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Blue Sonnet
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Title Info
- alias: Akai Kiba Blue Sonnet
- seen: 1-5 of 5
- type: OAV
- grade: watchable
- made: 1989
- Review created: Recently, but I didn't record the date.
- mod: none
Not exactly one of the most famous series...and for quite a while I thought it was hentai. What it actually is is a current time psychic schoolgirls series, although it is played very straight and serious, and some of the events are quite violent and nasty. The story revolves around two characters. One of whom is an average school girl who must retain her humanity when an evil corporation (complete with evil genius) becomes interested in her. There is little doubt that diabolical schemes and shadowy conspiracies are on their mind. Her only defense are her unknown and untested powers, and the mysteries they hold. And she'll need them, because the bad guys also have `Blue Sonnet' a violent and powerful cyborg esper...but perhaps this is Sonnet's chance to recover the humanity she seems to have lost, or perhaps never had.
Be warned. I am not kidding about the violence and generally nasty ambiance. While the `normal' psycher, like all anime schoolgirls, is plenty cute the bad guys play for keeps and don't mind some collateral damage. Likewise the anime is willing to have some aggressive scenes. This is obvious from the start as the opening has a number of scenes of a young woman being violently abused. It is only a while later that you realise that this forms the back story for Sonnet herself...but it's an ominous opening. The concept of watching the characters develop, some psychic special effects and the evil plan finally being revealed and (I assume) defeated seem to have everything required. Unfortunately the writing isn't quite strong enough to pull it off. The characters don't seem to manage quite enough depth and the story has some strange pacing (at times being quite slow) and illogical events. This is also exaggerated by some strange character and world design decisions, and the feeling that you've seen a lot of it before. Certainly it is worth a watch, there are no glaring faults, and trying to determine why it doesn't seem to work (if you see it the same) is quite interesting. Things actually start to improve in the last two tapes where the action level rises to something the writers seem more happy with. Suprisingly there are some nice scenes and some good character work. Especially Sonnet and Lan (the schoolgirl) really start to develop...and then the series ends. While the immediate story does conclude the wider story, and the cool characters, seem destined to never be completed.
The animation is somewhat dated but still quite reasonable. The biggest problem is the feeling that i've seen the designs and style somewhere before. The backgrounds are attractive, the characters have a good sense of identity about them and the animation is solid. The actual psychic powers are a lot less common than you might think, and are not particularly impressive, so if you were hoping for psychic's hurling cities at one another you are likely to be disappointed. The voices are fine, although the dialog is pretty flat and the music is fairly aggressive in parts. Some of the technical design is distinctly dodgy however, as is some of the staging. Still, the animation is sufficient.
I'm as interested as anyone else in seeing another review for this title. But none of the sites I source from has a review of it.
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:15 WST 2009