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In order to satisfy my eBay bargain hunger, I picked up Vol. 1, 2 and the art box of When They Cry on eBay.co.uk. Not bad for a total of £13.50!
Before actually getting into reviewing the anime, I'd like to talk about the When They Cry art box Geneon (RIP) released. The art box is pink, with images of the 5 main female characters (Mion, Rena, Rika, Satoko and Shion) in maid outfits, all looking either cute or sexy. I'm not sure what the people who designed the box art and picked the colour were on; the art box would give someone ignorant about the series the wrong impression of the show. No sane male would be seen walking out of a shop with it... Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be to pay for something that looks like animated child porn?
Thankfully, the reversible DVD cover art had someone with a brain design them. One side of the DVD cover is good (happyish looking, but no pink or maid outfits)and the other side of the cover is evil, with shadowy versions of the characters showing. Unlike the art box, you could walk out of a shop holding copies of the DVD's themselves with your head held high. The only issue I have with the DVD's is the infamous Vol. 2 misprint where some intelligent person decided to put the episode descriptions for the first 5 episodes as the descriptions for episodes 6-10. Due to Geneon closing, not many copies were released and even less were re-released with the error corrected.
Whilst talking about the R1 DVD's, it's only right to inform those not in the know that only the first 3 volumes (there was going to be 6) ever got released. Geneon imploded (the child porn art box was the cause, obviously) before they could finish releasing the series and we will probably never see the rest of the series released in English. Also, although I'm not sure, Vol. 3 may well have been the last DVD Geneon released.
Anyway, enough talking about the DVD's: Time to get down to business.
Plot: 8/10
Quite frankly, When They Cry is the hardest anime I've ever had the 'pleasure' of attempting to explain. The reason for this is that the story is told in various question (the mysteries aren't explained) and answer (the mysteries are explained) arcs, with nearly all them being out of sequence for the fun of it. This is further complicated by parallel universes, meaning each arc (question and answer arcs are set in the same universe) have no direct connection to most of the others... Are you confused yet?
All the arcs are set in the fictional village of Hinamizawa, most of the time during June 1983. Changes are made to the characters, varying from them being heroes and villains depending on the arc.
The opening arc reveals that Keiichi, a young boy, moved to the town with his parents a month or so prior to the beginning of the series. By the time the story starts, Keiichi has already become friends with a group of of 4 girls in his class - Mion, Rena, Rika and Satoko. Things soon start to take a darker turn when Keiichi learns that the people of Hinamizawa worship a God known as Oyashiro, said to be the protector of the village. Keiichi discovers that there have been 4 murders each year on the same day as the Cotton Drifting festival; a festival that honours Oyashiro. Concerned about these serial murders, Keiichi starts to have doubts about his new friends when they lie to him about the murders...
Each arc is a variation of the above theme, with a small amount of information revealed about the mystery in each arc. It's very hard to follow if you have a terrible memory (like myself) and you'd probably find yourself re-watching certain arcs later on to see if you missed anything. If you're looking for an easy to follow series, I recommend you run away now.
It's also best to avoid When They Cry if you only enjoy light-hearted series. While the character design and story try to trick you into believing it's a kiddie series at first, you soon discover that When They Cry is actually a horror series - A true rarity in anime. You'd be surprised how shocking it is to see a cute face change into a psychotic one, along with the voice changing from soft to menacing. There's plenty of gore on show, too, with the main characters dying on a regular basis throughout.
My thoughts on the story you ask?
I LOVED the initial four episode arc. The first episode set the tone of the show by opening with someone finishing beating two people to death with a baseball bat, the person screaming and looking seriously disturbed whilst doing so. After that, the scene changes and, for the rest of the first episode, the story follows the largely uneventful day of Keiichi at school with his friends, allowing the viewer to slip into a false sense of security.
To my utter disappointment, I soon discovered the truth about the show; nearly every arc is set in a parallel universe. While it's an interesting and unique way of telling this mysterious story, I couldn't help but feel like the plot was standing still and not moving forward. I started to lose motivation as the story 'progressed', finding it hard to get into a show made up mostly of disconnected stories that will, rather inevitably, link up at the end.
