Anime Shigofumi

[Dagger]

[url=http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=8760][u]ANN encyclopedia entry[/u][/url]

The main characters are Fumika, a poker-faced girl who delivers letters from the dead to the living, and her partner Kanaka, a talking staff.

I'll say off the bat that Shigofumi may be a must-watch for fans of Kino's Journey. They shouldn't have anything in common besides the same character designer, but the parallels are hard to ignore, especially with Fumika's emotionless gaze, boisterous non-human partner and the fact that she uses "boku."

Strong production values, simple and nicely rendered character art (I especially like how Fumika's eyes look iridescent at times), great BGM.... but most importantly, it has atmosphere in spades. Not that I'd have predicted them having anything in common with each other, but in that sense, it reminded me of the first episode of True Tears.

I assumed that this would be episodic, except that the preview and next episode title make it sound connected to the first episode. Interested to see how they manage that.

[spoiler]Totally unexpected twist at the end, right when I was getting ready to say that it seemed like Kino's Journey or Hell Girl, except non-disturbing and more slice-of-life.[/spoiler] Hoo, was I ever wrong in that department. Dunno if they'll revisit what happened in future episodes, but looking at this episode by itself, I actually thought it was great to end there without explaining anything.

Could end up being my favorite Tatsuo Sato show.

~Dagger~

[Raiyuu]

[quote name='Dagger']I assumed that this would be episodic, except that the preview and next episode title make it sound connected to the first episode. Interested to see how they manage that.[/quote]I heard that the light novels it's based on are episodic, but the series is kicking off with an anime original arc. I'm not sure how it'll work if the first three or four link and it becomes episodic after that - could feel like a jerky transition. But I'll be watching this and giving it a chance, anyway. I loved Kino's Journey :animesmil

[Dagger]

[quote name='Raiyuu']I'm not sure how it'll work if the first three or four link and it becomes episodic after that - could feel like a jerky transition.[/QUOTE]
I'm a little worried about that, but I'm enjoying the original stories so much that I guess I'll just take in whatever comes. Episode 2 takes place right after episode 1 chronologically, but I think episode 3 might be further removed in both time and featured characters... pretty sure I saw a shot of [spoiler]Shouta alive[/spoiler] in the preview. Won't really have a clue till I watch it, though.

As for episode 2, though, it was pretty awesome. As if the echoes of Kino weren't hard enough to ignore already, it turns out that Fumika [spoiler]is also a gunslinger, kind of.[/spoiler] The OP unfortunately sounds like Ali Project either remixed all the worst parts of their other anime music or made it when they were drunk off their rockers. Not bad looking, just kind of weird on the ears.

Although the sensationalist tendencies that were mostly hidden in ep. 1 come out in full force here (there were parts that made me want to tell the writer that [url=http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=26763][u]his Geass is showing[/u][/url]), I actually think ep. 2 did a really good job of keeping its sense of gravity. [spoiler]Asuna's manner of death[/spoiler] and the last few scenes involving that helped a lot in this regard. It skirts toward Higurashi-like territory but ultimately takes a different, less overblown tack.

~Dagger~

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]After the first ep, all I can say is "wow". The episode's slow start admittedly hadn't had me much, a it looked like it would jsut be Shinigami no Ballad redux, however as each minute progressed I found myself further and further engrossed until the !!! ending! It's pretty rare for an anime to do something that completely unexpected and impactful within the first episode - color me thoroughly impressed. This show is already totally 'my kind of show' so I can't wait for more![/COLOR]

[Dagger]

The television broadcast of episode 3 was censored. I don't know exactly why, but I'm guessing it has to do with current events in Japan; there must have been school-related violence or something recently. Anyway, it's not a big deal as long as you're aware of this going into it. [spoiler]The father is carrying a shotgun...[/spoiler] so they seem to keep the scenario & dialogue exactly the same--they just don't show what he's holding.

I liked this episode a lot and would never have guessed that it was anime-original, because [spoiler]the Kaname-Mika[/spoiler] thing appears to be quite closely connected to the story of Fumika herself. Unless they're just trying to trick us into thinking that, which would be, um, kind of lame and random. Maybe they used this standalone story as an opportunity to bring up a plot point from the novel?

The tone of ep. 3 and the [spoiler]ultimate reason for Sen-chan's suicide[/spoiler] really resonated with me. I thought it was especially great how they used the video games as a backdrop.

~Dagger~

[Fasteriskhead]

From what I've seen so far, Shigofumi's probably the show to beat this season. It's perhaps a bit too j-horror for my liking (I enjoyed Jigoku Shoujo et al as much as the next otaku, but it's nice to occasionally watch a show and have it not be a psychological assault), but god damn is it pretty to look at. And I don't just mean that the production values are excellent: that's been the case for shows that look nowhere near as good as this. There's an attention to detail and an overall, comprehensive [i]feel[/i] to Shigofumi that I can't recall having seen in a TV anime for a long time (Gunbuster 2 is the most recent comparison I can think of, but that's a direct-to-video).

And then there's the story, which I will not discuss. It's smart - leave it at that.

Excepting a couple of other series that I have high hopes for (Spice and Wolf and True Tears are towards the top), Shigofumi looks like it's going to wipe the floor with everyone this season. I guess we'll see, eh?

[Dagger]

Side note: the novel-adaptation mystery has been solved! :catgirl:

I've been told that the anime is actually the original version, although the novels were published first. (Wait; it makes sense.) Basically, the novels were written by the producers/writers of the anime, so the first three episodes are "anime-original" in only the most technical terms. That explains a lot about ep. 3.

~Dagger~