Gokukoku no Brynhildr is a science fiction horror series featuring a lot of dead girls. It's also the video equivalent of a page-turner; I got caught and watched the whole thing, so I didn't get to bed until after 4AM.

There are a lot of good things and bad things, and describing them necessarily involves spoilers, so below the fold we go.

Not in any particular order:

GOOD: Our Hero isn't a typical potato-kun like so many harem leads. He's got a dark past but he isn't paralyzed by angst. He witnesses some amazing things at the beginning but doesn't get so freaked out as to lose his wits. He's got a noble streak, and a refreshing streak of ruthlessness in a few cases. Yet he's kind and caring and takes considerable risks to help a handful of girls he only recently met.

BAD: The main villain. Too often in shows like this the bad guy is bad because... bad guys are bad, OK? Why are you asking stupid questions? In this case they do make some attempt to explain why he ended up being so evil, but I didn't find it convincing. In the end he really is bad because he's the bad guy.

GOOD: Nudity. There's a hotsprings at the observatory and we get to watch the girls bathe several times. For instance:

I'm not actually so certain this was a good thing. Like in Divergence Eve this isn't fundamentally a fan service show, and inclusion of fan service dilutes the real story. It isn't as blatant as in DE but it's still a problem.

GOOD: It isn't really a harem. One guy and (for most of the series) four girls, but it's obvious from the very beginning which girl he is attracted to, and the others all know it. One of the other girls likes to tease him, but deep down she knows it isn't likely to pay off. (She's the one in the screen cap above, and she did that deliberately.)

GOOD: Technomagical powers. I love watching people with super powers.

BAD: Contrivance. Some of the powers approach the level of deus ex machina. Most notably the one with Regeneration, who brings several of the girls -- and Our Hero -- back to life after they'd been killed. A different thing: Our Hero's eidetic memory makes him immune to Nanami's ability to wipe people's memories? Why exactly?

BAD: Dead girls. Lots of dead girls. And one of the main characters stays dead. On the other hand, it raised the tension level considerably when the audience realizes that nearly anyone could be the next one to die horribly. In fact, Our Hero dies twice. But he gets better.

BAD: Gore. When the girls die, it's usually rather awful.

BAD: A lot of the logic behind the series doesn't survive a night's sleep. For instance, where did the bad guy get all the girls from that he's using for human experimentation? It isn't just four or five; evidence is that it's been hundreds of them and most of those died. And... why was it always girls? There's no obvious reason why it wouldn't have worked equally well with boys. I also am having a hard time believing that an organization as large and well funded as this one could exist, unless it's run by a corrupt government, and there isn't any hint of that. There are five illuminati that the bad guy takes his orders from, and they evidently are the source of all the resources he's using. Who are they? That's left for the sequel when-and-if.

GOOD: Characterization. Too often shows like this make their characters cardboard cutouts. This time they spend a fair amount of time building them up in our minds as being real people, and it makes a big difference.

BAD: A-cup angst. Man, with all the shit that's going down and knowing that she might only have days left to live, why is Kazumi obsessed with having small breasts?

BAD: The story isn't finished. It's a reasonably satisfactory stopping point, but there are several plot threads left hanging and it's obvious they left themselves hooks for a sequel, if sales justify it.

So, do I recommend it? On balance, yes. It's flaws aren't so apparent on first watching and there's a lot that's nicely done. And despite my aversion to shows featuring dead girls, I was willing to keep watching in spite of the many such occurrences.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 10:50 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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