It's episode number 2, and an interesting "exposition" conversation is taking place between the anime's Girl Number 1 and the hero. It presents a considerable subsidiary mystery--why is this girl acting in this unusual and unpleasant way? This viewer would have liked to watch the interchange closely to try to find that out. But I couldn't! Or at least I couldn't do so with full real comprehension, because it was just here that the director intensified his already-established habit of complexifying everything on the screen beyond reason.
This scene is taking place in some kind of loft-like living space within an industrial building. Beams and pillars cross and recross the whole field of view of the "camera", which is set at a middle distance from the action. In addition, when the camera moves, it is often to new points of view that are also well-removed from the action--and every one of the resulting fields of view is also seriously obscured by more architectural elements. In this long scene there are times when the camera does get closer to the "actors", and there are even a few--very few--closeup shots of the players' faces, but when those shots arrive they are usually jump-cuts--a quick close-up of the face in question then away. The overall experience of dealing with this as a viewer is similar to trying to interact with someone you've never met before in a dark room where the only light constantly goes off and on at irregular intervals.
All of this ladles on lots of mystery. FINE. The director's primary job at the beginning of a show is to suck us into the story--that is, to make us at least begin to make the story imaginatively ours. One way to do that is to mystify us at the outset, but this can be overdone! When the basic premise of the show, given in the first episode, is already a very large mystery, do we really need in the next scene to be presented with constant subsidiary visual mysteries? The other usual way to "suck us in" is to make us at least begin to identify with the protagonist. That's pretty hard to achieve here, where, in their very first substantial conversation, both the protagonist and his antagonist have been distanced from us both by too much shooting of their conversation with long shots and by constant visual clutter that has nothing to do with the story.
But I bet lots of you liked it all. And my best guess as to why lots of you do, and I don't, is generational. Modern technology permits all lilies to be easily gilded, I bet few directors can resist doing so; so most of you have gotten used to this. I'm an old guy, and I can't.
Watch this intriguing anime, please, and see what you think. It may be announcing the beginning of a new rococo age.
