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R2 DVD Reviews
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Written by maehara
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Tuesday, 31 March 2009 00:00 |
 Say hello to Hazuki, the world's cutest vampire. She can bite me anytime. Quite why a vampire is wearing cat ears is completely beyond me, though. We've been here before, of course - it's not that long since Moon Phase was being released as individual volumes - but when a character's as huggable as Hazuki there's really no excuse not to watch it again. So what's the verdict second time around..?
In the depths of the German countryside is a haunted castle, which Japanese photographer Kouhei, occult magazine editor Hiromi & paranormal expert Seiji are investigating for Hiromi's magazine. Kouhei's getting a bit tired of chasing the paranormal, wanting instead to get back to taking photgraphs of normal things - but it seems that his life is about to become anything but normal. Inside the castle lives a Japanese girl - not your normal Japanese girl, but a vampire, bound to the castle by forces that won't let her go. When Kouhei sees Hazuki out on the castle rooftop he's instantly entranced by her and starts snapping away, but being a vampire she doesn't turn up on his photographs - something Kouhei doesn't realise until he's already back in Japan. Determined to find out more about her, he returns to the castle, where he falls under her spell and is bitten...
From there, a change comes over Hazuki - from sweet & cute, she's suddenly all demanding, insisting that Kouhei call her 'master' and being hugely annoyed when he refuses. You see, after having been bitten by her, he's supposed to come over all loyal, but the occult is strong in Kouhei's family and it turns out that he's immune to Hazuki's control - something that annoys her no end. Rather than simply expect Kouhei to free her from her captivity, then, she has some explaining to do. And perhaps something called "asking nicely" that she's really not used to...
Anyway, to cut a long story short, Hazuki ends up back in Japan and living with Kouhei and his family - although it's not quite the carefree, simple life as the forces that had held her captive in Germany want her back, leading to a steady stream of adversaries running up the airmiles to do so. Some are more threatening than others - the first, Elfriede, has reasons to want to be free of her masters herself and soon switches sides, but others are more committed to their mission and things occasionally get nasty. Through all this, there's Hazuki's efforts to find her missing mother, and Kouhei learning about his latent spiritual powers - and finding out that doing so could well separate him from Hazuki.
The studio behind Moon Phase is SHAFT, who along with GAINAX were also responsible for Mahoromatic and This Ugly Yet Beautiful World. Given that the worst aspects of both those shows were classic GAINAX failings, I had been hoping that SHAFT on their own would make this a good show. For the most part they do, although it's not without its failing particularly towards the end. Maybe they've been hanging around GAINAX a little too much.
There's a very disjointed feeling in the series between what could be described as classic gothic horror, the sheer cuteness of Hazuki, and the liberal doses of comedy that get dropped in here & there - and that's before mentioning the sugar overdose that passes as the opening sequence. It's a very strange combination - but just as it's said that true vampires can mesmerise their prey, so that all you can do is watch your doom approaching, so here you just can't help yourself watch the terminally cute Hazuki go about her onscreen antics. Ah, the lure of a girl wearing cat ears.
The series starts off in full gothic mode, with the first two episodes set primarily in Vigo’s castle and dealing with Hazuki’s attempts to enthral Kouhei and secure her freedom while Seiji tries to keep Vigo at bay for long enough for Kouhei to make it back to the outside world. The castle itself is almost a living thing, which leads to a number of great little scenes as Hazuki and Kouhei try to get through it to Vigo’s centre of power, with the castle itself fighting back against them. These scenes are beautifully drawn and hugely atmospheric, with a feeling to them that you don’t often get in anime. It’s a case of presentation over content, of course – the story is as simple as they come, with the way Hazuki and Kouhei clash with each other bringing a bit of comedy to the story – but it’s great fun to watch, and the series slips back into gothic mode whenever there's a real threat presented against Hazuki and Kouhei.
As for the characters… It’s nice for a change to have a series that’s not entirely led by high-school kids. Yes, Hazuki falls into that age-range, but the rest of the lead characters – Kouhei, Elfriede, Hiromi, Seiji and Kouhei’s grandfather – are all older characters, and a more interesting bunch because of it. Hazuki brings general all-round adorability to the mix, along with being the person that the story revolves around; the rest of the cast play second-fiddle to her, but they’re all unique and interesting characters. Kouhei’s stuck with a talent he’d rather not have (his ability to photograph the paranormal, while being pretty much immune to its affects), and a new role as Hazuki’s effective guardian that he never really wanted – although he soon learns to make the most of it. His grandfather seems to be aware that there’s a connection between the disappearances of Hazuki’s and Kouhei’s mothers which leads him to allow Hazuki to stay with them, and along with Seiji is clearly aware that there’s more going on with Hazuki than there initially appears. Hiromi is an old friend of Kouhei’s, and keeps him supplied with work while lusting over Seiji, and Elfriede initially adds a sense of threat before becoming intrigued by Kouhei’s abilities and becoming outwardly more friendly - and romantically linked to his grandfather. Lucky old geezer.
