I’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.

So the responses to yesterday�s full-frontal assault GITS-style on the blogosphere were mixed, interesting, and nothing less of what I�d expect from you guys. Among others, Mike shows his true elitist colours. Roxas made a pie-chart. DS talked about illusion of depth. JP Meyer pulled an Abyssal One, sounding a lot like Riful in the process. lolikit gave a free striptease.

In other news, Dennou Coil 08 was terribly bittersweet. It�s a very well-layered confection of light-hearted fun alternating with melancholic undertones, and the way it bounced back and forth between both in the episode only endeared me more to it. There�s something to be said for the magic in how it does so, and the way it handled the material this time was nothing short of superb.

are summer festivals like the cue for adolescent Japanese males to go gaga over their female childhood friends? because Bokurano�s Moji did this too

I don’t have any real issues with Hayao Miyazaki’s work for the record, they’re pieces of art blah blah critically acclaimed blah blah but it just doesn’t resonate with the average anime viewer. How many of you reading this actually like his work enough to put it at your #1 spot(s)? It’s give or take to me, good thing the latest film he’s working on is purportedly his last.

you know what they say about seeing what you want to see? this isn’t a shop, which makes it even funnier than the Kanon one, displayed after the cut