Gender: Fantasy, slice of life, romance, despair, war, politics, betrayal and many more.
As would have been told by others, this series is what i would consider a rare jewel. I found it hard to believe how good is good before actually watching it.
In my honest opinion,this story is like the work of Hans Christian Anderson.One might consider his work to be for children, mind you, there are a lot of turbulence in this anime that in no way a kid would understand. If i have to give it a rating, i would considerer this to be PG. Its meant for children as this is a very well done fairy tale but without parental guidance kids will get lost along the way. The story WILL, trust me it WILL, be very satisfying even for adults.
STORY:10
This series is probably the slowest in term of development and will have flashbacks of events in the past.Adding to that, this series follows the life of a girl from the age of 10 to 18, so you have to know that it has got a huge plot. On the other hand, although its slow, I personally believe that its going to be and impossible task to go any faster. This anime has probably the plot of a perfect 40 episodes series, however, dropping it to 26 would mess it up. Pushing it to 50 might prove otherwise, they have an excess of 10 episodes to go deeper.
This anime is done in a very standard chronological manner. It might seem to ordinary but believe me, no other way is better. Don't expect the story to suddenly moves back 5 years to reveal "things" so that the next 10 episodes make sense. The director knows where they want to be by the end of episode 50. Its not going to have "Itachi is a good person" cliche twist. There will be 0 WTF it doesn't make sense plot change. So don't let this method deter you. All fairy tales starts with "a long time ago" and moves forward, you wont find something like "action" and somewhere in the middle " a long time ago".
This series, is divided to 2 important chapters. The 1st half is a fairy tale, it will be really touching and daring. Why so much character? because unless you fall in love with the cast, they could not brought the magic of this anime. The 1st prove of why slow is good is episode 7. The next half of the series focus on a bigger plot. By now everyone knows inside and out about Erin. Put her in the middle of a huge mess that she tries her best to avoid, thats what the second half is about.
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Another way of saying is, 1st half is about Erin growing up, second half is about Erin as a parent protecting it child.
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How good is good? Mind you, I've never seen and anime with plot as deep as this.
ART:10
The animation of this anime is not the best, but its perfect. What do i mean? Would you like reading a fairy tale book pictures meant for Gundam series? the animation will make a lot of people think its for children due to its simplicity but simplicity itself is what makes this series practically perfect.
The level of gore of this anime is minimized as much as possible. As much as they could, some parts of this series is more dramatic that most anime meant for mature audience. I mean it, some parts are really really shocking. I seriously doubt this series is for children.
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Being eaten alive and shred to pieces on camera with blood all over the places.
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CHARACTER: 8
In this series, we will pretty much follows the life of young Erin for 8 years, we will indeed goes as deep as one would ever expect for an anime for Erin. This limits the dept as to go with other characters. In many full series, many characters are tend to be dropped and never mentioned again. this series has a very unique way to ensure that wouldn't happen.
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People die. This series is not afraid to kill characters that you fall in love with. they will let you understand and love a character in about 5 episodes, then BAM killed him/her and show how much that affects Erin.
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ENJOYMENT: 10
To be honest, i did not enjoy the first 5 episodes one bit. But after episode 7, i pretty much hooked. I really enjoy this series as a whole.
SOUND:10
Just like the animation, this series does not use fancy 2009 sound effects, nor does it use famous songs/musics to fill it up. Critters, wind blowing, grass, birds. what else do you expect from the location of animal nurturing center? Jpop? classical music?rock? or even techno? no, you expect lullabies. Its simple yet prefect.
The fight scenes uses musics that are not too sophisticated either so as to not disturb the balance of the series.
OVERALL:10
This series is seriously underwatched and underrated. It portrays a really good example of how harsh life is. There is no such thing as happily ever after, as people die sooner of later. There is no magic to controls everything the way you want. Of course, this series have to cheat a little, they indeed put a very smart girl so that we can skip her study sections and move on with the story. its not meant to make her shine as super-powerful-heroin.
I understand that this series has a simple story line but i did mention that its got the deepest plot of any 2009 anime. Why? there are 2 ways a story can be successful,incredible suspends or simple story being told in an incredible way. this anime is more of the later than not.
Lastly, i would like to apologize if this review is hard to understand due to my poor English but i just had to express my sincere feeling about just how good this anime is.
