(20 episodes)
What’s it about ?
More paranoid sci-fi ! Adapted from a short 1995 manga series.
Characters
Harry, our title character, is a complete loser. The somewhat nerdy guy at the bottom of the feeding chain in American highschool. And it’s not like he has a winning personality to compensate ; he’s the shy dude in the corner who’s a smoldering little ball of resentment and anger.
Catherine, one of the popular girls, has caught his eye… not that he’d ever act on it. She’s way out of his league, with one of the jocks being her kinda boyfriend. What’s more intriguing is that she actually seems to have some interest in the geek (to the bemusement of her “friends”).
John, said boyfriend, seems to be a decent guy. He stops some of his teammates from beating Harry up after he messed up during basketball practice, and he’s genuinely worried for Catherine after a bunch of hoodlums steal his car (with her still waiting for him inside).
What saves her from being raped and murdered, though, is Harry stumbling on them… and having some emerging telekinetic powers he can’t really control. Harry is terrified by the state he leaves the assholes in ; Catherine is fascinated.
There’s no way this can end well.
Oh, and there’s a couple of cops investigating a number of bizarre murders in the neighbourhood that look suspiciously like Harry’s latest outburst. Wait, had Harry’s power incontinence already killed a few random people, or are there other people like him roaming around ? Neither option sounds good…
Production Values
Grey ! Brown ! Because we can’t do paranoid sci-fi without drowning in murk, right ?
Points for the character designer going out of their way to make everyone look American, though.
Overall Impression
How do you manage to make a 20-episode anime series out of a 1-volume manga ? By stretching it out a lot, apparently ; this is far for swiftly paced, and it looks like it’s only going to get worse from now on. Still, at least this allows the show to lay out the atmosphere very thick, and on that level it succeeds. This is creepy and unpleasant, as it should be.
I’m tentatively curious enough to continue watching at some point.
Source: [In Which I Review] Anime series from 2000 – Page 12
