Summary: >

In an alternate reality of 2010, a high tech city named Neo-Acropolis is the setting. Seraphim Call follows a cast of 11 girls, each with her own separate story.

Thoughts: >

What I had heard of Seraphim Call was overwhelmingly negative, with a few supporters who had a hard time standing up for this title. In fact I was expecting to come out somehow damaged from even seeing something supposedly so horrid. What I found was a title that was quite unexpected, but not at all bad. It is most certainly not like your atypical anime, and if you're expecting yet another formula title, this is not it. What makes Seraphim Call unique isn't it's story, or characters, or even the setting; it's the way the stories are told. I didn't give much of a summary for this title, because with 12 different stories I'll have to merge the plot summary with the review.

Seraphim Call was hit and miss on many levels. The good news is that even though it has a few stories that are just total junk, due to the self contained nature of every episode; this was easily contained and the rest of the title survived just fine. One big problem is that the worst episode also happens to be the first one, and you have to be pretty open minded giving this a chance if you watch it. If you skip this episode you'll be way better off. These are bad for various reasons, but in the end I found that the story was boring and there wasn't anything interesting enough to make them worth watching. The crappy episodes include: (1) Sleeping Beauty Panic, (7) The Paradox that is Me, (8) Acropolis International Rescue Team.

A few of the episodes weren't really cutting edge or anything like that, but had decent charming stories. The decent/good stories include (3) Taste of Cake, (9) Legend of a Girl, (12) Sacred Night of Seraphim.

Now where Seraphim Call really differs is in the cutting edge experimental stuff. The stories vary with their level of success, but even where the story doesn't succeed I think the way it's told makes them worth seeing.

(2) Margarine Crisis - A girl named Tanpopo has a vast collection of stuffed animals, and still talks to them despite being in her teens. One of her friends gets upset over this perceived immaturity and they have a fight over it. - This story is simplistic and very dull, however what makes it interesting is that the entire thing is viewed from the perspective of a stuffed animal. If it falls over, our perspective is sideways as well, etc. At this point I was at least willing to give Seraphim Call credit for doing something different, even if the story wasn't spectacular.

(4) The Flying Angel - Hotsumi avoids nearly everything even remotely feminine, but is forced to face her problems when an artist wants to use her as a muse for a painting of an angel. - This is a story which would be pretty simplistic if told from beginning to end as expected. While it does have a beginning and end in the right spots, the middle is cut up and arranged completely out of order, and edited in a way that cuts to various points in the story. This makes the story harder to follow, but much more interesting in its presentation.

(5) To my sister in my Dreams - Shion and Sakura are twin sisters who have always been together. One day a love letter arrives in the mail, but the recipient name is obscured by a burn mark. Who is it intended for? - This story follows twin sisters which are hard to tell apart aside from their voices, and different eye shape. Shion is troubled by the letter, but also wonders what Sakura thinks about it. Shion then uses a virtual reality device which allows you to enter a virtual world as another person. She chooses to become her twin. This becomes a bit odd when she then decides to have a talk with her virtual self as her sister. From this point things become even harder to follow because it's no longer clear if she's still in the virtual world or in the real one, nor is it clear if she is herself, the virtual one, or if she is acting as her sister. Needless to say this episode blew my mind. And then at the end the sisters aren't sure if they're in the real world, they decide to kiss to see if it's real. I'm like, "ok normally I'd expect them to pinch themselves, but that was kind of hot."

(6) To my Sister Inside Love - I was still thinking about how crazy the last episode was, when episode 6 takes it a step farther by presenting the previous story again, but this time from the perspective of her sister. Some parts of this episode are identical, but most if it is very similar but with subtle differences that are hard to catch. Sakura, like her sister; also has a virtual reality device, and also decides to become her sister to try to better understand her. These two episodes were really amazing on many different levels for a lot of reasons, but I most enjoyed the duality of them. This second episode looks almost the same, but is different in very slight ways, just as the sisters are nearly identical, yet it's not possible for two people to be the same. You could watch these episodes multiple times and probably never catch all the oddities... but if you watched them twice in a row your head might explode. If you're into crazy cerebral stuff, these two episodes are awesome.

(10) Real Blue - Kurumi is a high school girl who unknown to her friends and family is a manga artist. Her latest work involves a girl and boy who end up living together, but then the teenage son of a friend ends up staying at her house in real life. Reality turns out quite different. - This story was a mix of interesting points, but it's mainly about perspective. We see people her story and the people who read it, but then we also see the author's perspective, and the odd perspective of reality (her current situation). A really cute story.

(11) The Inner World of Me - Urara is a girl who struggles with her attachment she feels towards her father who died years before. - The interesting thing about this story is that Urara is the ONLY character shown. We never see or hear anyone else, only her replies and reactions. While this sounds like a disaster, I thought it worked really well and was really cool to watch. Unfortunately it bungled the effect with a crappy ending, but it was pretty interesting all the same.

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So there was my super long review, but I should mention a few other things too. The character designs are done by Aoi Nanase (whom I totally worship), and the results are fairly attractive. As a story and character driven anime, animation wasn't this title's strong suit. Musically the intro was standard fair, but the ending theme is different for each episode, and sung by the voice actress for the main character of that episode. An interesting touch.

So my end verdict? Seraphim Call has different strengths and weaknesses, but I would not say it's bad (not great either though). As individual stories they were hit and miss, but I think it was a net positive. The strengths however are not the standard fair, as this is most certainly not your usual anime. The biggest draw for Seraphim Call is the innovative methods used in storytelling. Don't confuse this with the plot though. While Seraphim Call has only decent stories, the way they are told has an artistic flare which makes some of them exceptional.

I think this is why this anime tends to get a bad rap, because it does require an appreciation for art (in film), and is not just a check your brain at the door anime, yet isn't all that cerebral either. If you're an anime fan, you probably watch anime for what it is, and it's easy to see why people might not be receptive to this title with its different approach and lack of gimmicks. As such I'd recommend avoiding Seraphim Call unless you want to see some imaginative production. In many ways it reminds me of the good old days when there were one shot OVAs that were self contained 30-40 minute stories. I recall some of these titles being a lot more adventurous and daring in approach than what I see in most anime today. Certainly different in its approach, but something I liked to watch.