Short Synopsis: Two normal schoolgirls find themselves in a strange fantasy world. The twist: they don’t get any new powers to fight with.
Good: Extremely likable characters; A great twist to a concept which has been used in many, many anime.
Bad: Even though it’s not a real bad point, the chibi-characters may be a turn-off for most people.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Okay, I’ve fallen in love with another concept. Now that Ayatsuri Sakon’s novelty is wearing off, and the subs for Popolocrois have been stalled for ages I’ve been looking for another old anime to blog about. I’m really hoping that the subbers continue releasing this project till the end, as I’ve been searching for this series for ages, and it deserves to be watched. That’s another reason I decided to blog this: the hope that more people will try to give this wonderful concept a chance.
The concept behind this anime is simple, but brilliant. Two schoolgirls are transported to another world for reason X. In normal situations, they’d meet up, act a bit bewildered, get in danger, and get ahold of some strange amounts of powers with which they save the world. Not this time, though. They ended up in a world full of small people, who are just as scared of them, as they are scared. Finally, two people are labelled as the “great protectors” for a good reason. After all, if you’d saw two giants in the middle of a war, you’d see them as special, wouldn’t you? ^^
The two main characters are also extremely interesting. One of them is just lazy and easily annoyed. The other is a goodie-two-shoe. She always abides by the rules, tries to please everyone, but in the end, she’s extremely annoying. Together, they form a great team. Eri obviously wants to help, since she doesn’t understand anything, though Yuki has no intention to help. This holds Eri back as well, as she doesn’t want to upset Yuki. When the enemy-soldiers attack in the end, however, and the two princesses of the tribe which took them in are in danger, Eri manages to scare them away by yelling, screaming and running to their place, Yuki follows her in this. I loved how Eri laughed when everything was over. You don’t expect that from a shy and reserved person at all.
Despite the chibi-characters, this is one serious show. It’s got comedy, but that takes a step back for what’s really important in this anime: the tribe’s struggles with their enemies, and the relationship with Eri and Yuki. The fights actually involve strategy, and this isn’t such a kiddie-show in which nobody gets hurt either. In fact, Yuki already got hit by an arrow in the first episode. She managed to use the element of surprise this time to scare the enemy away, but I’m really looking forward to seeing the enemy coming up with strategies to defeat the two of them. It shouldn’t be too hard, as they can be easily defeated if you send enough men at them, and keep hitting them. I wonder what the two of them will do against it.
For more information about this series and its subbers, you can go here (it also offers direct downloads, if you can’t use bittorrent for some reason):
http://z10.invisionfree.com/Church_of_Berserk/index.php?showforum=49
One final note: the background music has a great feel to this. It makes use of highly atmospheric tunes, which fit the style and story perfectly.]]>
Strange Dawn – 01
