Reviews

12 Years. I've had this anime sitting around for 12 years without finishing it. That was a mistake, because this anime is awesome. It has so much going for it, but I think the key thing is that while this anime is centered mostly around high school kids, it's not childish. It's a mature story, and very well told. Not a lot of plot holes, not a lot of moe, or nosebleeding, and it actually intersperses adults naturally with children. It's not like most animes today where adults are these far away uninvolved authority figures who only show up at key times to push plot. You had adults working side by side with the kids to figure out what was going on. I liked that as it made the anime feel more realistic and mature.

I also liked the main characters, Birdy and Senkawa. But, especially Birdy. Strong, capable and intelligent, but also goofy and humorous at others. The villain, Shymalan was pretty strong as a villain as well, but a bit too arrogant, so you knew what would happen with him eventually. But, what was great about it, is that there are other forces at play behind Shymalan, throughout the anime which left you guessing what was actually going to happen with the Ryunka and where the anime goes from here. There's a lot of double crossing, and government subterfuge involved in this anime, as alien forces are jockeying for power with Earth as a pawn in the middle.

I also loved that this anime wasn't focused on keeping things happy and upbeat. There's a fair amount of death in this. So, even though it has a kind of animation style and feel like it should be more peppy and sweet, it's really a more serious anime with serious consequences.

While Birdy was great and I'm going to jump straight into the sequel, it did have a few flaws. Mainly, the ending was predictable. As soon as they revealed a way to have a somewhat happy ending, you knew instantly how things were going to play out in the finale. So, while it was still a good ending, it was easy to see how things were going to finish. Still, it managed to happen in a way I didn't quite expect, so I was still a little surprised.

Another thing was the cast had a few irritating characters. Particularly Natsumi, who was way too naggy as Senkawa's childhood friend. She just never stopped nagging. She is definitely someone's future ex-wife. Really, most of Senkawa's childhood friends were irritating. Ryouta was just a constant jerk all the time for no reason and I can't remember his name, but the guy who was so overly hyped about exploring abandoned buildings was extremely irritating. I wanted him to die. Fortunately the latter two didn't get too much screen time to drag the anime down.

Other than that this was a very good anime. So, if you're just cruising for something from the good ole' days, this is something to check out.