After the first episode, I was pretty sure that I’d end up blogging this series. The second episode of Kurenai is less impressive then the first one, but that’s only natural. If you’re going to start with a bang, you obviously need to take things easy in the second episode so that the characters can be fleshed out a bit. Especially Murasaki and Shinkuro got a lot of attention in this episode.
What immediately stands out for this series, apart from the art-style, is that these two main characters don’t act their age at all. I can imagine how Murasaki was educated early on, as she already speaks Japanese at adult-level, though at the same time she’s just like a princess who has been pampered for all her life. And yet she’s more than your typical spoiled princess, because most of her arrogance comes from her ignorance, and not her need to feel superior to all lower life-forms.
Shinkuro on the other hand, doesn’t show any signs of puberty at all (something of which I’m REALLY glad). We still don’t know much about him, but he’s seen his dead mother right in front of his eyes, he probably lost his father as well, he’s turned into a killing-machine with purple blood and strange elbows.
Another thing about this series is the use of dialogue. When the tension increases, the characters hardly let the others finish speaking before they say something. Where you’d usually hear a one-second pause between one sentence and the next, Kurenai shortens this to a quarter of a second. I’m not sure whether this series is the first one to do this, but it is the first time I’ve noticed it.
One thing I’m quite curious about is the length of this series: will it be 13 or 26 episodes, and if there are 26 episodes, then how does this series plan to fill its time? Some series are quite sneaky about it. For Persona, for example, I realized really late that it was supposed to run for two seasons, instead of just one.
Hmm…I’m not sure how long it’ll be. I hope it’s 26 episodes based on the pacing, but I believe there’s only three novels of the series out, meaning they could run out of source material pretty quickly.
Denying puberty is denying the human nature.
Dude, it’s only normal that a 16-years old boy acts like a 16-years old boy. Makoto Ito is quite probably THE most realistic character I’ve seen in anime.
Also, I think that Kurenai is going to be only 13 episodes long. Brains Base is planning to do Natsume Yuujincho in july, and for it’s a quite small studio, they don’t do more than one anime at the same time.
Please….DON’T mention the mother *&^&%$ Makoto Ito.
Anyway, this show seems like a real solid work. I already love the craters and I’m really intrested in what Kurenai can REALLY do with hid modified body.
Just because Shinkuro acts level headed, doesn’t mean he hasn’t gone through puberty haha, a lot of teenage boys keep their hormones in check. I think he appears to be a very realistic (althoug rare) teen boy who just knows how to act right. Although, he is a teenager with a strange occupation and weird anatomy.
I remember a similiar dialogue technique from Red Garden, remember the fight between Claire and her dad at the hospital? Although not quite the same, the interesting direction when it comes to the dialogue has the same style.
Now that you mention it, you’re right. Red Graden was one of the few series that followed Mahou Shoujotai’s example of recording the voice-acting before animating the characters. I’m not sure whether Kurenai did the same, but it would be awesome if that was the case.
From what I’ve read, the director for Kurenai and Red Garden is the same guy and the he seems to prefer having the voices done before the animation in all the series he’s been the head director of. So yes I do believe Kurenai has voices done before the animation. I wish more series would allow this, it seems to allow the actors to give it their all without concern for lip syncing and so they speak more naturally and during dramatic moments they can just focus on acting.
Haven’t watched ep2 yet….but so far this is my fave series of Spring 08… ANN sez it’s 13 eps long, but they’ve been wrong before.
I’ve not read the light novel, but I’ve read the first volume of the manga, and it’s very different from the anime, as it seems a bit later in the timeline. My guess is the anime will end where the manga starts, maybe…
the purple blood part made me laugh. i’m just watching it now, i thought the same thing as you.
I think that the purple stuff was wine, maybe? because he got hit with a wine bottle. XD