I started watching this show expecting an abstract psychological ride and in the end it did deliver that, one could even add wild to abstract psychological. The story is very interesting, however you need to watch with an open mind and very carefully to get to understand the symbolism. Probably in the end you will understand most about the characters personalities and their motives, but the symbolism will leave you wandering.
Symbolism is pretty heavy in this show, refers to Japanese culture and literature and also to Greek literature so it is going to be hard to grasp. This is my main issue with this show, it does require a certain literary culture to grasp from the beginning so it’s not for everyone. Worry not though, there are plenty websites offering good analysis on the symbolism.
The characters are nicely developed throughout the show, you will not understand everything about them in the beginning, it does require to watch the whole show to find all about them, most of your questions will be answered in the end. The characters are interesting and have tragic stories dating back to childhood, stories which are nicely portrayed (through symbolism or not). In fact if I want to recommend this movie especially to parents that have a small child or are thinking to conceive one, they might learn how to be a better parent, why love is very important to a small child, how fragile they are and how their parents play such a big role in their development as adults. This is one of the parts that I liked a lot about the show.
The second one was the philosophical discussion about fate, red strings of fate that connects people and how these shape our lives. In the end you will be left wondering if certain things you’ve done throughout your life are related to fate and what would have happened if you had chosen a different path when presented with the possibility (in fact you chose one particular path because it was fate who pushed you in the certain direction).
Sound is pretty great in some scenes, I really enjoyed it, animation quality is good, sometimes you have static images, sometimes the character designs are not consistent throughout the series but the symbolism frames are very well done and detailed (you actually need to scroll back or pause to take a good look to understand).
So why did I rate this as an 8 since I liked the show? Because of the heavy symbolism and the big pack of literature that you need to have read to understand this show. Also there are a lot of metaphors in the show, I never liked metaphors even in classic literature that I studied in high school because it’s open to interpretation, one person can see X, the other can see Y and both are plausible. It’s interesting when you see it in anime though.
