Anime: Zettai Shounen

Zettai Shonen is an anime with a personality crisis. On one hand, it's an atmospheric drama with a world that feels right. On the other hand, it dips into some fairly convoluted quasi-philosophical ideas. The gripping hand, it's an anime that is good, with hints of greatness, brought down by a number of issues. (10 points if you get the literary reference in the previous line)

Summary: One summer, a young man visiting his father in the country sees some amazing things, things that shouldn't be able to exist in our world. One winter, a young woman, cut off from society and human touch, befriends a creature that's not of this world. What is a Material Fairy, anyways?

Animation
Character Design: I do like the character artistry and animation in this series, though it's a bit more stylized than the normal anime. One of the major facets of anime artwork is the attention paid to a character's eyes, and Zettai Shonen doesn't skimp on that attention at all.

My biggest complaint about the character artwork is simply that each character had one, maybe two outfits. I don't know about any of you, but I didn't wear the exact same clothes every day of the summer when I was 16. I feel that it's lazy to do that without a good reason - school uniforms, military uniforms, sure. Casual clothes? Give some variety!

Op/Ed: The opening is very artistic and it honestly took me aback at first. I thought the entire series was going to be as bright and erratic! Thankfully, it isn't, because the opening is a little obnoxious. The ending is a nice contrast of almost-photographic stills amidst an animation of the Colossus.

A side note here: I don't usually watch the next episode previews, but I saw a couple here, and wtf? Totally against the mood of the anime. I recognize the idea of lightening the mood, but it wasn't necessary here. Bad move.

Artwork: There's a lot of excellent artwork here, however, the first half seems like it was soaked in sepia ink. Everything is faded, like watercolors left out too long. It's a good effect. I personally don't like the faded colorless idea, but it did fit, and the artists did it well. The second half of the series was more colorful and lifelike, which seems to be a marked contrast with the theme at that point. That'll get more attention in the story section.

Sound
Op/Ed: The opening definitely grows on you. I didn't care for it at first, but eventually, I listened to it every time. The ending isn't quite as good, but it's still a decent tune.

Voices: I can't say as I liked the voice acting in this. They were good, but...sometimes a little too unemotional.

Music: I paid attention to the music in this series. There are a few clips that are played repeatedly, but they're pretty good. Some of the instrumental music at the end is great. Nothing to complain about here except for a lack of variety.

Story
Plot: Major breakdown here. I do not like how the writers plotted this show. The first twelve episodes focus on Ayumu and the events in Tana, then the latter fourteen episodes focus on events in Yokohama and the character of Kisa. When I first got to the Kisa arc, I was terribly disappointed, but the first half of the show is eventually connected strongly to the second, so it turned out better than I anticipated.

The series is very plot-oriented, with all the episodes being very chronological. Some of them are filler, especially near the end, but it's hard to tell in a slow-moving drama like this. I thought that the first half with Ayumu was much more interesting than the latter half, so it was somewhat disappointing.

As for the actual content of the plot...it's thin, but workable. Fans of strong resolutions probably should be forewarned. Fans of surprise nonsensical connections at the literal last minute may enjoy the last episode more than I did, at least.

Script/Writing: Characters were written a little bland and the plot proceeded a little slowly, but nothing is really out of place here. A lot of reactions seemed to be very muted.

Character
Interest: It's hard to be interested in the characters here, because most of them are very unemotional and bland. Ayumu doesn't really develop feelings until the second half of the series. Kisa was a bit stereotypically "outcast" to be really interesting. About the only character that really got an emotional reaction out of me was Rieko, because she was a bitch.

One side note: Mika, Miki, Miku? What were the designers thinking? I know you're supposed to go "what was the father thinking?" but...wtf? And why couldn't we actually get to see Miki again in the second half? A good strong female character would have provided a nice backup to Kisa and Rieko, though Akira does come through at times.

Growth: Oh yeah. Major theme of the series here. Every character changes, sometimes subtly (Akira), sometimes majorly (Ayumu develops emotions! Kisa is able to smile!) but it's never really all that interesting. It's not like they're growing up, it's more like the characters are growing out of their problems. Which is a form of growing up, sure, but...the difference is there.

Value and Enjoyment: I'd give this series a higher rating for value if they actually provided more interest per episode. I definitely wanted to see the next episode, but there was no intensity, no drive. Some people will say that because it's a drama, there shouldn't be - but that's crap. KGNE had drive. Saikano had intensity. Zettai Shonen is like a trickle rather than a river. That's ok, but I wish there had been more interest to it.

As for how much I enjoyed it...well, it was pretty good. It could have been better, of course, but the series is still a good modern fairytale. The writers/designers were more into the world than the story, I think, and the world is definitely a draw. Another reviewer mentioned that there may be a world-link between this series and Shinigami no Ballad, which I agree with - both series seem to have a lot in common and there is an almost overt connection. It should be interesting to see if there are any future series that forge connections to this world.

Conclusion: For a series that translates into "Absolute Boy", it's really not absolutely anything. It's a good story though and I recommend it to those who want a nice quiet drama to unwind to. Zettai Shonen is a nice piece of tranquility.

