Hana Morenos is an orphan living with a cruel foster family who treat her like a slave.
Michiko Malandro, is a dangerous escaped convict.
On March 17th, Michiko turns up to claim Hana and take her away.
This is the new Manglobe show, directed by Sayo Yamamoto and written by Takashi Ujita (presumably the Kazuyoshi Kumakiri collaborator). And it’s probably the only wholly original show in the autumn anime season (not an adaptation, sequel or remake).
Some folks have found the cruelty that Hana suffers in this episode a bit too much. True the family she lives with are horrible Dahl/Grimm Brothers-esque gits, but it’s necessary for the fairy tale ending to the episode. Michiko is a violent, gun toting criminal, and yet by the end of the episode she’s clearly a preferable parental figure than the hypocritical Morenos family.
OK, that’s the story. It’s fine, but you know what’s great? The animation.
Fantastic shot composition that makes great use of the perspective of items in the background paintings. Really solid looking characters, highlighted by a scene early on that moves the camera around the cast as they sit down for breakfast. Light! Shadows! Evil characters whose evil is physically manifested in their character design. Characters with lips! Graffiti! Colour that doesn’t look over-saturated and covered in vaseline, as at a least two acclaimed shows this season have. If you think any show this season looks better than this, you are no longer allowed to have opinions on cartoons. Unless you say Superjail. In which case you’d be right.
Oh and that Shinichiro Watanabe feller is pretty good at picking music too.
Right now this is the only new anime show that I don’t feel like I have to work at to enjoy. Except One Outs. Which I hadn’t seen when I wrote that sentence. More on that soon.
Go watch!
