Room 208

Elaborate Burn

@spinor writes:

Interesting that From the New World showed up on your best anime list, since I remember you complaining about it and IIRC it showed up as gray on the anime wall rather than green.

My own personal conclusion on From the New World is that it’s a visibly flawed series in many regards – in particular, it sets up a lot of questions in its first half that are pushed off to the side and never really answered in the second, which is unfortunate for a show that emphasizes its plot to such a degree. That being said, I’m not going to deny that it was one of the year’s most ambitious shows, particularly in its characterization, vocal performances (this is what put Risa Taneda on the map for a lot of people), and the breadth of its setting. I’d say it’s worth seeing for those reasons alone, even if the whole package doesn’t quite gel in the way some of my other picks do.

(Incidentally, a somewhat harsher version of the previous paragraph would sum up my views on Penguindrum. I’ve thought about writing a post on this commonality, but right now I’ve concluded that I just don’t have enough to say on the subject quite yet.)