One day a mysterious being casts an orb onto earth. In the beginning it takes shapes of a rock and moss. As time goes on a white wolf dies on it. In response the orb takes the wolf’s shape and becomes conscious and from that moment its main purpose is to travel the world, collect experiences and learn more about itself and the world it now inhabits. It meets new people and learns from them about what it means to be human and alive.
Because the show swaps characters regularly there are only two that really matter. Those are:
Fushi - a mysterious orb that can take many forms. Most of the time it’s in the form of a nameless, white haired boy it met in the first episode. The name “Fushi” was given to it by a young girl that professed herself it’s “mother”. He’s (yeah, I’m gonna call it “him” for convenience and the fact that it's usually is in the form of the boy) a manifestation of a tabula rasa and as such he may be forgiven for acting like a moron. To an extent, after some time watching him do the same mistakes gets pretty old. He’s a pretty good idea with a somewhat solid execution in the beginning but during the last arc of the season I was really getting fed up with his antics. There is a problem that he’s mostly passive for the whole 20 episodes but in this case it’s not as much of a problem as in other shows.
The man in black - Fushi’s creator. He said he created him to collect information and gather experiences but if that’s the case he picked a really slow and inefficient way of doing so. For the whole of 20 episodes he’s the narrator that often gives info dumps and… not much more. He’s the worst character of them all. Almost like the writer created him and didn’t really have a plan for him. He acts like he would want to be a mentor for Fushi but in the end he’s just a useless waste of space. He demands Fushi defeat the nokkers (creatures whose goal seems to be destroying Fushi) but does jack shit to help him get stronger apart from giving half assed advice. Shame because I really like the idea of him, but I find his execution abhorrent.
My main problem with writing is that this show uses very, VERY cheap tricks to create sympathy for the characters. One of them being illogical situations. It’s obvious especially in episode one. The hero of that story is in a situation that makes no sense and would never happen in any world where people even pretend to be logical. The other arcs aren’t as painfully ridiculous but they do have their flaws in logic. Now listen, I get it, it’s an anime, most anime are full of bullshit but most at least pretend to have a functioning, semi-realistic world. The crap we see in episode one? Yeah.. no effing way.
The second is that almost everyone Fushi meets has some tragic or at least pseudo tragic backstory. Shown in the most dramatic way possible. From a boy left on his own in an environment that makes it hard to get food, the girl that is about to get sacrificed for no good reason to a bunch of kids in a place full of criminals. It’s all just so forced. Not all the time. There are moments when this is done organically and when that happens it’s really solid. Unfortunately that’s in the minority.
That’s not to say You can’t enjoy it. Even knowing what the show is doing I had fun watching it. Those cheap tricks that I mentioned are executed pretty well. Nothing groundbreaking mind You, but I won’t blame anyone for liking it.
The second thing that rubbed me the wrong way are the info dumps given by the narrator about Fushi. Most (but not all mind You) are totally unnecessary because what he’s talking about was shown just a moment ago. “Show don’t tell” is something this show struggles with. I’m not a big fan of treating Your viewers like idiots, so maybe it’s just me, but I still find it annoying.
The show doesn’t exactly give a damn about morality. During the last arc despite the fact that the kids that hang out with Fushi are pretty much assholes and the reason why he’s in deep shit the show portrays them as sympathetic and innocent. Hell it even wants me to actually care about them (It failed at that, I had zero fucks to give about them the whole time). I know, I know, a lot of anime do this damn thing where morality is swept aside when it comes to the main cast but it’s still annoying.
That said, the show isn’t bad. I’m not confident enough to call it great. I would say it’s enjoyable. The most interesting part is the protagonist himself. Fushi isn’t a perfect character, there are moments when the way he was written is annoying af. Still I will give credit, where credit is due, he is a character that is evolving. Something most anime protagonists don’t have a clue about. He starts as a tabula rasa and with each encounter and challenge he becomes something more.
The only real problem with his development that I had is that his first encounters were with people that could be considered good. He wasn’t mentored, even a little by someone with a twisted moral compass or an opportunist (that came later and even she was ultimately a “good” person) or even a kind of assassin or murderer. No. People that made the most impact on his early “life” were all good eggs. To me that was a bit lazy. Fushi didn’t get a proper contrast in his development and up until the final arc that made him rather flat. He witnessed evil but didn’t understand it. I’m not even saying that he had to become evil himself. He could have gotten a mentor that was grey as they can be, someone who would teach him about good, evil, their function and different perspectives early on. But I guess that would make too much sense and kill some of the later events. His creator could work as such but he’s kind of an idiot and an asshole so…
All in all the show is enjoyable and if You don’t really care about logic and proper worldbuilding it can even be called good.
