Two mediocre new anime series: "A.I.C.O. Incarnation" and "B - The Beginning"

I watched these simultaneously on Netflix, an episode of each a day, narrowly avoiding getting too bored of either to continue. So I thought I throw them together in a blog review, seeing as neither is quite worth a whole post.

Don't get me wrong, both have some unique styling and appeal. But A.I.C.O. was overly strung out -  if you find it's outro-sequence dull, then don't expect to be riveted by the pace and direction the remaining episodes. While both were less clever than they wanted to be.


A.I.C.O. Incarnation [Spoilers]:

It wins points for having a female lead, for a change, instead of the usual generic young male foil. But she's horrendously demure and half soaked. Plus, there's an utterly excessive amount of sharp intakes of breath from the voice acting: So much shock, so many little embarrassments, so STOP! PLEASE!

The "burst" concept has a cool ring of singularity (or the "spike" in Quantum Thief trilogy). And this has a cool opening sequence, with retrieval agents in trim spacesuits that utilise roller blades for nippy traversal of a futuristic built environment, apparently overrun by Tetsuo's overgrown arm (my little Akira reference, there). The upright palanquin style APCs with two wheeled legs are chic, as is the bigger tank. But these elements all get terribly overused, as the episodes grind their way linearly up the river of nano-engineered flesh run awry.

It really feels like art imitating game logic, here; why is it they are taking the path of maximum resistance to the objective at the top of this valley of death? Apparently the train line on a perpendicular route is not running... Oh well, that makes perfect sense then...! (It's not like one could just hike over the mountains or something.)

"What do you mean, this is the worst possible route? It's a straight line from here to there! 'Heli-' what?"

There's an boy who's artificial arm get repeatedly torn off, how 'lucky' (or rather, depressingly cliché). The mid-way plot twist is dumb too, in that it should come as no surprise to viewers that the brain at the centre of burst is the original, if it was switched out from it's birth body (causing the disaster). But we're deliberately mislead by repeatedly seeing protagonist Aiko's humanoid body exhibit a blue hardening reaction to damage. Apparently that was because... mumble, mumble, techno babble nonsense.

Anyway the main plot is heavy handed dwelling on a couple of philosophical points:

(a) Mind-body duality - In transferring the brains over. A totally ridiculously unnecessary thing to have done in the first place, given that both survived fine.

(b) Is a human mind copied by technological means a valid soul? - Yes. But of course the scientist in the body of a moody teenager spend most of the series supposedly thinking of the artificial version inhuman, a means to an end. Until he gets to appreciate her selfless will to sacrifice (JUST GET ON WITH IT ALREADY! WHY YOU TAKE SO LONG?! COULDA JUST BEEN A MOVIE!)

Actually, I do like that her mind was transferred over (and synchronised) by a gradual, repeated process of 'dreaming' (however metaphysical that link, physically). Physiologically, dreaming seems to reassert our significant memories (and strip out the irrelevant daily information junk, to minimise the brain's activation and energy consumption).


B - The Beginning [Spoilers]:

It seems to start out kind of like the TV series Dexter, if he were a brooding teenage boy with superhuman powers. He even has a sister-like cop buddy. And there's an antagonist with very similar styling to one in "Terror in Resonance" (an excellent anime I enjoyed), part of complex crimes that aren't about what they seem. The plot also circles back to an orphanage, of sorts, too.

But she dies too soon and the intrigue seems less compelling as the mysteries unfold. Often feeling far too Da Vinci Code - rubbing viewers noses in clever little ciphers, splashing symbols across the screen, etc.

The main investigator guy is like a permanently misanthropic Spike (from Cowboy Beebop), but devoid of all kung-fu mojo. While Lili is an actually interesting character - clever, caring, young and assertive, but vulnerable.

And who really cares too much about Coco? Are we really to believe that he's never used his magic eye to brainwash anyone? Why even have that in there, kinda seems redundant. His evil brother uses his, of course. He supposedly used it on himself, or lost his memory somehow, but then how can that be true in conjunction with leaving his "13" & "IIII" call mark symbols everywhere, from the start?

There were more details things that didn't add up and general dumbness. Like, why do all the semi-super-human 'regies' wear highly distinguishing clown makeup? Why does B have to fly up to the bad-guy airship base? I mean, other than it's dramatic, because he'll almost certainly freeze up at high altitude (like an early Iron Man suit). But the bad guys regularly commute up there somehow, so why not just hijack or hitch a ride on one of their helicopters?

The underlying plots is about a centuries long eugenics (selective breeding) program, aimed at bringing back ancient god-like powers. This seems to be a somewhat hot topic in fiction. I guess it's tackling trans-humanism, but from a context grounded in history (Nazi history, famously...). Still as implausible as X-Men 'mutants'. But at least they used a vaguely more plausible timescale of centuries, here, rather than Ascension's 50 years. And the process apparently bread in the weakness of psychotic degeneration (hence the regies)...

Anyway. "B - The Beginning" tries to tie in too many different influences and elements, loosing it's way. If it does get a second series, I'm not sure I'll bother with it (unless I really can't find anything better, again).