Saturday 12 April 2014

Mekakucity Actors - Episode 1

After an introduction that gives us a glimpse of some approximation of what is about to unfold - or at least who it's going to unfold via - we return to the beginning of our story for Mekakucity Actors opening episode.

That beginning involves a young man named Shintaro Kisaragi, a shut-in who spends his days watching anime and making himself known on Internet message boards.  Not that Shintaro is entirely alone, as he's accompanied on this daily trawl through cyberspace by a virtual girl with no feet who calls herself Ene - a girl who appeared to Shintaro via an e-mail two years previously, and who views him as her "master"; not that this stops her provoking and poking fun at him at every turn.


Shut-in he might be, but an unfortunate incident involving a keyboard and a bottle of soda leaves Shintaro with no choice but head out into the horrors of the outside world to replace it - a trip which has a visit to an amusement park bolted onto it thanks to Ene's demands.  However, this little trip is derailed as the shopping mall Shintaro visits finds itself turned into the site of a hostage situation, with our protagonist amongst those held hostage in an attempt to extort money.  Finding himself tied up alongside a couple of rather interesting individuals who seem keen to look to Shintaro for a plan to escape, can this shut-in surprise us and foil the villain's plot?

Well, yes he does (otherwise this would be a short series), but unfortunately this doesn't really help to give me any grounding on what they heck Mekakucity Actors is about, as it isn't even scratching the surface of what the series seems to be planning.  That means that there really isn't a lot to say about this opener beyond the fact that it doesn't exactly look like SHAFT bringing their "A-game" visually thanks to some ropey moments of animation.  It doesn't bode particularly well when coupled with an episode that took a long time to really go anywhere, but perhaps it's simply keeping all of its surprises in store for episode two.

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