I have... recently gone back to watching the little underappreciated animes, after a brief stint watching a few things that had been recommended to me that were more popular (and for the record, I STILL don't get why people liked Fruits Basket, even after forcing myself to watch about half of it). Ergo Proxy was good, though, and I at least managed to finish Revolutionary Girl Utena.

It seems that my tastes simply differ from the norm. That and I'm insanely picky about what I will and won't watch. Those of you who have been here a while are aware of my little quirks, and I warn the newer ones now that yes, I do watch some weird anime.

Back to Zettai Shounen.

The show's actually a bit difficult to explain without giving away major plot points, because even the tiniest discovery has significance to the plot. Therefore, I will only tell you as much as I can without giving too much away.

Ayumu's parents are separated, and for one summer he is living with his father in a tiny town called Tana. The story focuses on the mysteries of the summer: the rumors of a kappa and ghosts, and the strange lights that people have been seeing.

At least for the first half.

At the thirteenth episode, it does a time skip and changes main characters. Unfortunately, because that entire arc depends on the first, I really can't say a thing at all about it.


The story moves a bit slowly, and it's certainly not the fast pacing people seem to expect now. Things happen as they would in the real world, save for the fact that it's science fiction, and for that I absolutely love it. It's a slow trickle of information and characterization, and it drew me in so that I hardly wanted to stop watching. Some people, judging by the youtube comments, thought it was too slow, but I have to disagree with them.

However, I think the time skip was a bit sudden. I had really come to love the characters from the first arc, and when they were suddenly swept to the side I was a bit unhappy. The new main character wasn't as loveable as Ayumu, and the twelfth episode was such a perfect and beautiful ending that it really could have stopped there and I would have regarded it as quite possibly one of the top three animes I've watched.

A shame that the second arc really just wasn't as good. Now realize this is in comparison to an absolutely amazing first arc, and if I were to compare it to any other show it would still be wonderful. I still think it could have been better, though, and the transition rather less sudden.

The music almost made up for it. It wasn't the beautiful score of Haibane Renmei (though I've yet to see anything other than Lord of the Rings that has a consistently better soundtrack), but it was quite good. It fit the mood very well.

The art was nothing to write home about, fairly simplistic as it was. Again, though, it fit what Zettai Shounen is.

In spite of my complaints about the second arc, ZS is an extremely good anime with believable characters and an interesting story. If Haibane Renmei is a ten, Zettai Shounen is probably around a 9-9.5 (on a scale of ten, of course).

If you don't mind a lot of questions being unanswered, you could simply stop after the twelfth episode. True, it would be very open-ended, but an absolutely perfect ending.