Overall, I did enjoy the unique When They Cry experience. Outside of the parallel universe confusion, the main issue I have is that the mystery is far from solved after 26 episodes and there are still MANY more questions than there are answers... I'll have to watch the 2nd season if I want my headache to go away.
Characters: 8.5/10
In When They Cry, there's a group of 6 characters of importance: Keiichi, Mion, Rena, Rika, Satoko and Shion. Excluding Shion, all of them go to the same school (there's only 1 in Hinamizawa, the only class being a mixed age class). They are all young, none being older than about 15 or 16, some being pre-teen.
Keiichi, the only male in the 6, plays the role of the main character in the first few arcs. Through his eyes you are introduced to Hinamizawa and the other characters. He's a kind, friendly and easy to get on with guy, said to have scored high on IQ tests.
Mion plays the role of the class leader due to her age and dominant personality. She's a green-haired tomboy who hides a more girly side. Her family, the Sonozaki's, are the head family in Hinamizawa and she's the heir to them. The mystery of Oyashiro and the mysterious deaths that occur every year on the day of the Cotton Drifting festival seem to be linked to the Sonozaki family. Mion has a twin sister, Shion, who has been thought of as a cursed child since birth (twins are supposed to be a bad omen), chucked into a distant boarding school away from the the family.
Rena moved to Hinamizawa a year before Keiichi. A shy girl who has a love of cute things, she comes across as the harmless. However, her past is a dark one and she's known for going into a rage at the mention of Oyashiro...
The final 2 main characters are friends and the youngest characters. Rika, a cute blue-haired girl, is the head of the Furude family; one of three main families in Hinamizawa. Much like Rena, she comes across as harmless, but she has the strange tendency to change into a more serious, more intelligent and more sinister person - As if two people were inside her. She will probably play a key role in solving the mystery in the second season. Satoko, a short haired blonde girl, has a tomboy type of personality, mixed in with a lot of insecurity. Her family is hated in Hinamizawa and all are dead or missing, leaving only her.
There are other, seemingly less important, characters who feature on a regular basis: The police officer Oishi and the village doctor Irie making appearances in most of the arcs, Oishi appearing in all of them.
Usually, a reviewer would evaluate the depth and development of the cast when rating. However, this is difficult in the case of When They Cry due to the story being told with parallel universes and the plot not progressing as a whole. I know a lot about the characters after seeing them various angles, playing both the good guy and bad guy, but it's near impossible to rate the development unless I rate the characters in each arc individually.
My favourite characters are the twins; Mion and Shion. Both characters get fleshed out more than the rest in the first series, a lengthy arc towards the end of the series revealing all about the sisters relationship, how their families work and, quite simply, how the sisters feel. The best eye candy (I'm SURE they're 16...well, 99% :D) and character development together - A win-win situation.
The thing I didn't like about the characters was how the characters acted rather bizarrely or out of character in certain arcs to play the roles they played in those arcs. For example, one character decided to kill someone to help one of his friends, who they had known for all of 5 minutes... What kind of person risks going to jail for life to help out someone they don't know very well? That plot point in particular seemed to be a bit forced to me.
I feel that 8.5/10 is a fair rating when, while the characters did have depth, the parallel universe thing stopped any episode 1-26 character development.
Art: 8/10
Animation: 7/10
When They Cry uses cute, loli character designs to first fool the viewer and then shock them later. A horror series with cute looks - Who would've thought it?
As you'd expect for a series that aired in 2006, the series is in widescreen format.
The art is pretty good. There's nothing amazing on show here... It doesn't compare to some of the other series that aired at the same time. I'm sure most people wouldn't mind too much; they'd be too distracted by cute young girls holding meat cleavers whilst laughing in an insane manner!
The animation quality was a little disappointing. It's not an action series, so you can forgive it for not being brilliant, but the few scenes with fast movement that do occur failed to impress me.
Sound: 8.5/10
Rating the When They Cry soundtrack reminds of when I rated the Koi Kaze soundtrack: Koi Kaze didn't have too many tracks that stood out, yet the music fitted the show like a glove.
