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Aku no Hana is probably the most controversial anime in the Spring 2013 anime lineup, and not without good reason. For as much flak as it got though, I thoroughly enjoyed the first episode and I shall offer my analysis and review here.
Art:
To start off, let's discuss the point of contention which divides watchers: Art.
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The art in Aku no Hana would turn off viewers who are used to standard anime fare where characters are either beautifully drawn or look moe. In fact, even some readers of the original manga were unhappy about how the anime turned out. This is because the director decided to apply a technique known as rotoscopy in the anime, causing the characters to look nothing like anime at all. (You can read the interview with the original mangaka and anime director if you want to know more about what was going on in their minds to have them reach this decision.)
As someone who has checked out the first chapter or so of the manga before the anime aired though, I didn't mind the art in the anime; in fact, I thought it was great. I do admit that I was indeed somewhat surprised at the art when when I first saw people posting screenshots of the raws on twitter as it aired, but after I sat down and watched the episode as a whole I grew to understand, accept and like it.
In my opinion, once you keep in mind that the director wanted to achieve a “live action” feel with the anime, you really start to see the faces of real human actors from the art. In fact, with a bit of imagination, you'd realise that Saeki's real human actor is actually quite pretty. That aside, I have no idea whether it was due to the lack of aesthetically pleasing character art to focus on or because the intriguing, unfamiliar art-style really drew me in – or a combination of both – that I started to actually pay more attention to other details such as voice acting and the way the story unfolded. If we were to look past the characters, the background art and animation is actually pretty up-to-standard with anime today as well. To put it simply, I found the choice of art was really interesting. It felt like I was watching a live action movie set in the dream-scape of the anime world.
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Tamura Yukari could've been Saeki's real-life actor for all you know…
I won't exaggerate and say that using rotoscoped character art is the best means of supplementing the storytelling and conveying of the dark themes that this anime handles; in fact, if it had just used the same art style as the manga, I'm pretty sure it would still be able to get the story through to viewers equally well. Neither of course, will I make the mistake of calling it “avant-garde” because such standards of character art is not unseen in past anime. Rather, all I can say is that the art suits the anime and complements it to a certain extent by helping us see these characters as real people, as people like you and me.
Review:
In my opinion, this episode is meant to introduce us to the setting of the story, and that it does in great length.
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Our protagonist is Kasuga Takao, a boy who lives in in what appears to be an old suburban area of Japan. He is a student and has a group of friends whom he gets along with very well. He seems to be an only child who living with parents who care about him, and he is the only one in his family who drinks milk. Like many other pubescent teenage boys Takao has a crush on a girl, and the girl in question is none other than Nanako Saeki, a girl in his class who not only has good grades but is also shown to be rather sporty. Perhaps his most outstanding point is that he is a bookworm with a vested literature, as he is always reading a book in class and visits the bookstore on a regular basis. In other words, he is what you would consider to be a characteristically normal teenager; his only defining point, if it can even be called such a thing at all, is that he has a slightly uncommon interest.
As the story unfolds, we learn that Takao is currently reading Les fleurs du mal (a.k.a. The Flowers of Evil, or as the title of this anime is called, Aku no Hana) by Charles Baudelaire. The story also drops hints that Takao views Baudelaire with high regard – as evidenced by the framed photo of Baudelaire that Takao keeps on his bookshelf – and that his love for books was inspired by his father, who appears to have a large collection himself.
We see that Takao's love for literature is matched by his infatuation for Saeki; he often turns to look at her in class – and she has probably noticed it herself as well – and we see that he is often thinking of her, be it when he is at school or at home. The most indicative sign of this is when we see imagery of Saeki being juxtaposed with Takao reciting verses from Les fleurs du mal while he is immersed in his dreamlike world.
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While Takao's friends accept his passion for books despite not being able to identify with it, Takao seems to feel that his love for books makes him somewhat superior to others (as revealed in an argument with his friend about how he was “different” because he read books). He hopes that Saeki would notice that he was reading Les fleurs du mal, presumably assuming that someone who he views in such a positive light would similarly be able to appreciate the literature he was reading and thus think highly of him.
In one of the later scenes, we find that Takao's love for books does not translate to good grades for him, with him scoring 52/100 for a test (with Saeki in contrast topping the class with 98/100). However, what was particularly striking was that in that same scene, Takao's classmate Sawa Nakamura (who sits behind him) was shown to have left her exam script entirely blank, and she enraged the teacher by saying something along the lines of “Shut up, you piece of sh*t”. He was so furious that he almost hit her, but stopped short of doing it when he realised she was taunting him and considered the consequences of hitting a female student. The anime leaves it with her returning to her seat and the teacher asking her to see him after class, but gives us no indication of whether she will be a main character in future episodes.
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Nearer to the end of the episode, we see images (and hear rustling, creeping sounds) of what appears to be something about to sprout, something about to manifest itself. This builds up towards the end of the episode where Takao returns to school to retrieve his prized book that he had absent-mindedly left under his table, and notices a bag belonging to Saeki fall to the ground from a cubicle. At this very moment, the ending theme cuts in in what I feel was a stroke of brilliance as Takao eyes widen.
Hana ga saita yo (The flower bloomed.)
Hana ga hana ga saita yo (The flower, the flower bloomed.)
Hidoku kaze ni obieta (It was terribly afraid of the wind.)
Daremo mita koto nai hana ga saiteita yo (Nobody had ever seen it before, and it bloomed.)
We cut to a scene where we see a Flower of Evil bloom, and the scene then fades away to the rolling end credits. This is quite a climatic and suspenseful cliffhanger I would say, and it leaves us questioning: “What is this flower of evil that bloomed in Takao's heart, that nobody had ever seen before? What exactly was this ‘wind' it afraid of?”
Overall, I felt that the execution of this first episode was good; the well cued end theme especially had me literally banging my fists on my table. With regards to the music, I felt that the background music really managed to keep the mood somewhat grim and solemn throughout the whole episode, and I really liked the opening song. The ending theme was really… something else, and the image shown after the ending credits rolled was not quite ordinary either.
Aku no Hana is a deviant. A really bold deviant, indeed.
Verdict:
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End Card: The mangaka tells us “pieces of shi*t” to tune in next week too.
With it's art style, the Aku no Hana anime is one that polarises anime fans. Given that the original manga was already pretty niche, the anime is bound to result in further isolation of fans that enjoy this series as a whole in both anime and manga forms. The first episode introduces a lot of new content not present in the manga in a bid to lay out the background and setting for the story (in fact, everything is original content until we reach the last 5 minutes of the anime, which corresponds to half of the first chapter of manga), but in doing so does not make obvious the direction in which the anime is headed towards.
However, I feel that the anime hits all the right spots for me. I like the art and the method of storytelling, especially with the scenes where Takao's thoughts are juxtaposed with Baudelaire's poetry. The background music really set the mood for the anime well and the opening and ending songs are befitting of the anime. While the Aku no Hana might not be everyone's cup of tea, I will definitely be watching on for now to see how the story develops.
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