What I watched in DECEMBER 2013: Digest Version, part 1 of 3

b Dennou Coil: I love this show so much.  I really, really want to own it, so I can watch it and make all my friends watch it, too.  It's like Miyazaki meets Ghost in the Shell in the best combo possible.  It's the nearish future, and the coolest current tech toy is basically a really advanced and much cheaper version of Google Glasses, which turn the world into a big game.  When you're wearing your glasses, you can see all sorts of things that don't really exist. 

But it's not all fun and games.  There's an urban legend about how the glasses world can cause death and injury in the real world.  And there are various mysteries and realistic portrayals of differently broken kids and their trials in the real world and the glasses world.  Love, love, love this show.  Suspense, sci-fi, kids, adventure, mystery, friendship!  What is not to love?

b Kids on the Slope: Great music, lovely art.  Like a lot of adaptations, it suffers from that Cliff's Notes feeling.  The loving care taken with the music scenes is kind of stunning.  (The animation.  Matches.  The music.) The story of kids in a different era and how they relate through music (and how sometimes music isn't enough to keep you together when time keeps marching on) is painful and touching.  There is the feeling that things are missing because there just wasn't enough time to get them in (and sometimes these are important things).  I wish they'd had enough time to tell the whole story because I think it's a really good story.  And the music.  Oh, the music.  And the cultural history.  Oh, it was really lovely.  I may purchase this in blu-ray, so I can listen to this on someone's nice surround-sound system.

Great music, lovely art.  Like a lot of adaptations, it suffers from that Cliff's Notes feeling.  Some things feel rushed while others are, well, sometimes they're explained about later.  In KotS, some things are lovingly depicted (the animation actually matches the music) and others, it seems like you're just supposed to get them.  Maybe this is a case of me not being Japanese enough?  Or maybe I was just slow on the uptake at the end.  I look forward to more viewings in case they clear things up.  Anyway, I was pleased with how much happened in such a brief series, even if I do want to read the full version some day.