Anime

Delving back into the past again, I watched Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song last week, and it was amazing - easily one of the best series I've ever seen.

In one way, it reminded me of Frieren - it's a completely different setting and characters and pretty much everything, but like Frieren, it has no real weaknesses. Everything about it is high quality. It's an engaging story that doesn't pull any punches, the characters are well-developed and believable and all of the material aspects of it - art, sound, voices, music - are top-notch.

The thing that really grabbed my attention though is that basically every single episode had a jaw-dropping finale. Starting with the first episode, it just went along, unfolding the story and adding details and introducing new things and building the tension and then BAM! In the last minute or so, it pulled it all together into an amazing, shocking, unexpected twist. Then in the next episode, it did it again And again in the next, and again in the next, and so on.

And each episode started off so simply and straightforwardly that even after I figured out that that was what the series was doing, I'd still get lulled into complacency. And then BAM! - it'd do it to me again, and leave me shaking my head and muttering, "Holy shit... This series...."

And none of them were deus ex machinas or just there for shock value. They were all vital plot points and bits of background information and they all made sense in retrospect- they were just so cunningly revealed.

The ending was terrific too. Like the individual episodes, it was dramatic snd unexpected and surprising, but slso like the individual episodes, it fit.

I don't know why I don't hear more about this series, because it really was great, from start to finish.