And so I play catch up on 2007 TV anime series that were good.
I wrote about episode one back in May, and what I wrote there bore out well for the entire show. The Fantomas comparison fades as the story progresses, and it slowly turns into a story more typical of the genre it has it’s origins in. Jun Shibata, who I mentioned in the first article, did three episodes worth of animation direction and all supported the idea that it was a good move to get away from ufotable. The acting in episode 6 was particularly strong and the action in the climactic thirteenth episode did not disappoint. It’s probably my second favourite BONES produced show after Ouran Host Club, solid throughout in the animation stakes and a really good story.
Yes, the story composed by Yutaka Izubuchi (Rahxephon) is well constructed and is true to Ishinomori’s themes, despite being structured differently from either of the previous two interpretations of the concept. I’m sure there’s easter eggs all the way through for people more familiar with Ishinomori’s work, but the final one that ties Skull Man to Cyborg 009 is a doozy, and I wonder if they have half an idea to do a reinterpretation of that series too. I’m really thinking I should go back to Rahxephon, based on how much I like Izubuchi’s story here. The first couple of episodes turned me off the series when I came to it, however I did like the random mid series episode I caught a couple years later. Though I think I may have lucked out there and it was Mitsuo Ito’s episode that I saw.
Anyway, next on my list to catch up on is Mononoke.