Strange Dawn – 02

Short Synopsis: Now that the enemy has fled, Darl tries to make the villagers get rid of Shall. Especially now that the two great protectors have announced to leave. He still believes in them, though. Good: How! Incredibly! Refreshing!!! Bad: It’s annoying! This series is sparking so much thoughts into me, but I just can’t get them into words. Overall Enjoyment Value: 8.5/10 Oh my god. I’ve fallen in love with another anime. I don’t care if this anime turns out to be disappointing for the rest of its episodes. The past two episodes were SO worth watching, as they easily breached more than a dozen clichés. I can’t believe how realistic this anime portrays the actions of our heroes, and I can’t believe how incredibly NEGLECTED this anime has become! Like I mentioned above, this episode felt SO refreshing, I want to say so much about it, but I feel that I just can’t put all of my feelings to words and do this series justice. I’ll try, though. For starters, usually in battle, when people die you see a few shots of them in the midst of dying, usually with lots of blood, and that’s the rest you’ll see of them. In Strange Dawn, however, this guy really mattered in the aftermath. His death was seen as a real loss, and we even see his family in pain, even though that’s the first time we see him. If an anime really wants to try, it gives a bit of background about the guy before he dies, but never have I seen that background is given after the guy died, like in Strange Dawn. This emphasizes the fact that he’s just a random victim even more. His son, coming to Eri, asking her to bring his father back was heart-wrenching. Also, how many times have we seen characters who get thrown into unexpected situations, and suddenly know exactly how to behave? Or they take one episode, in which they yell at the one responsible about how they never asked about their “duties”, and then suddenly everything’s fine and they’re ready to save the world? Probably too many to count. The combination of Eri and Yuki greatly breaks this stereotype. Eri likes to dream and keep everyone pleased. She’s afraid to go against people, and she likes the idea of keeping everyone happy. Because of that, she tries a few things here and there, but you can see that she doesn’t even try. Yuki, meanwhile, cares far less about what other people think of her. She hates being in the centre of attention, and with people referring to her as the “great protector”, just because she’s large greatly annoys her. All she cares about is getting home. To make things even better, we don’t have that melodramatic crap where a character like that sees the light in the end, and cooperates with the main character like nothing happened. She indeed helped during the last episode, but that was probably more out of a reflex than wanting to help out at all costs. I also love the village chief. He’s the perfect example of how easily people are influenced. Also, notice the vultures which have been circling around the town. Eri also was cute when she tried to find a toilet. It’s definitely something you’d expect of her. She just keeps worrying too much over things, and while Yuki started the toilet-thing, the probably forgot it not long after she said it. When I first saw Shall, I feared that he’d be your standard strong hero. Even with that, I’m proven wrong. He isn’t impulsive at all, heck, he has lots of doubts about himself. For some reason, though, he keeps clinging to the thought that Eri and Yuki are the great protectors. It seems that he went to “the city” for a while, which seems to suggest that he went to the main capital, and that the village is just an outpost. Something probably happened during his stay in the city, which influenced him greatly. I probably missed a lot of things in this short review, but there’s one final thing I’d like to say, if you skimmed through this article: do NOT get fooled by the character designs! The story in fact is quite dark and serious!]]>