REQUIEM FROM THE DARKNESS

Oh man. Oh man oh man. I loved this show. I mean like, really loved it. Watching it every moment was like seeing some new awesome thing taking shape. Strictly speaking, this is not anime. No no no, it's something better.

Now how do I follow that up?, you might ask. Well I will tell you probably certain parts of my mental geography have me pre-disposed to really loving this anime. Let's count them, shall we? 1. Just about anything out of ordinary in the genre sets my heart aflutter. 2. I love horror stories, you can thank my awesome wife for that. 3. The antihero character type, this anime is full of em and honestly I can't get enough. 4. The central character in the story is a writer, something I have no hope but to identify with. So there it is, as you will soon see I was powerless to it's allure.

There is no point in avoiding the main push of this title, and that is the visuals. They are stunning. Not realistic, not beautiful, no super fluid animation here, or intense detail... What we are witness to here is a work of the utmost DESIGN. The design of the visuals is Requiem's highest achievement, not the animation. I will type it again. The design of the visuals is Requiem's highest achievement, not the animation. And that is within a title with numerous achievements. I guess it's what industry people might call "art direction". The creators put mood and style above all other concerns, and what we have as a result is a barely recognizable landscape which mirrors the dark minds of the series' antagonists.

The world of Requiem is dark and warped, literally no straight lines can be found. It is full of mists and forests and dangerous chasms, not to mention the terrible specters (monsters? spirits? who knows?) that the main characters are hunting. The beautiful and the profane often occupy the same space (or the same character!), and nothing can really be trusted to be simply what it looks like. Another thing I want to mention is the unity of the artwork. It really seems to have all come from the same artistic mind with every scene realized in the same messed up reality as the first one was. It has it's own rules and conventions that you pick up on as time goes along, these visual clues become more and more important to the story which makes them fun to find and follow.

So now we know that visually we are dealing with the most impressive release in the last four or so years, what about the rest of this thing? The stories are full of real tragedy and horror, human tales twisted by the supernatural. In this world legend and reality are truly one, each epsode being taken from ghost stories and then bent around some really foul characters. It contains the kind of unflinching plot that had it join Berserk (tho not concurrently) in japanese TV's infamous 2:45am air slot if that's any indication. Add this to the fact that Requiem can scare you like a real horror movie does, and it also delivers those cherished "I can't friggin believe I am seeing this..." moments where you are just totally shocked. Think, "Silence of the Lambs"...

The dub tracks are especially good, the english Mataichi is superlative, as is Nagamimi. Definitely hit up the english first on Requiem, reading the text on a subtitle track is going to ruin the visual experience pretty handily so listen to the Japanese second, if it all. Remember, it's not like you're watching some 'Please Teacher' bullshit where the japanese track only serves to help you feel like less of a tool while watching it. It is also worth mentioning that in a title with so much darkness and negative space, Geneon did an awesome job keeping the transfer clean and crisp. Of course in my opinion Pioneer/Geneon is the class of the entire US business, so no surprise there.

At any rate, you will never find a more unique specimen than Requiem from the Darkness. The characters are awesome, the stories are brutal and bloody, and I guarantee you won't forget it like how you forgot the way "X" ended. Can you remember the end of "X"?? No you can't. That won't happen here, trust me.

My suggestion: Here is my original draft for this review, "In Requiem, a horse bites a man's head off. Buy it."