I’m back from the brink. After surviving ungodly working hours (long night shifts are looooong) and finally completing the epic Fate/Stay Night visual novel (reviewage to come) I’m finally in a position to sample what the latest season has to offer. No offence to any individual but when your feedreader is following so many blogs simultaneously there’s a lot of repetition that says the same things over and over. More noise than signal, as they say. If nothing else it’s kept me objective and made me all the more eager to take a step back and look at what we have with fresh eyes. Bloodshot and tired, but objective. I hope.

“Born to be wiiiiild…~”

Ride Back caught my attention for really simplistic reasons. The promo art and synopsis didn’t say much apart from “pretty girl and transforming motorbike,” which is fine by me. To be honest I wasn’t looking for anything special apart from a superficial but entertaining piece of sci-fi featuring, well, a pretty girl and a transforming motorbike. At this point I’d like to announce my enjoyment of watching motorbike racing and playing racing games (Wipeout is great with the electronic fuckwin of the Boom Boom Satellites in the background for instance) despite having zero competitive spirit the rest of the time, and several members of my family are motorbike enthusiasts…which are possibly part of the reason why I’m finding this to be such fun.

There are some TV shows that don’t look like much on the surface, or receive so much hype from some quarters you worry that there’s no way that the experience itself could live up to what the ardent fans make out. Berserk was one of those: the opening episode was all demons and blood-soaked violence, providing the most superficial of entertainment value; and yet some fellow fans and bloggers held it in very high regard indeed. After the full run of twenty-five episodes I can see with crystal clarity how a brutal, gar and somewhat dated-looking series can weave such a spell: the feeling creeps up on you, slips into your subconscious and before you know it there’s no way back.

I can’t recall any particular moment that made me sit up and say “That’s it!”, which I think is testament to its storytelling. The shift from trashy monster-slaying and slow-burning underdog adventure to in-depth character study, with no small amount of political intrigue along the way, was so smooth it was effortless. We see the cast of characters, who live in a pitiless and stoic world that doesn’t really lend itself to great outpourings of emotion, stripped bare to the viewer with their innermost desires, ambitions and fears as painfully clear as day. You gradually get attached to these mercenaries and thieves and can’t help but join them in their terrifying and unpredictable journey; that notoriously open ending aside I’d say this is a piece of animated fiction that is as close to perfection as you are likely to find.

In retrospect I ought to have dropped this, really, but I ploughed on with it in the hope that it would get better later on; Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time and all that. In fairness Chaos;Head did actually improve towards the end as the full scope of the story was revealed but it begs the question: when I’m behind on a couple of other shows and have yet to even start Toradora! why sit through nine or so episodes of mediocrity for the sake of three decent ones?

“Hey Beavis, I just figured something out…”: I’m referring to the last paragraph there by the way

The fact of the matter is, I loved the premise of the series and was only disappointed with the execution (which coincidentally is also the reason why I gritted my teeth and plunged into the Allison to Lillia Plot Holes for twenty-six episodes). Y’see, conceptually Chaos;Head isn’t bad – it has a perception vs. reality debacle that’s reminiscent of a Satoshi Kon production, it makes use of technology and arcane jargon, it has a cowardly and pathetic protagonist who makes Welcome to the NHK!‘s central character look positively average and the final episodes had a faint aroma of the latter portion of Serial Experiments: Lain. All in all the ingredients held a special appeal to me but there was this aftertaste of…well, not much of an aftertaste at all. I will acknowledge the things that the series got right though, promise.