Arve Rezzle: Kikaijikake no Yousei-tachi

Young Animator Training Project/Anime Mirai short reviews: Part 9/12

The previous Young Animator Training Projects have had a very family friendly sort of tone with well told stories and universal themes. Arve Rezzle then comes along and says "fuck that, let's do some light novel bullshit about a teenager who wants to bang his sister!" and we get this mess.

OK there's a little more to it than that. It's a sci-fi story based around this social network which you upload your mind to, except one day suddenly everyone's minds get temporarily separated from their bodies and they lose all their memories. The idea here is that ... you don't know whether the body you've returned to is actually yours, which is a fascinating concept. Unfortunately in Arve Rezzle it is just that. A concept. I gather this was supposed to originally be a much longer TV series or OVA. Instead we get this hacked together story that barely has any characterisation, hasn't got enough time to explain its technobabble, introduces villains whose motives are seemingly non-existent, and ends by solving absolutely nothing about the central focus of the story.

Then there's it's very light novel approach to characterisation, in that the male character has no personality beyond wanting to bone his sister, and the female character's first appearance is totally naked. The camera has some serious male gaze going on, looking up her skirt and around her tits, to the point you can practically hear the heavy mouth-breather behind the camera muttering "yes imouto-chan, just lift that *huurrrrrrr* skirt a little bit *hhuuurrrrrrr* higher please". The animation is also kinda bad, which is surprising considering the incredibly high quality all the other YATP had. It's just all round a poorly thought out, poorly put together package that has no right existing in this form.

Verdict: Skip

Twenty minutes of my life I won't get back.

I'll give this anime credit where it deserves it. The initial story concept is decent. Also the art, and voice acting were alright. Besides that it was terrible. The characters are boring. The most fleshed out characters only defined personality trait is that he wants to sleep with his sister. The stories premise raises way to many questions for a one episode release, and answers none of them. Even if this were a complete series I would have dropped it here because the characters didn't hold my interest, and the plot was a complete mystery.

Arve Rezzle: Kikaijikake no Yoseitachi is set in the near future of 2022, technology has advanced enough so that a perfect rendering of yourself can be projected onto a computer screen without the opposition knowing that you're not really there (for quite some time too!). That's some kind of technology!

This story is based around two siblings, Remu and Shiki Mikage. They have a close/distant relationship, because Shiki is apart of a project/game/experiment at her academy OMFC, where you place yourself into a device called a "Body Pool" and you do not have to eat, drink, sleep, or go potty. She says she can study all ... she wants.
But, there have been a lot of problems with these devices (Also something else called NSC or something like that They don't really explain it), as something called the "Early Rapture" occurs, where 53,635 (Apx) people suffered severe brain damage using the machine, and at least 200,000 people have died from it.
Anymore would be spoilers, and I have already given away a good portion of this production.

This is obviously a story where not enough information is given for it to end right here, it is set up so that either a light novel (it apparently is already a light novel), manga, or anime adaptation can be made.

The animation, despite it being a little on the average side, is quite unique with its comic book look, and some imagery can be quite pretty. But the futuristic setting it generic, and I must say, if you don't like the color blue, you'll hate this show. Everything is blue.
The voice acting by the prevalent popular cast is what you would expect, very good. If anything the script is what holds back their talent.
The music is good throughout, nothing special, or too generic. The ending theme is good, quite catchy, and sung very well by the ever so popular Eri Kitamura.

There are quite a few fight scenes in this short, and I personally would have liked it more if it was more about the Body Pools, and how the corporations would have to deal with this. Like an episode of Ghost in the Shell: SAC.

Arve Rezzle: Kikaijikake no Yoseitachi does have fan service, which is kind of unexpected. Some of it was unavoidable (being naked in a body pool), but they could have left a lot of it out (Like Shiki changing her clothes), or chosen much more suitable camera angles (Lots of under shots, and oppai shots.)

The characters are not very relatable. Remu and Shiki have kind of an Incestuous relationship (or at least want to have one), and it is very obvious from the get go that Remu has a sister complex. They're okay characters for the time allotted. But it can get cheesy at times, especially when the scenes are "Dramatic".

There are two big problems with this series.
One is not that there are too many questions left unanswered (That's a given with just 20 minutes to tell a story), but that the questions are too hard to answer if they extend the story without plot holes, or some really clever writing. You will know if/when you('ve) see(n) it. I tried to think of ways where they could solve their "Issues" without it being a major problem, but they already have plot holes from the beginning of this series.
And two is that even if they did extend this Arve Rezzle: Kikaijikake no Yoseitachi , I would not see it. The story just felt a little too cheesy to me. I understand that it's hard to make shows up to the standards of GITS: SAC, but they could have taken out the cheesy romance, and replaced it with a more intellectual narrative.

I give this a 5 mainly for the fact that it did not succeed in having me want more. I do not care how this world that they created turns out.
There are too many answers that need to be answered that I can only believe will leave plot holes. As many know, Xebecs is not known for summing up stories without plot holes.
It is an interesting watch that only gets boring when they focus too much on fighting the enemy for confessing their "Feelings", and cheesy feelings at that.

