This Ugly Yet Beautiful World
This Ugly Yet Beautiful World is a high-quality show, but somehow, I think, it failed to do just a few things that would have taken it from Great to Must-see. The soundtrack is good, but forgettable; I don’t think I’d recommend buying it by itself. The plot seems have built itself up quite a bit, perhaps too much for its own good. Don’t get me wrong; I like this series, a lot. It’s funny, it’s dramatic, and it’s surprising. But this show was supposed to be awe-inspiring, and it just falls a bit short of that.
The show starts with Takuru and his friend Ryo, who see a mysterious light shoot through the sky and split in two, before meeting the equally mysterious Hikari, naked, alone, and not very fluent in Japanese/English/earth-speak. Soon, they are attacked by a monster, and Takuru transforms into… something. You see it in the opening too; I’m not going to bother to try to explain what he’s transforming into, because doing so would ruin the show, and you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. It’s obvious right away that Hikari is not quite what she seems to be either. A character named Jennifer with the appearance of Ritsuko and the drinking habits of Misato from NGE wanders around, knows even more than Wilhelm does in Xenosaga (and Wilhelm knows everything), and does virtually nothing but make cryptic and lewd observations despite her knowledge of the gravity of the situation. Takuru’s cousin loves him, but won’t admit it. They find another girl in the woods, Akari, there’s a beach episode, and all other sorts of craziness. Then, things become very dramatic, but, again, nothing much actually happens.
There’s a bit of Deus ex Machina toward the end, but with things getting so complex and crazy, calling this forgivable would be an understatement. There’s also a huge amount of dialog, so it’s well worth watching again, I suspect.
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