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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Rent | 7 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 8 | 10 |
 Devil Doll
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[series:2478#752] |
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[2/4 episodes watched, temporary score: 77% = "Rent"] A Kanon story with Clannad characters told in a Higurashi narration style. Definitely an "Acquired Taste" work but for me this anime is a forgotten gem despite its obvious deficits. Watching each episode twice before proceeding to the next one is strongly recommended. Art and Animation are weak even by the standards of 2001 when this work was released. Apparently this is what visual novels were looking like in 1998/99, with almost no facial expressions, no body language, awkward walking, and many scenes being just stills with camera movement. You can clearly see how the people who were creating this work formed the company named Key to release Kanon 2002 just one year later; the character designs (with huge eyes) are similar (the girls even wear school uniforms similar to those in Clannad), and the subject (lost memories and their cause & consequences) is similar as well. But there are things strikingly different from later works like Kanon or Clannad. This anime has very few dialog lines but is drowning in enchanting, morbid, almost ghostly Music instead. Therefore it has a strong focus on the mood it provides, and this mood is somber; no comic relief side character, no slapstick interludes, only a few nude thigh shots and weird camera angles for the fan-service (the original game was an eroge). Furthermore, by providing very little explanations of what is happening it emphasizes the guessing game nature of this story, much like in Higurashi, Cossette or Interlude. Characters aren't introduced early on, they don't speak to the audience explaining what happened before - you have to fully concentrate on the little hints that are given to even have a chance of understanding what's going on here, or to even understand who are the lead characters of this Story. And time course of events is very nonlinear, flashbacks are inserted every now and then without warning. I don't expect to fully understand this story without reading additional sources but I'm okay with this. Last updated Sunday, October 16 2011. Created Sunday, October 16 2011. | ||||||||
Other Sites
| Name | URL |
|---|---|
| Tactics Website for the "One" Game (japanese) | http://sv.force-x.com/~tactics/qtactics/one.htm |
| NEXTON Website for the "One" Game (japanese) | http://nexton-net.jp/~nexton/one_full/ |
