Monday 10 January 2005

Pic of the day: "We wish we'd never ever awaken from our dreams." Yeah. You wish. Both of you wish. In fact, double-you wish...

"W Wish" anime, review

Let me preface this by pointing out something about Japanese culture versus European and American. Japanese comics ("manga") are generally in black and white, and printed on cheap paper. For this reason, they are far less expensive, and have spread to much wider parts of society. Indeed, almost all of society. There is manga for housewives and salarymen, as well as a wide range of manga for boys and for girls from grade school to college. There is a plethora of sports manga, and even cooking manga! Of course there are also topics of magic, myth and science fiction, but strangely absent is what we think of as typical superhero comics. (Perhaps superherodom is, after all, America's attempt to create its own mythology?)

Because of the dense underbrush of all sorts of manga, the anime (cartoons) are also diverse, often combining topics that we westerners don't expect. A common combination is romance and magic. While not unknown from cheap books, it has hardly become a staple of cartoons around here. But in Japan it is very nearly a genre. "W Wish" is one such anime, or nearly so. It consists of 13 short episodes. At first they stand alone fairly well, but gradually they begin to blur. I recommend setting aside an evening for watching the last few episodes: If you have come that far, you will not want to stop until you are finished. But whether you get hooked in the first place is less certain. I hope you will have an idea once you have read this.

***

The main characters, as introduced at the start, is a young boy and his sister. They live alone together after the death of their parents. At this time, some experienced anime viewers will already begin to feel uneasy. This is a common plot device in which we soon learn that the two siblings are not, after all, blood related but rather one is adopted or they come from their parents earlier marriages. Many romance anime explore the borderlands of incest in this way. In some cases, time passes in which the characters (and viewers) don't know whether they are actually related. But this is not quite one of those. Still, the girl is very clingy and gets upset if anyone comes between her and her brother. He is less attached to her, but she is still very important to him. He angrily refuses to leave their common home to move into a campus dorm. So clearly they mean a lot to each other.

However, the boy's memories stop at the car crash that killed their parents. He can not remember anything before that. Or that is what he thinks. Then one day a police car shows up, bringing another girl. She claims with conviction that SHE is his only sister, and he remembers her name! Maybe there is a natural explanation?

No, it turns out there is a supernatural explanation. I cannot tell you all about that, because that is the whole point of the story. But in the end, the boy will have to choose which reality he wants to live in: The one with the sister he has known for years, or the one with the sister from his forgotten past. If he chooses one, he condemns the other to oblivion, but if he does not choose, they will all perish.

***

This anime is different from the genre in that it is not (primarily) a choice of a lover, but of a family member. Normally you cannot choose your family, but the magic makes an exception. As such, there is less "fanservice" (pointless indecency) than in some competing shows, but there is the mandatory swimsuit episode and also a case of bathing together in the home (although the sister thoughtfully wears swimsuit even there). Generally this should be a pretty family-friendly anime, unless you have an active imagination.

The artwork is solid but not exceptional. The characters are easy to tell apart (with one exception which is probably intentional). The intro and end songs are fairly pleasant but forgettable. Presently, the show is only available as fansub (subtitled free download) for those who don't speak Japanese. If it becomes officially available in English, I recommend that you rent this rather than buying it. It does not really deserve being viewed again and again. Once you get to the end, you will probably enjoy the way it is resolved, but this will also take away the suspense and much reduce the excitement of watching it again. There simply is not enough depth to become a classic, but it is certainly an original. The relationship plot twist makes this one of the more interesting "boy and girls" show of the season.