Later on we're introduced to twins Kaoru and Hikaru. They’ve been promised in marriage (despite their young years) to Kouhei and Seiji respectively – not an arrangement that the guys seem to be taking particularly seriously, but the girls seem to be set on the idea, which creates a neat little bit of conflict between them and Hazuki, the interloper who’s now living with their promised men. Finding out that she’s a vampire only adds to the mistrust, and across the series there are a few good scenes where the three deal with each other. The twins both have the Mido family’s supernatural powers, so they’re actually a good match for Hazuki in a fight - and they do fight a lot, before a sense of mutual tolerance and respect eventually sets in. The cast play off each other quite well, without falling back too heavily on typical anime stereotypes. With the possible exception of Hiromi, they each also have their own unique aspects or abilities that make them that little more interesting, and as the story develops they all get made full use of.
As the series progresses it get more serious, with first the introduction of Hazuki's alternate personality and alter-ego Luna, a far more sinister and dangerous creature than her host who must be dealt with carefully (and in a way that's a bit of a cop-out, to be honest), and then with the arrival on the scene of Mario in episode 16. On one level, he’s another “monster of the week” type – one of the creatures from Count Kinkel’s stables, more powerful than the ones who had previously been sent to recapture Hazuki – and that did annoy me a bit. I didn’t want Moon Phase slipping into some sort of “battle, victory, comedy, repeat” formula, and with Mario that looked like the way we were heading. That’s not how it turned out, though, as Mario’s first battle with the Mido family quite literally lights a touchpaper under the storyline and shakes the whole idea up significantly, starting with the apparent deaths of two primary characters. Surprised? I certainly was – between cat ears and falling washpans, death and destruction wasn’t really on the list of things I was expecting from Moon Phase, but that’s what we were getting.
The key to all this is characters growing up. Hazuki is a little girl at heart, but she’s learning all the time about what it’s like to be a girl in the real world, and that eventually begins to be reflected in her personality, along with the darker influences that her Luna personality has on her. More noticeable, though, is Kouhei’s development, as he learns about the responsibility that comes with having decided to protect Hazuki, and finds himself forced to learn his family’s occult arts to make sure he’s able to carry out that task. As a result, the Kouhei you see in later episodes is very different from the Kouhei you first meet, with the events between episodes 15 & 18 laying the foundations for the final “chapter” of the series, a chapter that brings one more adversary to the party: Hazuki's half-sister, Artemis.
The relationship between Hazuki and Artemis isn't spelled out on-screen - it falls to the on-disc extras to fill in just how much the pink-haired one despises her older half-sibling, and it's those feelings that make her the villain that she is. If I hadn't known that in advance (the first thing I do when I load a new title is check out the extras - fortunately, in this case), a few scenes here may have been just a little more confusing. While Artemis is small and cute, there's a barely-concealed aura of danger that surrounds her, and along with her clearly-powerful sidekicks Jeda and Vargas you can tell she could present the gang with quite a challenge, which makes for some tense and entertaining viewing when it finally happens. It's just a shame that Arte, Jeda and Vargas are left very undeveloped, cardboard-cutout villains who do present a threat but could have been so much more.
That takes us up to episode 24, and if the series had ended there, I'd be ending this review on a very positive note - Moon Phase, up to this point, manages to pull of the rare task of mixing comedy and drama in a series that's easy to watch but has some moments that really will have you at the edge of your seat. But then SHAFT's connections with GAINAX seem to come into play, and we get a real stinker of an ending.
It's a classic case of the series that should have quit while it was ahead, but didn't. Episode 25 - the final episode of the original TV series, as I understand it - is an epilogue piece that takes us back to the antique shop for a last blast of the show's more comic side. Life has returned to pretty much normal, which means that this is an episode much like any other from mid-season and not what you'd expect to see at the end of the series. Episode 26 takes that further into the ridiculous, with the shop now floating in the middle of the ocean for reasons unexplained. Both episodes just had me asking "why!?" - at episode 24 the show had reached a natural conclusion, tied up most of its loose ends and had nowhere else to go, and tacking on two comic episodes just feels completely out-of-place and takes away from the sense of closure the series had. Completely pointless, and because of that a lot less enjoyable than similar episodes earlier in the series had been.
Moon Phase ends with a bit of a whimper, then - there's some good stuff here in terms of developing the relationship between Hazuki and Kouhei, which is after all the foundation of the show, but villains that it's hard to get a feel for and some tacked-on comic episodes that do nothing for the series spoil the good work. While the ending is a real let-down, with 24 other episodes of enjoyment in the set it's not enough to completely ruin the experience, and overall this is a series that's well worth getting.
For full episode summaries and screenshots, check our reviews of the individual releases:
» Volume 1
» Volume 2
» Volume 3
» Volume 4
» Volume 5
» Volume 6
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