Ayashi no Ceres Vol.6

Created/Updated 2001-09-20



Animephile Rating: F (3.5)


Comments:

I know it's stretching a bit, but I'm inclined to say that if you watched one of Watase-san's works, you've seen all of her works. Of course, it's not really that simple. Come to think of it, a lot of the writers are that way, most of the time. For example, take Ranma 1/2 and Inuyasha. They're set in completely different worlds and yet the main characters act similarly because that's the way Takahashi-san creates stories. Now, take Fushigi Yuugi and Ayashi no Ceres. Not really going into the fact that stories are similar -- female main character in an unusual situation enduring hardship and so forth -- the way that the characters are handled are fundamentally the same because that's how Watase-san writes. For one thing, they suffer a lot. So much so that fans ask her if her next work will have suffering characters. If I may make a generalization, it seems that more kawaii the character, more suffering he/she endures. Heck, most of them are killed off. I suppose this is part of what draws female audience. It is, after all, a shoujo title.

Having said that, I must say that I prefer Ayashi no Ceres over Fushigi Yuugi. Fushigi Yuugi moved too slowly. Ayashi no Ceres goes too fast at places and feels jumpy and even incoherent at times. Some scenes feel very unnatural. This has nothing to do with Yatase-san, of course, as it's all animation/direction issues. It reminds me of how unnatural some scenes in Mugen no Ryvius felt. For example, I hate it when they drag out the really emotional moments in realtime. What I mean by that is that emotionally intense moments take forever to complete to the characters in the film. It's obviously meant to make the emotional moments sink into the viewer's hearts and that's perfectly fine. The problem is that these moments really shouldn't take that long to the actual characters experiencing them. It makes the whole event feel unnatural to the viewers. The right way to do is to slow down the time within the animation so that only the audience is affected by the extra long moments. This is much better done in Ima Sokoni Iru Boku. Daichi-san is awesome!

In closing, Ayashi no Ceres is just about 50/50 good and bad. I wouldn't regret buying the DVDs if it weren't for the horrible blending video problems. I would recommend Watase-fans to get the cheaper versions (Region-1 release for example) when they come out.


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