The opening theme of When They Cry is brilliant. Creepy, dark and a little scary, I couldn't imagine a better song for this type of the show. The ED is also very good; a dark, relaxing type of song, part of which also plays doing the episode previews.
The soundtrack itself is made up of the dark type of music you'd expect to hear, mixed in with some cheerful music that play during the more amusing parts of the show. Very little of the music made me want to download the soundtrack and listen to it while on my PC, meaning it has little to no truly outstanding tracks in my opinion, but the soundtrack does fit the show perfectly.
Just to give the voice acting a quick mention, the voice acting was as excellent as Japanese voice acting usually is. I was impressed by the performance of Satsuki Yukino; the voice actress behind Mion and Shion. I've added her to my favourite voice actor/actress list after watching When They Cry.
Total: 8/10
While I did end the series feeling a little disappointed after the near perfect start, I do regard When They Cry as being up there with the best. It's certainly the best horror series out there... Not that there's much argument when you look at the competition!
My rating may improve when I get around to watching the second season and the questions the first series raised are answered. However, I feel 8/10 is a fair rating for the first season on its own.
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Just to keep my blog alive, here are my thoughts about the first 8 episodes of When They Cry...
When They Cry 1-4
Finally got around to starting the most interesting show I've watched in a long time. I must say, I'm impressed with what I've seen.
Mixing cuteness with scariness to great effect (a cute face and high-pitched voice suddenly changing is pretty scary), time has flew by when watching it. While not what I'd consider truly scary, it's easily the most scary anime I've ever watched... Not that there's much competition when Elfen Lied is the only other anime I've watched that can be categorized as horror.
The mysterious story has been paced perfectly so far, giving just enough to keep the viewer interested with each new episode, which is something most anime seem to struggle to do correctly. It'll be interesting to see where the story is going to go now the first 4 episode story is over.
When They Cry 5-8
After being wowed by the opening 4 episode arc, I wondered what direction the series would go in. It's rather unusual for so many characters to get killed off at the start of a 26 episode series...even more so when the dead characters seem to still be involved in the second season.
At first it seemed like the plot was going to simply be told from back to front, which would've explained why the dead characters still appeared. However, as the second arc moved on, plot points started to contradict each other, continuing to do so until the plots diverged entirely. It seems like each story arc is going to be an alternate universe of sorts, changing the characters personalities and key plot points in each one.
I must say, I'm rather disappointed... I liked the idea of a seemingly epic story being told back to front, but not a series of unconnected stories told out of order. While I hope I'm wrong, When They Cry looks to be a series that isn't going to have much depth at all.
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To be honest, I'm not sure what my opinion of the show is: I'll have to go deeper in if I'm to form an opinion. All I know is that the quality of these short horror stories will have to keep up with the standard of the first arc if i'm going to end up thinking of it as an above average series.
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Anime has taught me many interesting things: I now have a vague understanding of certain Japanese words thanks to watching so much of the stuff. However, by far the most interesting lesson has been the one given by Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo, the lesson being that the devil prefers to speak fluent French when he stars on a Japanese TV show.
Aside from Gankutsuou teaching me more about the devil, Gankutsuou has also become my favourite anime series. The classic tale of revenge against those who wronged Edmund Dantes is one that has been told in many different forms over the years, but none of the other adaptations are on the same level as the masterpiece that is Gankutsuou. It's shocking that MVM have gone on record to say that they turned down the chance to license Gankutsuou...I really don't get why the people who makes these decisions view Gankutsuou as bad.
I found the anime series to be so good that, after finishing watching the series, I ordered the Penguin Classics version of the MASSIVE novel Gankutsuou is based on. I read it within a week, going on a 7 hour marathon on one evening where time seemed to be flying by due to the enjoyment the novel was giving me. I'm far from a bookworm, rarely reading anything at all for pleasure, yet the book enchanted me and took me further into the wonderful world of Monte Cristo.
'Revenge is a dish best served cold.' - This saying must surely have been invented by someone who read The Count of Monte Cristo. There's simple revenge and there's plotting for years to destroy everything your enemies have built, and the the revenge in The Count of Monte Cristo is most certainly the latter.