Keep pursuing your dreams! ~ Wynn

Arve Rezzle is as short anime OVA that is part of the 2013 Young Animator Project. Young Animator Project is an annual project, which started from 2010, that aims to develop young Japanese animators so as to avoid outsourcing from other countries. Arve Rezzle is set in 2022, in a futuristic and dystopian city of Okinotorishima Mega-Float City (OMFC for short) Our protagonist is a young male named Remu. Remu has a little sister named Shiki who lives and studies in an academy in OMFC.
One day while both siblings were web chatting, Shiki revealed a shocking secret. Shiki revealed that what Remu sees in the ... screen is not the real Shiki, nor the voice he hears is just produced by a program. Shiki then proceeded to show herself in a plant like state, enclosed by a semi-liquid stuff called a body pool. She explains that the Body pool is an Academy project where people who uses it, don't need to eat, drink, sleep or even use the toilet. People who use body pool, with the help of nerual linked nanomachines, are able to connect to an online network (w/c explains how she can skype with her brother.) Now a major indicent called Early Rupture occured, where thousands of users of the body pools sustain brain damage. This is where Remu decides to go to OMFC and get her sister back.

The Plot is pure Sci-fi, it has great setting and mood. Only problem with the plot is it has many gaps and it kinda force feeds lots of things to the viewer (it is mainly due to the lack of time, only 20 mins for this OVA) The art is beautiful in its own right but the animations aren't that fluid and are almost always still (what you'd expect from a low budget anime.) Overall, as a project from young animators, it was pretty okay but if you judge it as a normal anime it still lacks a lot of things.


My Personal Rating: 6/10

Arve Rezzle: Kikaijikake no Yousei-tachi was one of the four films of Anime Mirai 2013 (Young Animator Training Project), a project funded by the Japanese government's Agency of Cultural Affairs in order to support training animators. the same program that initiated the masterpiece that we've come to love, “Death parade”, this,this has a great potential on itself, it's really astonishing how can small teams pull off some good story material on this much occasions, now let's have a seat, and dissect the different aspects that might turn this short animation into a great series.

- Story (7.5/10):
I've been for the most part amazed by the great ... big shows, that tend to span for more than a hundred episodes, and throughout my anime binging experience, I've come to stumble across a lot of flawed shows, that happen to not deliver, or fully express an idea, the stories tend to be full of holes, and for the most part, incomplete. the case with the animation was greatly the opposite, for 24 minutes long short, that really managed to tell a lot, the only complaint I have is that I want more.
The story is set in a near future, and yes, this is a sci-fi show, and yes, it comes with a great deal of crazy confusing technologies, just imagine the ability to transfer people's mind into cyberspace, now, be honest, saying that out loud would totally boost your ego into thinking of yourself as some sort of prodigy genius who knows their way into science.
You have your typical close boy and girl sibling, with Rema being the oldest, talking to his sister from a Skype-like program on a daily basis, checking on her time to time, until one day, she confessed to him of something that changed the course of his life, and probably the whole world. It slowly starts luring the viewer's mind until it drops a bomb of astonishment on them, now, I've watched a tremendous amount of fiction, and I never ever had the chance to see something as cool as a person awakening into somebody else's body executing this well. that was me trying to summarise the initiative plot without having to reveal too much if you're the sci-fi guy, that might have teased you a bit int checking this one up.

- Art (7/10):
I'm going to come straight and say it, the art looks kind of weird, but, hey, weird in an interesting way?! perhaps it was just my first experience with the type of art that led me to set a score this average for this pick, but it's worth noting that it's not by any means bad, it's something you can get used to, not the realistic way, of course, the artists went for a kind of artistic approach, the way they modeled the character's anatomy, the sluggish movements, and all, but I got to admit, they nailed the CG part, freaking killed it, man!

- Sound (7/10):
I might be the one to say this, the audio part is not the strongest aspect of this animation, the voice acting was great and all, but aside from that, everything was just, you know, meh-like, I have no complaint of course, but at the same time, it's nothing that caught my ears that much.

- Characters (8/10):
For such a short story, and a very narrow veriety of characters, it does take a delicious peice of story out of the remains, I don't have any problems without characters, usually you'd have a braty or very immature protagonists, but in this one, you really feel the realistic side of them, you feel the lived sould inside of them, there is a fear of death and defeat, the relashionships between the personnels are also interesting, I never seen a more awkward sibling since the last time I watched “No game no life”, and this pair really nailed it.

- Enjoyment (8/10)
I've watched a lot of amazing shows lately, and that left me with a great fear of ever starting a new show, and then realizing it never stood up to my top X picks, but I've come to understand that what makes a masterpiece into one, is the fact that it stands up, and the fact that it's rare and hard to match, now I did enjoy this movie, in fact, it only made me watch to ask for more, now, if this were to be made into an official series, I'd blindely dive in, the world seemes very interesting to explore, and the lore is just too crazy that I started to get some “No game no life” flash backs trying to relate the two with one another, you gte introduced to a lot of consepts and terms like “The U.S military standard tactical mobile anti-personnel machines, Wardogs”, yes, that's how serious and complicated it gets.
this was just an amazing half an hour, if only there were some more well-composed stories out there.

- Overall (7.5/10):
I'm really left disappointed about the fact that this is a standalone animation, with no confirmed sequels or anything to fill the whole of confusion that was left into me after finishing watching this show, would I recommend it? definitely, a quick refresher of how amazing sci-fi anime shows can get, just get some popcorn, and before you know it, the 24 minutes long,g movie would be long gone, the popcorn bowl would have been long stolen away by a sibling of yours while you were left questioning your life after being so invested into a story that could have been much greater if there was a completion to it.