Holy god… it took a long time for this two-episode OVA to get subbed, but it was SO worth it. Why the heck has nobody talked about this yet!? Taiyou no Mokushiroku, or A Spirit of the Sun in English is made of pure win. I’m seriously recommending this to everyone who enjoys a good, serious story.
I first wanted to just include this in my quick first impressions, though this anime deserves to be blogged. It consists out of two episodes, both take up one hour and fifteen minutes. The first episode can roughly be divided into two parts. The first part, which is also the longest, shows what happens to Japan if it were to be hit by a large chain of massive earthquakes. Seriously, that was intense. It offered a great view of how angry mother earth can be when she’s really serious. In about fifty minutes, we see the once thriving Japan being thrown into chaos, with its major cities of Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto being entirely destroyed. We follow one young boy, the grandson of one of the ministers of Japan at that time. His home gets destroyed and he ends up with a a guy who’s heading for Tokyo with emergency supplies. Then, after a while, he almost ends up drowned, and disappears. Japan, meanwhile, has split in two, and is basically playing in the hands of both China and the United States.
Though if that part wasn’t good enough, the second part of the first episode shows the aftermath. It shows how the Japanese ended up after this catastrophe, fifteen years after it happened. Though the special thing is, that it doesn’t take place in Japan. For this part, we switch to Taiwan, were our main character ended up. When he nearly drowned, he was picked up by a childless family, who decided to adopt him as Xian, their son. What follows is a fascinating view of the Taiwanese, who had to deal with a huge number of Japanese Refugees who came to their country. Now, fifteen years later, the relations between the Taiwanese and Japanese aren’t too good. The Japanese are extremely xenophobic, while the Taiwanese keep blaming all of their misery on the Japanese. When combined, it doesn’t make for a good combination. Xian and his newly found friend are one of the few exceptions to this. I really love this new friend of his. He’s basically one bulky, muscular guy, though at one point, he actually starts crying when he hears Xian’s story. That was so awesome.
Seriously, if the second OVA is going to be just as good as the first one, this anime is going to be magnificent. Don’t get turned off by the unusual character art, what we have here is an awesome anime about what would happen if a once thriving nation gets thrown into despair by natural disasters, and how it attempts to recover itself afterwards. Seriously, this anime NEEDS more attention than it’s getting right now!
