Yandere

I just recently finished sola and I wanted to start off by saying that I am very strange in what interests me in an anime and instantly, from the first episode, I knew that I would love sola. The song in the introduction of the first episode caught at my soul and moved my heart and I also have a personal attachment to taking pictures of the sky and my digital camera, which is what the main character in this anime is like, of course he doesn't quite understand why he is obsessed with the sky, but there is a deep and wonderful meaning behindit. The anime, as I said, for me, had an awesome introduction, the music, the setting, the mystery of the night, the going to take pictures of the sunset and all that was beautiful, but I also loved how normal and cute the main girl character came off as when the main character first met her. She was not remarkable or amazing (although beautiful, one of the most beautiful I have seen), but she was very cute and charming and he instantly adored her as so many people would have. The anime does go a bit slow from there and moves from the main characters a bit, going into parts of their stories, but I really enjoyed the weird flashbacks they threw in there because they were extremely interesting and made you really want to know what had happened in the past, so when the anime did slow down a lot, it could keep you going for a bit. The anime is very serious at some parts and also very mature and what some people would consider slow in action, was just the blossoming relationship between the main characters, which, to someone watching this kind of romantic and supernatural anime would expect. There are very cute scenes between the main character and the girl, Matsuri and as the title says, it is very focused at the sky and Matsuri's power/ailment/curse is quite awesome in my opinion, I just wished she had used it more. I really enjoyed the turn it took with the main character's sister, Aono and her history and just her in general. She was insane, but that's what I like in anime girls and she was fiercely loyal and loving, which is awesome. The art was really wonderful, in my opinion! I adored how they were drawn and Matsuri, especially, is one of the most beautiful anime girls I have ever seen. I enjoyed how Aono and Matsuri were both very unique and splendid looking, but the main character and his normal friends were generally normal looking, since they were somewhat normal people. The main character's best friend, Mana, was also very enjoyable, unlike her part in many other animes when she is just in love with the guy and depressed all the time, but a tomboy, this time she had personality and caring and she was smart and curious! The settings were beautiful and the time that the main character and Matsuri did spend together was basically magical, in my opinion and the way it was animated gave off this unrivaled feeling of wonder and love. I always enjoy when in anime, people have normal responses to things and can act all sneaky and weird about things - example, the friend, Mana, thinks someone is at the main character's house, so she gets him out of it and then goes snooping! Normalcy! The turn that the anime takes is very unique and the true story behind who you think is bad and good and everything else is also very interesting. The fights were fun to watch, even though not enough of them, in my opinion and I overall really loved this anime.

Beatnik

Let's check off the things that annoy me, shall we? ~ A world where kids conveniently don't have parents. Because that would mean the writers would actually have to be skilful enough to write stories including them. The only featured adult in the whole story is obviously a hindrance to everyone, except midway when he suddenly becomes every male pervert's role model. ~ Girls that fawn over one witless guy who doesn't deserve any of them. They fight to the death over him, but why should we care? Why should we be invested in any of this if we cant understandwhy anyone would want him in the first place? He is completely and utterly undeserving of it all, and it renders everyone's actions perplexing. Well, not so much perplexing as it is tiresome to watch this anime go through every cliché in the book to appease undemanding 'fans' of the genre. ~ Main protagonist boy who is an empty cipher throughout the entire story. A complete plank of wood with no personality and no discerning features other than his hobby of taking photos of clouds. This is not 'characterization', its an excuse to make him look interesting. He is in actual fact no different than a million other one-note protagonists of this genre. In fact, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense that the main characters of these stories are usually ciphers, rather than fully fleshed out and interesting people. Because it makes it easier for male viewers to project themselves onto the character. How sad. ~ Girl character who is treated like a wayward sexual pet by guy. At least Elfen Lied had the decency to make the female character a bloodthirsty psychopath. ~ Boring characters. Every single one of them. Except for maybe the little girl in the green dress, she had a nice attitude. This anime panders to all the moe-loving adult perverts and too-young-to-have-developed-decent-taste youth. Sola's great animation and brief flashes of what could have been an interesting tale are let down by all of the above. There was potential here; to explore people that can never live in the sun, the affects of immortality in a child's body, but the producers were more interested in filling a quota than in story and character. Some of these characters are supposed to be more than a hundred years old yet they still act like brats. Thats because logic is thrown out of the window in sola, because the characters are designed for viewers tastes. Japan's most popular anime of 2007? Depressing. Don't dismiss this review because it's negative. Dismiss it because you've yet to grow out of this genre and realise that this anime is the equivalent of a McDonalds happy meal: planned by a committee, packaged prettily but ultimately tacky, cynically driven and bad for you.