I’m a little hesitant about writing this review because I get a lot of mixed feelings about the anime and often times I like to write reviews on the ones I like and would recommend. So, if you’re reading this, just keep it in mind that it’s entirely up to you to watch it and decide for yourself.
With that said, Kyoukai no Kanata is an interesting anime. Written by Nagomu Torii and illustrated by Tomoyo Kamoi, this manga won in the Kyoto Animation Award competition in 2011, had its 3 volume manga published last year and just finished airing the anime recently in December this year. To sum it up briefly, it’s a supernatural action anime with a hint of comedy and romance in it. But of course, that’s not enough to tell you much about it and why I got such mixed feelings.
To start with, I find the main female protagonist, Mirai Kuriyama, to be the most interesting of all the characters. Don’t let her innocent look with glasses fool you. This girl has the ability to manipulate her blood into a weapon (kinda like the characters in Deadman Wonderland. If you haven’t seen that anime, that’s another good one to watch.) Mirai is a Spirit World Warrior, one who fights youmu (I could have sworn it was called youma in the anime. Translates to Dreamshade I believe). When the youmu is dead, it leaves behind a crystal rock, which the warrior can trade for money. And yes, there are other warriors like her and no, the regular folks don’t know about them.
The thing about Mirai’s ability is that her blood manipulation ability is seen as a threat and feared by many. In fact, a tragic incident from her childhood due to her ability traumatized her greatly and she has been feeling guilty over it ever since.
Next comes the male protagonist, Akihito Kanbara, the half human half youmu. He has a cheerful disposition, a twisted perversion for girls wearing glasses (you can see where this is going) and he is also an immortal. So, for example, even after Mirai stabs him with her blood sword many times in her attempt to kill him, purely for practice she claims, he doesn’t die. He still feels the pain and despite her fatal attempts, he forgives her just because she was a ‘bespectacled beauty’ and persuades her to join his literary club. He also helps her out in fighting other youmus and buys her meals. What a guy.
There are other characters that are in their lives and play a certain amount of role with each displaying certain warrior abilities, but I’ll skip that cause that’s not really important to me. Now, the interesting thing about this anime is the world they live in, what with the fights and youmus involved, and the story behind Mirai’s abilty and Akihito’s youmu powers.
The youmus are non-aggressive by nature but recently something has changed and they have been attacking the warriors with more persistence. This has something to do with Beyond the Boundaries phenomenon that is approaching and that the warriors fear about. Mirai’s ability, although looked upon as a treat, is also a rare gift that could give the warriors a fighting chance against this phenomenon. Akihito’s half youmu side, happens to be related to this strange phenomenon and that’s why his ‘warrior friends’ aren’t just close to him because they like him, but because he has to be monitored.
Interesting so far, right? Now, the thing that gets to me is, how the anime ended. I don’t want to go into all the details cause that would just be a spoiler, but all in all, the ending was ‘satisfactory’ but also confusing. If you’re okay with that, then you’re good. But I’ve heard from people how they hated it and wanted to know the hows and whys of it. To be honest, me too. I haven’t read the manga to determine if they actually explain some of the stuff that happened, but if after reading it and I am left even more clueless, I would just shrug it off and accept it as just the way it is. ^_^
Ultimately, I liked this anime, I guess. There are some moments of laughter, some drama and there’s a fun episode with a dance and singing sequence that people would like. The animation is so kawai, colorful and cool fighting scenes too. Try it and see if you like this anime.
chokocat 