The reason I’m a big fan of Sato Junichi is not because of his slice of life. Aria and Tamayura are very good, but he isn’t the best slice of life director out there (that honour goes to Tomomi Mochizuki). Instead, this guy’s ability to portray emotions is what really won me over. My favorite show of his, Strange Dawn, doesn’t rock because of how much sense its plot makes, but instead it became among my favorite series because of how it nailed the emotional states its characters were in.
Now, Phi Brain is obviously nowhere as good as those series, and it’s definitely the weirdest show he’s ever worked on, but his influence is still noticeable. This was a very emotional episode, and even though it was about solving puzzles, it actually worked because of the chemistry between the three lead characters.
There also was a strange team of animators behind this episode. One that didn’t worry about keeping with the character models, and the consistency was all over the place. But ah well: the animation of this show is very limited, so it’s at least nice to see that they’re trying out different things. Heck, in the case of the big bad they actually improved his looks, and with such a small animation budget, a bit of inconsistency is actually quite nice to get some more expressiveness out of the characters.
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Phi Brain – 06
