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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Watch | 7 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Devil Doll | # |
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[Score: 65%]
More of the same, just with disappointingly weaker Animation than the prequel. The mood of this part is more intense than in the first OVA. Then again, imagine a robot who drinks coffee, uses the toilet, cries when she loses her home and worries about not having money for painting her house anew - why do we need a robot for this role? And the overall picture isn't any clearer this time: Civilization isn't able to maintain the roads any more but has a working network of electricity and natural gas with apparently unlimited resources - does that make any sense? We now know that money still is an issue in this world so the people never worrying about their outcome is even less comprehensible than before. The more of this series I watched, the more confused I became. Everyone acted so weird and without a plausible reason (for example, a mother and her son running a sightseeing service on an abandoned airport, with no one living within tens of miles near this location and no customers likely to ever appear). This show became ever more surreal to me. And then, finally, this series managed to send a message to me - even though it differs from the manga's message and probably the author's intention: What if Mankind were extinct, and the only survivors ("mankind's children", as the manga says) are the Robots? They will keep enough (automated?) industry running for their own existence (for example, electricity, some radio communication, and fuel for a handful of scooters & cars) but not much else. They don't know human concepts such as greed, fear, competition, or biological needs to survive; they're educated to live in harmony with their environment. No aggression, no crime... robots aren't constructed for these things. So what would these robots do if mankind wasn't there any more? Their existence wouldn't have a purpose (given it had one while mankind still existed... but the manga doesn't ever describe robots as slaves, their origin remains unclear). But would they commit suicide then? Surely not. They would continue living, playing the roles of humans, doing things humans did when these things were still reasonable, like playing a strange theater play, pretending everything were as it should be. A weird world, but... a innocent paradise of a kind. That's the world this series shows us. (Kino no Tabi - the Beautiful World (TV) has one episode with a vaguely similar concept.) Are robots the better humans? Actually, the message of the manga is a quite different one but most of it doesn't play a role in the anime. The manga also explains that the street lights of the first episode actually aren't street lights but trees (!), and that funghi mimicking buildings (!) have begun growing... many mysteries of the manga (such as lesbian love and jealousy amongst robots!) are only hinted at in the anime. As such, the anime IMHO fails to tell a comprehensive story, in a similar way as Alien Nine fails to tell the much more complex manga's story. Last updated Wednesday, July 30 2008. | ||||||||
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| Unevaluated | Stretch | # | ||||||
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(One episode watched): The artwork is not nearly as lush as it was in the 1998 version, which is a definite disappointment. The story is definitely taking place in Japan, since roadsigns point the way to Yokohama, but there's also a mention of "the nation of Ibaragi", which suggests that a number of countries occupy the present-day islands of Japan. A graceful, birdlike airliner was an interesting touch. Business has been poor at Alpha's cafe, and after it is smashed up by a typhoon, she decides to take to the road. It felt like the main plot was just getting underway--and suddenly the episode ended. Maybe part two will be better, but like the artwork, the whole atmosphere of this sequel seemed inferior to the original version. That is, I didn't feel any particular impetus to think about any mysteries or wonders of life, and it would be hard to justify the expenditure of half an hour to watch this... maybe that's just an indication of how impatient people are nowadays! Last updated Wednesday, January 31 2007. | ||||||||
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Other Sites
| Name | URL |
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| Wikipedia: Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokohama_Kaidashi_Kik%C5%8D |
| Summary of anime and manga, with interpretation and character list | |
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