This series is one of those ones that might be under the category of anime, it might look like anime but the only thing anime about it is the animation. All cliches and all things that define anime as the genre are gone leaving a story so very well told, a true masterpiece.
STORY:(10)
What does make a good series? I think a lot of very good anime or stories in general are very heavy on characters, the characters carry the story. That is not a bad tactic but then the story does not stand on it's own and thus you are left with this and that amazing character and alas you have no defining plot, you have no general story. This one has a story, a story strongly told and with much meaning to it, a story full of depth, the story holds the characters who simply add to it's greatness.
In my opinion there is nothing more scary than a child holding a gun.It destroys everything a child stands for; innocence for most, ignorance, carefree, true bliss, however when you see a child with a gun you know that their eyes have seen it all. You know that they won't buy your Santa Claus story and your myths about where children come from, they wont believe in fairies and they don't expect you to be nice to them.
Enter Hellywood:hell on earth. Very rare is it for people to write a story about war describing all the actual, true horrors of it without I suppose filling it with endless gore. There are no evil notebooks, no supernatural creatures that seek power, no aliens that have profits names, no magic,no super robots to protect the weak, no super intelligent agencies to do the dirty work, when war breaks loose it's the human who will step into the battlefield, alone and without a shield and his worst fear wont be something that doesn't look, think or act like him,here man's worst enemy is man, and that is by choice.The horror that is portrayed is not terrifying for the sake of wanting to make you cringe,it's true, it's happened, it happens and it will happen again.
ART:(7)
It's obvious that this is on low budget. The art doesn't say much but it is enjoyable to look at, however the art might be simple yet it really wouldn't matter even if it was stick people drawn on a notebook, this series is too well written for one to care about the art. However it's still nice, simple and nice.
SOUND:(7)
Not much of a OST, however what I did like was that the OP and ED was ridiculously simple,not very "anime-like", like I said this series is far from anime and one should not expect some pop song to open the series credits or close, nice choice of an instrumental for the beginning and a rather depressing ballad in the end, just to add to the sorrow that follows the rest of the series.
CHARACTER:(10)
While the series is not very character driven, the faces that appear throughout the show are notable and in fact very interesting people. In a world where everything is far from just corrupted we enter a handful of characters who most likely have been corrupted to their core.
Our main lead Shu is a very optimistic person, his optimism goes far yet he is the kind of person who will always see a light in the end of a tunnel no matter how dark it is all around, while he struggles through endless horrors he still maintains a positive attitude that one day all we be mended and thus gains your respect and probably some times pity. A number of characters are there and most of them have a rock instead of a heart but always you understand why, the things they have seen and been through have caused them to be cold and forced them to turn heartless. I guess my biggest impression was with the characters of : Lala Ru, the water fairy who simply after seeing the world end a million times and a million time again fails to have any sympathy for any human being having been fed up with their selfishness and Nabuca, a twelve year old soldier who simply kills without remorse seeking his freedom, the situations he's been thrown into have turned him into such a ruthless killing machine that he simply shuts down any sign of sympathy or love even though those feelings reappear in him on a daily basis, however his reasons are understandable and at times quite sad since it's pretty obvious he's fighting with devil and the devil never loses.
This series is filled with controversial and 3-D characters and that shows very well even though it only lasts for 13 eps, as opposed to other series that have double the eps and leave most characters to be flat and uninteresting.
ENJOYMENT/OVERALL(10)
This is a terrible series and I don't mean that it's badly written or executed, but it simply does not glorify the human nature by any mean.However, as it might be hard to swallow at times and true at most, utterly horrifying and cruel it teaches something that many of us usually deny or simply have a hard time seeing:that eventually even though all around us is pitch black darkness and we can't see a sign that might imply that things might get brighter,someday, after all this suffering you'll be able to see the light and enjoy the sunset alongside a dear friend. Someday, even though this cycle of neverending madness and violence might never stop, there will be days of peace that will make up for all the pain you endured and that even though most people are rotten at heart, some,maybe a handful are good and maybe that bad guy isn't as bad as you thought he was at first. This series is the most pessimistic and yet the most optimistic story ever to have come my way. A true gem I say, definitely worth watching.