The novel and anime series do have many differences, but there was also a lot of parts in the book that I recognised. I understood why the changes to the story in Gankutsuou were made, not minding most since they worked out excellently. For example, since Gankutsuou is told from Albert's perspective, the writers decided to make Albert have a much closer relationship with Eugene and Franz, all of them being childhood friends in the anime, unlike in the novel where Albert and Franz only really interacted during the Rome section and Eugene hated men due to her being a lesbian. In the anime, the writers removed the lesbian side to Eugene, put her homosexuality into Franz and made a very interesting friendship/love triangle.
The most significant changes were made to Edmund/The Count of Monte Cristo. The anime cut out Abbe Faria, an important character in the novel who educated Edmund, gave him his fortune and turned him into the character he transformed into many years later. They shared a close relationship in prison, Edmund ending up thinking of him as his second father. This character never even appeared in Gankutsuou, the reason being that the writers wanted to take Edmund into a different direction. Instead of Abbe Faria educating Edmund and saving him, he instead makes a pact with the devil, the devil giving him his knowledge and power in exchange for his body and soul. While Edmund in the novel views himself as an agent of God delivering justice to those who have sinned, Edmund in the anime is a vengeful demon in comparison.
After watching the series and reading the novel, I started collecting the now out of print R1 releases. It hasn't been straightforward: I managed to win Vol. 1 + the art box on eBay, only to find that AFTER leaving "11/10" feedback that episodes 3 and 4 didn't work, the seller refusing to let me return it. Thankfully, I wasn't totally out of luck since another seller listed Vol. 1, 2, 3 & 4 and I won all but one for £4.99 + P&P, Vol. 1 working perfectly this time around. I'm now waiting to see if Vol. 5 is going to turn up (ordered from DVD Pacific) sometime this year before attempting to get the rarest volume of the lot; volume 4. Speaking of which, I'm already kicking myself for now getting the used copies that appeared on Amazon.co.uk while I had the chance.
Anyway, enough rambling. Both Gankutsuou and the novel are truly fascinating pieces of work that EVERYONE should experience. It doesn't matter if you don't watch anime, nor does it matter if you don't read much; anyone with good taste would be able to appreciate the quality of a classic tale such as The Count of Monte Cristo
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Has anyone else ever become addicted to eBay? It has me hooked.
In the past I didn't use eBay much, it frustrated me when people always somehow managed to outbid me at the last second. Those people, all of whom surely had little no lives to be able to sit at their computers and bid 5 seconds from the end...at least that's what I thought back then. After about 2 years, I rather randomly made a thread on a forum asking how these people managed to put in these last second bids, ending up being directed to eBay sniping programs. I soon discovered Gixen.com and haven't looked back since, winning auctions with ease, and without the stress of being forced to wait until the end of auctions to win.
Talking of Gixen.com, it truly is a fantastic little site. At first I was worried about signing in with my eBay details, worrying about my account being abused. In the end, Gixen.com have proven to be both reliable and trustworthy, with no suspicious activity taking place and the bids always being entered 3 or 5 seconds before the end of the auctions. I couldn't use eBay without it these days - I HIGHLY recommend it.
Anyway, enough rambling about Gixen. Here's some of the stuff I've won over the last few weeks:
Arc The Lad: Vol. 1-6
Avenger: Complete Collection (Tin)
Key - The Metal Idol: Vol. 1-3 + OST
Koi Kaze: Vol. 1-3
Last Exile: Vol. 1-3
Slam Dunk: Vol. 1-3
The SoulTaker: Vol. 1-4
Vandread: Series 1 & 2
When They Cry: Vol. 1 & 2 + Series Box
...I'll leave it there. There's quite a lot more: I'm only listing the auctions where I've got more than one volume of anime at once.
If not all, nearly all of those were bargains. Still, it does make me a little worried that I'm winning so many auctions every month, especially when I haven't been watching any of my DVD's. I seem to get the most pleasure out of collecting and not doing anything with the stuff these days... It's silly.
So... Does anyone else have eBay addiction issues?
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