Anime: Spiral: Suiri no Kizuna

Overall, the begging like in a lot of good anime is awesome. It really poses a lot of questions on the viewer and introduces a deep and difficult plot. [br]Animation is well done. Nothing fancy about it.[br]The sound is okay. Opening and closing themes are not too shabby.[br]The story is the main problem. Even though it begins like a start of the rocket, it crashes on the ground into bits and pieces not being to reach its target. In the end, you never get the main questions answered that were posed in the beginning. It's like, the anime itself strayed off its main point and lost its value. [br]Character development is good, but with a weak storyline, there isn't much to say about it.[br]Value: Well, it's for you to decide to watch it or not. There is plenty fish in the sea, and this one isn't the biggest one.[br]Enjoyment: I would be lying if I didn't enjoy the series at least a bit. But, as with many anime cartoons, the beginning starts out good, but by the end, it fails to meet its expectations. I really wonder, why can't they think the whole idea till the end and make it worthwhile? Beats me. [br]This is an average anime, with some interesting twists, but does not meet expectations.[br]

Story in one (long) sentence: a bunch of kids with cat-like eyes try to outsmart/kill the filled-with-angst main character (who is somehow the only one who could save them from some horrible fate) by setting up impossible traps that only his super intelligence and far-fetched logic can get him out of, while at the same time those same kids try to evade the mysterious Hunters intent on killing them.

Warning: you'll never know more than that. Not even where the Blade Children get their budget to set up all those bombs. :)

It's difficult to write a review for this anime. I'm greatly annoyed by the fact that we don't get any answers about who are the Blade Children, where the Hunters come from, why they want to kill a bunch of kids, nothing about their alleged curse, or what has become of Kiyotaka, the super smart, super skilled older brother of Ayumu.

I was also annoyed by the petty talk, like "if we believe in ourselves, destiny can be changed, blah blah"... Those are useless, empty sentences that mean nothing and don't make the story evolve, if taken out of context, which is precisely where we are standing as viewers: no context, no clues about what the hell is going on at the higher levels of the story.

Still, as a "mystery" anime, it's a good series filled with cute guys and nicely designed characters, and it has a great beat when it comes down to creating suspense. Ayumu is cool and all looks when he gets out of all those impossible situations. However, the characters are pretty static and stoic if we look at making up a good story with them... I'm still blaming the lack of story development here :/

The soundtrack is also quite enjoyable (depending on your taste) and worth getting, although a bit repetitive in the long term.

I just finished watching Spiral, and I decided to relay my thoughts on the subject.
*spoilers*

Animation
Probably the high point of the show. The character designs and animation are solid, if somewhat derivative. As

thoroughly as the school-kid genre has been covered, you have to be pretty wild to be original these days. Wild

would be a dubious choice for Spiral. No deduction.

Sound
The soundtrack really helps maintain the pressure of the intellectual battles. (MS Word had to correct my spelling

of intellectual. Ha.) Out of the battles, there is usually a quietly haunting ambient track which adds marginally to

the interest. The opening theme is probably the best I’ve heard.

Story:
The story is a mixed bag. There are several very good episodes, especially early in the series. But the episodic

mysteries are less and less creative as the show progresses. The overarching plot is simply inexcusable. Rather than

inventing an engrossing story, the characters whine about the lack of answers or purpose. This is simply lazy

writing. Who are the Blade Children, and why must they be hunted? I don’t even care. And neither will you. Maybe the

show’s creators think they’re being creative by leaving the plot so open. More likely though, for a show so centered

on logic, they couldn’t find a logical reason for the Blade Children, and refused to compromise with something

fantastic.

fan tas tic : adj 2.c Based on or existing only in fantasy; unreal

Character:
As well as the characters are designed, most aren’t particularly interesting. Even the main character remains sadly

static. His personality from show one carries pretty much straight through until half way through the last episode.

The women in the show tend to be a bit deeper, personality-wise. Rio is certainly the standout. Too bad the show isn

’t about her.

