Anime Ayakashi Ayashi

[Dagger]

Ayakashi Ayashi is the latest series to debut in the coveted doroku timeslot (following the likes of Gundam SEED, Blood+ and FMA). It's also from Studio BONES and has some interesting staff members, including [url=http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=2633][u]Shou Aikawa[/u][/url], who's credited as the creator, and [url=http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=1569][u]Hiroshi Nishikiori[/u][/url], the show's director. The basic story has to do with Japan in 1844 and demons called Youi and the people who fight them. I think that's the gist of it, anyway.

I'd heard mixed things about the first episode, but I actually liked it quite a bit. Maybe I was awestruck by the grotesque daring required (in an age of everything being [I]teramoesu[/I]) to open a show with unnecessarily long scenes of old, naked men prancing around with only tiny towels to prevent full-frontal nudity. Or maybe it's the fact that one or two bits reminded me--in a very nebulous way--of Mushishi.

Or maybe I'm just amused to have encountered the fall season's third notable trap* (and the possibility of a reverse trap!). But one can always count on BONES for solid visuals. And a main character who isn't a teenager? Sign me up, I say.

*[spoiler]Just so we're all on the same page, a trap is a cross-dressing or otherwise convincingly effeminate male. A reverse trap is a cross-dressing female.[/spoiler]

~Dagger~