We're getting a lot of really good shows this season, shows which don't feel like they were created by accessing random pages at the TVTropes site.

I would have said that Madoka Magica was the most original show of the season, until I watched Fractale.

The character designs and art look like they came from Studio Ghibli, and quite frankly that's high praise. The story is science fiction.

It reminds me a bit of the Asimov novel The Naked Sun, which was about a world where every person lived apart. They visited each other quite a lot, but always and only by projecting holograms of themselves, never in person.

In this series there are what are called "doppels". They represent people, but it isn't clear whether they are avatars or simulations. What we do know is that most of them don't look human.

That's where our hero, Clain, lives. Very picturesque setting.

That's his parents. Or their doppels. His parents are both alive, but they live elsewhere, apart from each other as well.

Clain and his best friend (that brown thing) go to a junk sale. Turns out there are some guys there selling "data drugs", which are illegal. They try to get Clain interested, but he refuses.

Clain finds someone selling old computer stuff, real antiques. there's a 64G SDHC, in particular.

And then cops show up. Real ones. One of them uses a gizmo which turns off all the Doppels (including some that look like normal humans), and there are only four people left. Clain is one of them. The other three (the drug dealers) high-tail it away, carrying a box. The cops chase them, leaving Clain all alone.

He keeps the chip. And on his way home, he stops at a bench and tries accessing it. Turns out it contains ancient documentation about the Fractale system, the world-wide computer system which, among other things, is responsible for projecting all the doppels.

Comes a certain time, and he has to engage in "prayer". This means he must stand and look at the "day star", a glowing light in the distance that isn't a star. While he's doing so, a girl on a flyer buzzes him. Three other people in some sort of jet-propelled balloon (which looks exactly like something Miyazaki would have drawn) chase her and start shooting at her.

And it goes from there.

I was hooked instantly, and I'm still hooked.

UPDATE: "Let's get Aroduc! He hates everything!"

I'm beginning to worry about Aroduc; he seems to hate everything these days. Even shows that I thought were amazing, all he's got to say is how they are boring and insipid and... on and on like that. He hated this one, too.

Look, a kid who lives alone in an isolated place, and his only companionship is things that don't even look like people, and suddenly a real, live, warm girl ends up in his bedroom, with nothing on above the waist, and eventually passes out in his arms. What exactly would you expect from him? Of course he freaks out. But he doesn't molest her, and he generally treats her well and acts honorably. It's not that he's afraid of cooties, it's that he doesn't know how to behave when around other people in the flesh. It's a plot point; it's an aspect of this world.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 10:08 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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