This is one of my favorites, and also one of the most original series I've seen to date.

The feeling it gives is both realistic and surreal at the same time. Realistic because of the settings and especially because of the full of life characters (the only other title that could be compared to Zettai Shounen in this respect is NGE). Surreal because of the general mood of the series -- the subject matter, the fairies, the music, the color scheme, everything works toward that goal. A very refreshing experience overall.

On the potential weak points:
As other reviewers noted, the story moves quite slowly, so this is probably not everyone's cup of tea. At one point (episodes 19-22) it slows down a bit too much even for me, four episodes consisting of not much other than characters calling each other on the phone, one character being particularly annoying there, sufficiently so that the others stopped taking his calls alltogether :) which however has not prevented me from watching him trying. After that, it picks back up to its' regular pace.
Probably the main issue I have with this series is the ending, which, while not being totally unclear, still leaves some events somewhat unexplained. I'd have preferred a better explanation of what was going on.

Still, this was a thouroughly enjoyable series and I am sure that I will rewatch it in the future.

As a side note: any beginning Japanese student should definitely watch this. The language was by far the clearest and most understandable of any other Japanese production I've seen.

Well lets see my my first thoughts for this anime were.... I'll probably never watch but I'll download it anyway. I guess the first reason I watched it was because I read the review for and it seemed interesting. Most of the things said in the other review did hold true but I would still like to add some of my own insight for this anime. The general story is about people dealing with life and how they interact with the strange appearance of the soo called material faires and material evils. The first story is in a small town called Tana where the Ayumu the main character is trying to sort of retrace his past. The second story takes place in yokohoma a few years later where its more about an anti social girl who is pretty much deep in depression.

Animation
The animation is definitely different from many other animes. The backgrounds and characters are fairly weel drawn. Although I did find the CG fairies a little weird and out of place. I also wasn't totally into the more cartoony look of the characters. But it was still good and watchable.

Sound
The sound worked, nothing special I think. It give much of a lasting impression on me so I guess it was fairly mediocore. As for voice acting most of it is done well although sometimes the emotions seemed a little out of wake either that or alot of characters were fairly emotionless anyway.

Story
This anime was built on both the story and characters. The story did focus more on each person and how they dealt with issues thus the main plot was sort of lost. The only thing I really didn't understand at the end was what exactly the material fairies and evils were. It was too vague of an explanation. They DID explain it sort of but it was like 3 explanations so it kinda confused me.

Character
The characters were defintely the best part of the anime. Since they spent soo much time developping ever character it made it fun to watch. You get a wide variety of characters too each with different problems but some were similiar. It was also great how they linked the two stories together. The only problem with it was you didn't get to actually see some of them only hear. I guess its not too bad cause it wasn't very important to see them but I kinda wanted to :P.

Value and Enjoyment
It was a fairly meaningful show since most of the topics were fairly believable. The scenarios also were different and refreshing to watch. Definitely not your typically anime. I did enjoy this anime and may watch it again in the future. That being said I would only recommend this anime to a very select crowd. This is not a fast pace anime and it does not have eye popping action. It does take time to develop and some thought needs to put into it to absorb the ideas. So I only recommend this anime to people with ALOT of patiences who are into dramas.

Zettai Shounen is a series made specifically for people who are very patient and don't need to see some kind of fanservice every five minutes. There's also very little action and things move very slow, reflecting the pace of everyday life. That aside, this is one of the best anime you'll probably never see.

Animation: It's different. Dull, muted colors; Watercolor-like backgrounds; CGI faries...? Zettai Shounen has some of the most unusal animation I've ever seen, but it all seems to fit the mood.

Sound: Nothing much to talk about. The OP and ED are nice, and the BGM is just there - if there's one weakness about the soundtrack, it's that you'll be able to pick out several tracks that are used in just about every episode.

Story: It's split into two stories, one takes place in Tana; a rural town, and focuses on Ayumu, the other half takes place in Yokohama and focuses on Kisa. Both have some sort of connection to these strange 'entities' called Material Faries, but as I mentioned before, the secrets take a while to unravel.

Character: Every character in Zettai Shounen has some kind of problem. Most of the time they seem either bored or cronically depressed. How they deal with each of their problems is one of the more interesting aspects of the show; the Material Faries are more like a catalyst that indirectly cause these conflicts from the background. Apart from the paranormal aspect, the characters are very realistic and behave like a normal person might.

Value: I have actually rewatched several of the episodes once or twice, just to see if I might catch something that I hadn't noticed before. I may or may not keep this one depending on how it ends, with just five more episodes to watch. The story has gotten very gloomy indeed, and it will be interesting to see how things are resolved.

Enjoyment: I have enjoyed this series. I'm probably one of the few people who has. In a world where you can find carbon copies of dozens of anime plots on every corner, it's refreshing to see something new for a change.

All things said, go and watch this one - at least the first three or four episodes, and if you haven't taken an interest in the story or any of the characters, at least save the rest for sometime when you have nothing else to watch; you may be surprised.