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August 07, 2004
LA-deez and GENtlemen! CHILDren of all AGES!
When I was a kid I loved Enid Blyton's "Come to the Circus!", a novel about a timid little girl who is taken in by her uncle and aunt, who work in a circus. However, despite Blyton's romanticized (and sanitized 
) vision of circus life, I never felt a particular need to run away and join the circus myself.
Just recently, I discovered Kaleido Star, through the Newtype dvd sampler. (I supposed those things are good for SOME things after all...) Naegino Sora, a talented gymnast, has always dreamed of joining Kaleido Stage, a Cirque de Soleil-type circus which captivated her as a child. So she travels all the way to America to audition,gets her suitcase stolen, performs some amazing street acrobatics to get it back, gets taken in by the cops because of her age, convinces them that she's no runaway, is returned to Kaleido Stage by a friendly cop who declares himself her first fan, and... misses the audition. All this happens in the first half of the first episode. Yes, it's frenetic. However, a chance encounter allows her to audition in the middle of a performance, and with that Sora is welcomed into Kaleido Stage (though not with open arms, as we are to see in upcoming episodes...)
The characteristic animation designs by Hajime "Animation Runner Kuromi" Watanabe quickly drew me into this weirdly fascinating technicolor anime. As befitting a circus atmosphere, GONZO Digimation brings a sparkly, otherworldly quality to the production. But as always, it all comes down to character personality, and there's plenty to go around. Sora is your usual genki shoujo heroine with guts and persistence to spare (she reminds me of Tohru). Later on we meet Anna, a serious-looking trainee acrobat who really wants to be a clown, and Mia, who's... er... there to make up the triumvirate. I guess we'll get to see more about her later on. Then there's ice queen Layla, who disapproved of Sora's unorthodox adoption into Kaleido Stage, but oddly enough she does not give off an Evil Bitch vibe as much as a Perfectionist Diva "I won't let this circus be ruined" vibe. She clearly recognizes talent when she sees it, and rather than try to extinguish Sora's spark, she somehow encourages it. In her own, er, special way.
A warning for those who get the DVD - DON'T read the character descriptions, they contain HUGE spoilers.
I just can't look at Yuri the way Sora does now.
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Posted by Innocent Sidekick of Evil at August 7, 2004 10:29 AM | Posted to Anime/Manga
