2007’s #5: Dennou Coil — Retreading Old (Home) territory
Posted by: Owen S in Anime, Review, tags: Dennou Coil, Year In ReviewI’ve always found honesty to be the best policy, which is why I’m going to state upfront that I found Dennou Coil to be horribly overrated. Not in the “this is bad, what were you thinking” sense, but the “this is good, but there were other infinitely superior shows this year” sense. It’s one of those anime that sound great on paper, at least from what I’ve seen of the other reviews already written out there. It hit all the right notes, or at least knew what notes to hit while looking incredibly hip and cool, a contemporary tour de force a decade in the making.
Unfortunately, DC felt like Noein to me; something that just didn’t cut it regardless of technical superiority. It had a stellar soundtrack, a more or less original premise, solid characterisation, avant-garde animation, and quantum physics jargon — a winning combination, by any standards. Yet for all its promise and potential I found myself watching an anime just like any other, even if it had everything going for it. I was, for a lack of better word, nonplussed, and couldn’t understand the praise heaped upon it.
Naturally, it gets my goat whenever I have to wonder if I just didn’t “get it”. This inevitably volatile issue of taste will of course differ across the blogosphere, but what exactly was it this time round that made me stay in my chair when everyone else was giving a standing ovation? I made the connection a few days ago, and it’s an answer that takes us all the way back to 2002: Haibane Renmei.








