Why You Should Perhaps Watch Zettai Shounen

I’m too lazy to hunt through 26 episodes to get screencaps, so you get to watch the OP instead. Apologies. Also, there’s absolutely no way I could explain the plot of the series to entice you to watch it, so I won’t even try–ANN and other places have decent enough plot summaries.

I am a huge Mochizuki Tomomi fan, and this would be the series of his that really struck me as unique. I didn’t know much about it when it aired, so I kind of glossed over it, but eventually I noticed a few of my INTERNET FRIENDS were talking about it, and talking highly about it, so I gave it a shot.

Finished it in about three weeks. That’s fast for me. (Blazing blink-and-you-miss-it fast with me would be the time I rewatched Revolutionary Girl Utena in three days, last two arcs in one day. Not the best thing to do, in retrospect)

I’m going to start out by saying that the series certainly isn’t for everyone. It’s so slow-paced that lesser men than I have collapsed after a few episodes, screaming “So boooooored….” The whole series is founded in the interpersonal interactions between the major characters of each arc (there are two arcs, one taking place in Tama and the other in Yokohama, a year and a half later), and if watching people act like…people isn’t your thing, approach with caution.

That said, I genuinely think that the actual interpersonal interaction is fascinating. It’s hard to express why in words, for me, but there’s just a kind of feeling I get from the show–both times I’ve watched it–of just slipping and becoming utterly engrossed in the lives of the characters. It’s based on a pair of light novels, and, from what I can tell by watching the anime of it, the author is a great writer. Things may seem to just happen, but that’s the charm of the series–things just happen, and they’re incredibly interesting. The character development is subtle, and it’s entirely done without any kind of exposition dropping whatsoever–and, speaking as someone who’s actually attempted to write fiction, that’s a skill I can respect.

The other thing I like about the series is that there’s the overall plotline dealing with the interactions between the supernatural entities in the series, and it’s also just kind of…there, for lack of a better phrase. The focus of the series is the interaction between characters, and while there is an overall plot, it operates independently of the characters, but at the end, it ultimately ends up affecting them immensely.

Speaking of the ending, it was just as impressive the second time through as it was the first time. It still made me feel immensely satisfied, even though it really doesn’t explain a whole lot. It’s one of those shows that just reveals to you something new every time you watch it, and things start clicking better. I think it’s truly a vastly underrated series, one that I’d love to see licensed (even though it has zero sales potential, outside of the obvious market of me).

One more thing–I absolutely adore the visual style of the anime. They remind me a bit of Baccano!’s designs, now that I think about it, although I wouldn’t swear to it that they were the same person. I still know so little about the light novel that it shames me.