Did you ever wish there could be a TV show that was a cross between Patlabor and Fahrenheit 451? With a bit of Read Or Die thrown in for free? Well you are in luck!
Based on novels by Hiro Arikawa, it puts forth the future Japan of 2019 where the national government and local government clash over censorship of the media. Two opposing laws – the Media Betterment Act and the Freedom of Libraries Law – have lead to the militarisation of government censors and the libraries.
Yes, this show’s heroes are paramilitary librarians.
It’s similarities to Patlabor lie mainly in the heroine, Iku Kasahara, a 22 year old member of the Library Militia, whose gung ho enthusiasm calls to mind Noa from Patlabor. Similarly the portrayal of relationships between the other members of the militia have the same degree of believability that Patlabor’s had.
I mentioned when I was running down the spring anime that I hoped this would be a visually interesting show, and this opening episode didn’t let me down. Coincidentally, both this show and Kaiba are doing interesting things with the weight of lines. Kaiba has more ambitious plans for that judging from comments on Yuasa’s production blog, but what is tried in Library War works well. One criticism that’s been leveled at the digital age of animation is that you don’t get the distinction between character and background that you used to get (Nabari no Ou is also addressing this by making their backgrounds really handcrafted). By varying the weight of lines Library War really makes the characters pop out of the scene. The best effect they get from it is when they use it to perform perspective tricks such as when Iku trips in training and falls towards the viewer.
Great stuff so far, and right now it’s up in the top 5 anime shows for me this year.