Le Portrait de Cossette

Summary: >

Eiri is an average college student working at an antique shop. One day he encounters a vision of a young girl trapped in a glass. Eiri becomes infatuated with the girl named Cossette, spending more and more time in the shop alone talking to her. Cossette reveals she needs to accept the soul of the man who killed her, also her father; if they want to continue seeing each other. Eiri agrees to this, entering a dark pact with her. As a consequence, he must accept the punishments due her father.

Eiri becomes so embroiled with Cossette, others worry about him spending so much time "alone". It's clear some dark aura has formed around the shop, but no one is sure why. As for Cossette, does she really love Eiri? What are her intentions?

Thoughts: >

Le Portrait de Petite Cossette which means Whoa dude, these drugs rock in French (actually it means The portrait of little Cossette, but either title works) seeks to be a artistic vision in gothic horror. This involves characters and themes, as well as angles and various "mood shots". Most of these (especially the mood shots) I felt were unnecessary spurious garbage. A good 90% of OVA 1 was of this kind of content, which could be distilled down to 5 minutes with the junk removed. Worse still, it interferes with character development, as most of them are only shown for 10 seconds at a time.

OVA 2 was more of the same, but the story begins to develop. I had a hard time accepting Eiri had simply fallen in love with Cossette, and I wasn't particular on her callous treatment of him, but the story gained some clarity. By episode three, things finally becomes clear in a story that makes sense with coherency.

I felt most of this series was a waste of time, but the third episode redeemed this anime for me. The characters are hard to follow, but show a good level of depth once the anime shows enough of them to develop.

I'm tempted to say I hate this anime, but on the other hand it takes many daring artistic directions few titles have the guts to do. This means Le Portrait de Cossette has a specific intended audience, but it's hard to say who that is. If asked if I'd like an abstract anime, with Gothic horror themes, I'd say that sounds great. Yet this one didn't appeal to me. Since my feelings are thoroughly mixed on what to recommend, I'm sitting this one out, but if the concept sounds interesting to you, I'd give it a try - provided you're open to waiting a while before it comes together..

Screen Caps: >