[Categories: Anime Reviews]
Bokurano 1: First Impressions
Remember that feelgood family film called The Cat Returns? Like Bokurano it was directed by Hiroyuki Morita, but this series is nothing like it AT ALL. Everything about Bokurano, from the premise to the character designs and the overall ‘feel’ is completely different from the Studio Ghibli movie. Sure, it starts off innocently enough with a bunch of kids enjoying a day at the beach; after meeting a strange man working on a bank of computers in a seemingly deserted cave however, they are invited to play a ‘game’ he’s working on in which a giant robot fights monsters to protect the Earth. Then things get really, really strange…
This episode feels like the calm before the storm: small details show that Bokurano is hiding something dark and sinister that ought to rear its ugly head very soon. One kid bullies his younger sister for no reason at all; another literally barbeques a crab alive for the hell of it before giving a philosophical lecture afterwards to justify his actions. Although a battle in a giant mecha takes place later in the episode, it is likely to play out as a character-driven piece because the cast and the way they interact form the core of the story. My main worry at this stage is that there are no less than fifteen of them: unless it’s a long-running show or a few of them do not stay in the picture for long, there could be too many for the viewer to get to know them all, which is a shame because they could be a very interesting bunch indeed.
The character designs from an artwork point of view remind me a little of those in Monster, although worryingly they exhibit the same bland ‘I can’t be arsed to draw details’ appearance that was evident in Studio Gonzo’s earlier efforts on Welcome to the NHK! and Speed Grapher. Bear in mind that this is a Gonzo-produced series so the artwork could get pretty ropey in later episodes; the 3D rendering on the mecha for instance looks a bit out-of-place.
Apparently it’s based on a manga but sadly I’ve never read it so I don’t know how the story is supposed to play out; I suspect it’s going to be quite shocking and subversive, perhaps trapping the protagonists in the weird ‘game’ in a similar way to Gantz. Anyway, the opening ep doesn’t give much away in that department so for now pretty much anything could happen. Out of the opening episodes I’ve seen so far Bokurano isn’t the most impressive but it’s the most intriguing.
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