was talk­ing to the Cart Driver, who turns out was actu­ally the main character!

Yamakan: –Great Ideas! We’ll put them all in!