Narutaru: Mukuro Naru Hoshi Tama Taru Ko

(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 ).

I'm not sure that this anime is very "amazing." But it is very different. I really enjoyed it. after watching over 300 different anime; they all start to feel the same. I often feel like I can see the future when watching them. Its like when something happens I can tell what "world line" the story is progressing down and what options are still open for the ending. Its like, "well, I guess this anime is going down that route."

but this anime was very different, and disturbing, and I'm going to go read the manga for the rest of the story.

you can read the other ... reviews for pretty much the rest of the stuff you might want to know.

Story: 7

Art: 5 was kinda childish so not that great

Sound: 10 Didn't really pay much attention but it had catchy op and ed. and the death sounds made me cringe so i guess it was good.

Characters 10: I thought the characters were pretty different. a few of them were pretty lame. some of them were not fully revealed because anime is only half of story. I like the main character for her strong sense of right and wrong and willingness to help people. It isn't the stupid type of main character hero complex. at least I didn't feel that way. she just is a genuinely happy helpful girl who will help someone in trouble. She seems to make friends with the underdogs but doesn't even notice that they are underdogs. its like she doesn't realize how bad humans can be, but she is only an elementary school student.

Enjoyment: 9

Overall: 8 would give a higher score, but after finishing it felt like if I got past the unusual layout or something then the base story was.. idk, I couldn't tell if I liked it so much because it was that good or if it was just the perfect anime to watch after getting bored of the usual anime. I think I was just in the right mood for it. but it is still pretty good.

As weird as it may seem, Shadow Star Narutaru was the anime I decided to debut my investigation of the psychological horror genre of anime. The genre itself has never really piqued my interest, because I find no excitement in scaring myself shitless. But I finally figured I gotta give it a try before I can really comment on it, and so after much deliberation I picked Shadow Star Narutaru... and its left me in a rather confused state. I'm perplexed because... I can point out about a 1000 flaws with this show, very blatant obvious flaws... but I still really enjoyed it, enough so ... that I vowed to read the manga just to get a better understanding of it.

So where do I begin with this... I guess the plot is as good a place as any. As many of you will have guessed by reading any other review of the show, Shadow Star starts off very calm and almost cheerfully; seems like another take on Digimon really. But some messed up shit is awaiting you just around the corner, so don't get to lulled in, because it will freak you out. Now the plot has one major flaw... its just too damn diverse. Thats a strange complaint, but the show is fit into 13 episodes, and it trys to fit at least 26 episodes worth of material into it. It introduces about 6 subplots, one about a child army trying to destroy mankind, one about another kid and his friend who looks like a girl, who are possibly good? Another about girls getting beat up at school, something about her mom working for the government etc etc. Theres so much STUFF going on, and all of it just seems so interesting, but none of it goes anywhere. The child army is kinda built up for the first couple episodes, and then completely forgotten in the last half. The entire thing, just reeks of lost potential, great ideas cut back by a limited budget. But the ideas were good enough... that it almost worked. A bit more polish, and couple more episodes, and this coulda been a lot better story.

Now as for characters, again I'm a bit vexed. Each character seems pretty interesting, and you could easily make a story about each and every one of the MAIN main characters psyche... but instead it once again spreads itself too thin. Its like the show has attention deficit disorder... it has to keep switching from one plot to another... from one character to the next. The main character, Shiina, is set up to be a real good person, a elementary school girl robin hood if you will. She helps those in need, and isn't afraid to be made a fool of if its for her friends. But the show starts to look at... Maybe this is a bad personality. Maybe shes hurting her friends more than shes helping... And as it starts to get good... Ohhh-kay, now there's a character named Akira... who has a meek personality. Does she want to change the world by force, or does she want to adapt and become like everyone else? Who knows, because now its a plot about that damn child uprising. There's even some crazy goddess dragon rider girl (who can turn into a dolphin apparently), who gets mentioned like twice... and then never appears again. Like I said... each character is intriguing, and would actually be really great if they were given more time.

So what I'm really just trying to get across here is... the show needs to stick to one story, or get more funding to develop its many stories. But that doesn't really stop the show from being a good watch... it just frustrates you to know that it could've been so much more enjoyable. I personally would've LOVED to seem more info on the dragonets... what they are, how they grow, how they affect the people they are attached too. Its actually looked at a really small amount considering its one of the bigger plot points of the show.

But... with all that being said... maybe I'm being too over criticle. This is supposed to be a psychological horror right? How does it fare when compared to other anime of a similar genre? Well I can't really say... like I started with, Shadow Star Narutaru was my jumping on anime. I can say though... that it has slightly piqued my interest in the genre... maybe enough to actually give something more famous like Elfen Lied or Higurashi a chance... But again I do think it could have been better. Very little of Shiina's psyche was looked into. You got glimpses here and there that behind that smile she may be extremely depressed, but it seems to prefer to look at Akira and Hiroko, which is more a look at bullying I think. I'm not quite sure how I can put a finger on what bothers me with their actions... so let me sum it up like this. In the very last episode (I'll try my best not to spoil anything here) Akira does something that you saw coming waaayyy back, but it isn't explained why she decides then is the time to do it, and it is brushed over extremely quickly. It all ended up leaving me satisfied to an extent... but with a feeling that there must be something more to it.

Hah... well I guess thats more of a rant than a review isn't it? Ahh well, I couldn't really think of any other way to adequately express what shadow star narutaru is like. Its up and down, it really screws you over, but it leaves you wanting more. It doesn't deserve a great score, and if your a really nit picky person, you probably won't like it, but I will heartily recommend it to anyone.

Shadow Star Narutaru, as I'm sure you've read in practically every other review on this anime, is deceiving to say in the least. If you were to just watch the OP, you would totally let your 5 year old watch it. But DON'T.

This anime becomes very disturbing very quickly, but is also very disorganized. It's as if the creators said, "ok how can we shock the audience next?!" and completely forgot about any existing plotline. Therefore, there are a loooot of "Uncle Chuck"s in this anime. Which, is really disappointing, because there are so many elements that I would have liked to have seen fleshed ... out more over the course of the show. Instead, many themes were picked up and dropped almost instantly.

The art really suffers here; Shina sometimes has mile-long legs and a lot of times the art just looks awkward. The designs are simple but effective--the "Angel" dragonette absolutely creeps me out. Sounds are also simple, but effective for setting the mood.

I find I have a general formula for liking something: If I like the characters, no matter how bad the plotline or anything else, I like the game/tv show/movie/ book etc. I really did like the characters in this anime--each character had redeeming qualities that made me want to find out more about them (unfortunately this wasn't done, but that's besides the point).

I did enjoy this anime overall, since it had many moments that had me sitting on the edge of my seat and did make me want to keep watching (finished in the span of an afternoon). The reason it loses points however is because of it's hole-y, disorganized plotline. I would love to see a re-release of this without all the cuts....