{"id":412,"date":"2007-12-18T00:44:20","date_gmt":"2007-12-18T05:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tancos.net\/wp\/2007\/12\/18\/4423\/"},"modified":"2007-12-18T00:44:20","modified_gmt":"2007-12-18T05:44:20","slug":"4423","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/4423\/","title":{"rendered":"4423"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve finally had time to catch up with Denno Coil<\/em><\/strong>. As of this evening, I’ve watched through episode 22. Episode 23 is a recap, so this is a good moment to catch my breath and maunder a bit.<\/p>\n

The question is not whether Denno Coil<\/em><\/strong> is the best show of the year \u2014 I haven’t seen a better series in long time \u2014 but whether it will rank among the classics of the form. I hesitate to label anything a “classic” until it has aged at least ten years, so check back in 2017 for my verdict. Unless Mitsuo Iso completely blows the ending, though, I expect my judgement will be positive.<\/p>\n

It’s not perfect. Denno Coil<\/em><\/strong> shifts gears at the midpoint and becomes a darker story. My initial impression of the series was Serial Experiments Lain<\/em><\/strong> as retold by Hayao Miyazaki. The first half evokes Miyazaki, with bright, lively girls and myriad little imaginative touches. The second half tends more toward Lain<\/em><\/strong>. There’s menace in the virtual worlds, and the stakes are high. It’s as if Iso decided to stop playing with his imaginary worlds and focus on the plot. It’s a good story \u2014 a very good story; I’m impatient for Ureshii to finish the last two episodes \u2014 but I miss the fun of the early episodes. AniPages Daily<\/a> notes that Iso wrote the scripts for the first fourteen episodes by himself but shared the writing credits on the later ones, and that probably has a lot to do with the shift in tone.<\/p>\n

Still, it’s as good as anything I’ve seen since Haibane Renmei<\/em><\/strong>. I particularly like the soundtrack by Tsuneyoshi Saito. A friend commented that she could easily imagine it adapted for use as a ballet score, and I recommend it to any chamber music ensemble or small orchestra looking for new repertoire.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

Update: I’ve watched Denno Coil<\/em><\/strong> through episode 24 now. The build-up to the climax reminds me strongly of the last episode of Haibane Renmei<\/em><\/strong>. I’ll find out soon enough how far the parallels go between the two Yukos and Rakka and Reki, so no spoilers in the comments, please.<\/p>\n

I posted a couple of excerpts from the OST earlier, here<\/a> (the last in the first set) and here<\/a>. Here’s one more, “Nazo.”<\/p>\n

[mp3]http:\/\/tancos.net\/audio\/17-Nazo.mp3[\/mp3]<\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve finally had time to catch up with Denno Coil. As of this evening, I’ve watched through episode 22. Episode 23 is a recap, so this is a good moment to catch my breath and maunder a bit. The question is not whether Denno Coil is the best show of the year \u2014 I haven’t … Continue reading “4423”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[660,677],"class_list":["post-412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-current-viewing","tag-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s4xam3-4423","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}