Shelf Life

Phoenix Down

The first few episodes on this disc are actually dreadfully mundane. They just roll through the cast of women, pausing every now and then to allow one of the girls to do something cute. One moment, a girl is chasing after a cat, the next, another one is “uguu”ing over a scary movie. It's almost maddening in a way, because no matter how intriguing the characters may be (Who's the demon hunter and what's her role? Who is the sickly girl and why/when is she dying?), the show refuses to reveal any answers. The scenes are so similar and repetitive that careening through this disc almost has a Groundhog Day effect.

This all changes in the last episode, though, which is just flat-out bizarre—not only for viewers, but probably for the main character, too. It definitely takes on a very fantastical twist, and requires viewers to place a lot of faith in the inherent magic of the story. Much like Air and its winged girl, Kanon has its own brand of mysticism.

While it's hard for me to wholeheartedly endorse the entire disc (because seriously, the first three episodes were incredibly boring), I do think the last episode makes it worth watching. It's a little offbeat, and it's a hell of a cliffhanger. At the very least, it's made me promise myself that I'll definitely watch the next volume this week. This volume of Kanon isn't as charming as the first, but with an ending like that, I'm looking forward to what'll happen next.[TOP]

The first episode continues where the previous disc left off—the story takes place on a moon colony, where a young man is on the lam from his colleagues, who have replaced his brain with an artificial one. Because of that, he views all humans as mechanical beasts, and has placed all his trust in a discarded robot whom he sees as a beautiful girl. Angry at humans for abandoning Earth, he wants revenge against their actions. The story then shifts to another space and time, where the main character is a girl who finds herself trapped in a time loop, doomed to forever help people to atone for her sins. Finally, it launches into another arc, where a wolf-faced man (a condition thrust upon him artificially) must defend his village's ideologies against an unsympathetic government.

It sounds a bit messy, but the stories are easy enough to understand once you actually watch them. At first, I was put off by the style of storytelling, but it's something I got used to. More than anything, the arcs function more as a vehicle for certain themes and ideas, than for linear stories, and in that sense, it works. The episodes tend to drag a bit at times, but if you've got the patience to watch the series and are prepared to think about what each episode is trying to say, you can get a lot out of it. Phoenix isn't something that would appeal to the casual viewer looking for an action-packed romp, but for those who want something a little more mature and thought-provoking, this will get your synapses firing.[TOP]

The lead male is a freelance photographer who heads to the hills of Germany to take pictures of a castle rumored to have paranormal activity. When he gets there, he encounters Hazuki, a vampire who tries to make him her eternal servant by doing whatever blood-pacting vampires do. Unfortunately, it has no effect on the photographer, and cutesy scenes ensue. She moves in with him at his grandpa's house, cute things happen, and fanboys all over the world smile under their sheets.

It's not really until the latter half of the series that anything substantial happens. Viewers get the pay-off of seeing the two characters grow closer together, and eventually even the action ramps up, as vampires start attacking, and the girl stop being so prissy.

I almost wish they would can half of the first half of the show, just to get into the meat of it. I love cute things as much as the next girl/Asian/Asian girl, but in this case, it really breaks up the flow of the story. It's hard to take seriously a dark, gothic environment when the mood is continuously interrupted by something frilly.

In the end, Moon Phase is a fun enough show for people looking to kill some time over a weekend. It functions adequately as a vampire show, but more than anything, it's a good chance to see lots of cute girls who could also kill you if they felt like it. That's got to have some appeal.[TOP]