Value:
I’ve previously stated that, since fansubs are free, the value is infinite. I now realize that that you also must

invest your time in downloading and viewing an anime. If you have nothing better to do with your DSL, feel free to

get Spiral. I’d like to recommend a better mystery anime, but I haven’t seen one. That’s not a compliment to the

show, but an insult to the genre.

Enjoyment
The show has some very strong elements, but they can’t cover for the lack of a compelling plot. Basically, this show

is like Murder She Wrote except with a teen wunderkind in place of the foxy Angela Lansbury. If that sounds like

your cup of tea, then you’re welcome to it. I do recommend you watch through episode 10. After that, I don’t think

it is worth the download bandwidth.

(If you’re going to dl this show, I’ll warn you that anime-kraze chose a somewhat illegible font. You may find

yourself pausing the show to re-read the subtitles)

This anime is very very difficult to review as it is a mixed bag of things and changes focus a lot. In the first episodes a certain detective feeling prevails, where our hero has to solve a lot of mysteries against some very evil people.

Later on the focus changes drastically to some very abstract mind games and philosophical views colliding, dropping the feel of the first part and almost creating a different anime from it.

The final episodes mix both of the elements so that there is some sort of conclusion.

Spiral is neither mystery nor detective nor is there anything quite like it. This can be either good or bad, I cannot really tell. The only thing I know is that I liked it despite of its shortcomings.

The characters do not really develop, they go more with the story than anything else. Also the use of the characters is rather instrumental (if it furthers the story, to hell with continuity), culminating in the very evil Blade Children beig treated like nice fellows later on.

Also the ending left all of the mysteries open though they managed to give you a sense of closure nontheless.

The good points are the music / soundtrack which fits very nice, the animation and drawing is nice but not overly so.

I cannot really recommend Spiral. You have to get a couple of episodes and see if it is to your taste. An affinity to a little mystery will not harm you in enjoying it though.

The story of Spiral focuses around Ayumu Narumi, a high school student who is dragged into a murder case as one of his teachers is murdered. Soon, even more crimes are commited and Ayumu gets dragged deeper into a compex net of intrigue and mystery. Is the disappering of his brother some years ago connected to the recent incidents? And who are the mysterious Blade Children?


I found the drwaing style pretty appealing, although there are many still frames and sometimes the motion lacks a bit. In some scenes, the drawing style changes to a more abstract one (similar to GetBackers, if you have seen that Anime/read the Manga, you'll know what i mean). It's used moderate though and therefore not too distracting.

The Opening and Ending are quite catchy. The music through the episodes is quite nice aswell, but a tad too often repeated. It fits the mood of this anime quite well though and adds much to the atmosphere of this anime.

The story starts episodic at first, but spans over several episodes later on. I found the story pretty good. The cases/situations Ayumu has to solve are always rather violent (in nearly every Episode somebody is killed or will be killed if Ayumu doesn't solves a riddle). Together with the detective theme this is quite interesting and much better than the usual "Please help me, my tea pot vanished" detective animes. There's one recap episode in this Anime though. But I guess every 26 eps Anime has to have some of those...

The character development has a focus in the series and both the good and bad sides are portrait extensively. The lines between good and bad seem to blur in the second half of the show, which is a plus aswell. The girlfriend/sidekick Hiyono is pretty funny and not as annoying as in other animes as she plays a rather huge role storywise.

You can always try to solve the mysteries before Ayumu, but unless you're a super detective, you'll most probably fail as the cases are quite complicated. Other than that, you don't have to think much about it to get the drift of this show, so simply sit back and enjoy.

I'd recommend this anime to an audience of 14-16 years and up. There are no explicit scenes of graphic violence, but the overall theme and design is rather directed to a more mature audience (lots of talking, mind battles, plot twists etc).

I haven't seen a comparable anime yet, but if you're into mystery/suspence, you should try this definitely out.

Overall I enjoyed it very much. Unfortunately, in the end there are many questions unanswered :(
They don't even solve the main plot, although the story is finished quite nice.

The fansubs from A-E are of high quality aswell.

CU,
lamer_de