The Fall 2014 Anime Preview Guide

Celestial Method

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Nick Creamer

Rating: 3.5

Celestial Method opens with Nonoka and her father returning back to Lake Kiriya City after years in Tokyo. When they left they were three, but now her mother is gone. Shades of that loss, and off many other small separations, color all the events of this surprisingly touching first episode.

This episode is dense as well, and establishes a great deal. The strange hovering disk that hangs above their city. The mysterious blue-haired girl Noel, who seems somehow tied to the disk. Nonoka's four childhood friends, with whom she made some kind of pact at the ancient observatory. The overt narrative of this episode concerns Honoka slowly coming to remember the bond she held with Noel, accidentally lashing out at her in a fit of misplaced grief, and finally reconnecting with her strange friend. But it's really the grace of the telling that elevates this show.

Though the direction and animation aren't particularly noteworthy, the music really helps sell this episode's dramatic moments. And beyond that, the storytelling itself is quite strong. The episode continuously echoes melancholy promises between friends - “we'll do that next time,” “I'll be right back,” etc. Loss and separation hang over all the episode's events, and help tie together a few separate strands that don't really inherently connect. Though we're only given a scene or two of context for the bond between Nonoka and Noel, the thematic coherence that bond shares with Nonoka's thoughts on her mother and moments with her other friends makes the episode's final reunion scene ring remarkably true. Few episodes establish this much while also telling their own full story, much less do all that without appearing over-stuffed with raw material.

Noel's link with the floating disk, as well as her promise to “grant Nonoka's wishes,” give some indication of the direction the show will go from here. There will likely be both happy and melancholy reunions, childhood promises will morph into adolescent conflicts, and everyone will have a good cry. The elements on display here aren't particularly novel, but if the narrative composition remains this solid, the show will likely turn out to be a fine little drama.

Celestial Method is available streaming at Crunchyroll.

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Bamboo Dong

Rating:  3

It's clear from the opening scene that Celestial Method will eventually tug at your heartstrings. If not now, then perhaps later, after you've let your guard down and told yourself that there's no way these angelic-faced kiddos, pleasant alien friends, and fox pals would ever hurt you. But it's obvious it's that kind of show, with its touches of amnesia, too-pastel-to-be-happy-forever backgrounds, and dead parents. Not to mention, it's written by one of the people (Naoki Hisaya) who worked on Kanon, so there are definitely some tear-jerking (and supernatural) twists and turns to come.

The episode opens with a shot of a field of sunflowers, backed by the sound of a girl humming. The next shot we see is a car loaded with belongings, but it's a bittersweet move. After seven years in Tokyo, Nonoka and her dad are finally moving back to Lake Kiriya City where the two of them once lived with Nonoka's mom. She's no longer in the picture, but we don't really know the details yet. What we do know is that Nonoka has lost many of her memories of her old home, forgetting old friends and shared experiences, and the city that she once lived in is no longer the same—now, there's a giant blue saucer that lurks overhead. Throughout the course of the episode, a few key memories start trickling back, and by the end of it, she has reunited once again with a mysterious girl named Noel who offers to grant her wishes.

The first episode is about as vague as it can get, but those who enjoy shows like Kanon and Air are used to this kind of thing by now. The soft music and the flowery fields are all part of the setup. We're meant to get suckered into the characters' idyllic, but slightly off, lives, shortly before we're punched in the gut with revelations that will change everything we know about them. Considering how upfront the first episode is about the alien saucer and magic wishes, though, it's possible that this series won't peddle shock value as much as some of the other entries in this sub-sub-sub-genre of slice-of-life-romance-shows-with-crazy-twists. More Waiting in the Summer, perhaps, and less Kanon (although there is another fox). Chances are, there will be much said about friendship and being thankful for the things you have, but whether or not the series can forge enough of an emotional connection with the viewers to matter is still something that remains to be seen.

Until then, the show is good for people who want to stare at pretty things. The backgrounds are beautifully drawn and full of natural imagery, while the character designs are pleasantly (but generically) good looking. The presence of a twist can already be telegraphed from a mile away, but at least for now, we can't tell what it is, and I'm definitely curious enough to stick around and find out.

Celestial Method is available streaming on Crunchyroll.

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Hope Chapman

Rating:  3

Celestial Method is real cute and sweet but boy does it have some clarity problems.

I'm all for "show, don't tell" when it comes to anime (especially when it comes to anime!) but there's a difference between subtlety and puzzlement, and Celestial Method dances on the line between them in a way that makes it hard to get invested in this soppy tale of warm-fuzzies to the degree it requires to really stand out. The full picture is painted slowly and vaguely, and when the definitive direction of the whole package finally touches down, it's clear that there was no need to be so roundabout in getting there. It tinkers with big, deep emotions but doesn't really give us the real-world connection we need to those emotions to understand where they're coming from in the characters.

Great, now I'm being slow and vague. Okay, here's the breakdown: Nonoka moved away from her childhood town after her mother became ill, and has now moved back after her mother passed away. In the meantime, a strange flying saucer has appeared over the town, attracting new curious faces to the otherwise unassuming middle-of-nowhere villa, and a blue-haired "something" from this flying saucer, named Noel, appears before Nonoka to fulfill some kind of "promise" that she has forgotten about.

It seems simple, and the show is well-directed, well-animated, and quite pretty all around, but because of the long, languishing moments of scenery porn breaking up the action and the vague out-of-order displacement of events, it becomes difficult for the experience to really hold your attention. It doesn't help that other characters are introduced in other vague dialogue scenes without establishment until later, where you'll see them characterized in a flashback if you can make the connection that these blank-faced country folk are the same people as the kids we saw. This is obviously a show with some mild ambition despite its tired premise, so it may be worth keeping an eye on, but the schizophrenia of the first episode left me a little cold. It reaches a big emotional climax right before the credit roll and all I could think was, "Oh, were we supposed to be really invested in these girls already? Maybe I missed something. Oh well, sure is pretty!"

This is worth a quick look just for the charm and the visuals, but it will need more episodes to prove that it has a well-conceived story to tell. Keep a side-eye on it.

Celestial Method is available streaming on Crunchyroll.

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Rebecca Silverman

Rating:  3 (out of 5)

Celestial Method is both utterly predictable and sweetly enjoyable, a combination that works rather well. The basic set up is one that we've seen before almost too many times to count – someone moved away from a small, idyllic country town and is now returning years later. In this case, that someone is Nonoka, and I must say that having the returnee be a girl rather than a boy who made some romantic promise to a girl he can't quite recall is a nice change. In any event, Nonoka left with her parents for Tokyo and is now returning with just Dad. Although it is never said, there is a strong implication that they left for Mom's health and that she has since passed away. It is surprisingly subtle in this regard, as we never see a shrine being unpacked and have only one shot of Nonoka's mother sleeping in the car. Equally subtle is Nonoka's old friends. She sees two of them briefly in this episode, but it is clear that only one remembers her and that she doesn't instantly recognize them as girls she used to hang out with. While we know from the preview that this will change, in this episode it sets Celestial Method apart from similar shows. (Also the girls have all changed their hairstyles since childhood, which is almost unheard of.)

There is a Mysterious Promise, of course, but that appears to have been made with Noel and not Souta, the lone boy of the group. Noel is a strange, blue-haired girl who disappears at will and who is really excited to see Nonoka again. Nonoka doesn't remember her or any promise, and is, if not creeped out exactly, not all that sure who this weird girl is. Given that she appears unsurprised by the translucent saucer hovering above the town, this is saying something. Naturally she remembers both Noel and the promise by the end of the episode, and Noel reveals that she has been waiting for Nonoka to come back so that she can grant her wishes. Does this tie in with what Nonoka and her (forgotten) friends were doing in the old observatory in the past? Almost certainly, and we can guess that Nonoka wanted to summon someone to stop her family from leaving town. But what can Noel do for her now?

We can guess to a large degree where this show is likely to go – although it may surprise me – and that near-certainty plus the possibility of it being somehow different acts as a draw. Nonoka is surprisingly gimmick-free as a heroine, neither too clumsy nor too perfect, which makes her feel like a stable point in the story, particularly since her old friends all do appear to have quirks of some kind, like Koharu's inability to figure out how to get a standee through a door or Long Haired Girl's apparently surgically attached headphones. Noel is cute and endearing to the point where she's almost too much, and in this episode at least Nonoka balances her out. The animation looks quite good, as well, with a lot of body language shining through, particularly in the ending theme, where everyone has a distinctive gait. Celestial Method may not be something entirely new or exciting, but it is interesting and kind of comfortable, so if you aren't looking for fanservice or action but still like a clear plot, this first episode is worth checking out.

Celestial Method is available streaming on Crunchyroll.