The passage of time has only increased my appreciation for UN-GO. As anime in general has trended towards xenophobia and nationalism, BONES has provided a welcome contrary perspective. Specifically, writer Aikawa Shou has been a standout – first with UN-GO and now with Eureka Seven: Astral Ocean, he shows a […] Read more
Like Mashiro-iro Symphony, UN-GO was a series that failed to captivate me out of the box and turned into one of the better shows of the Fall season. With it’s odd source material, strange character designs and washed-out visual style the initial impression was more off-putting than striking. And […] Read more
The little show almost nobody watched certainly went out with a bang, delivering up a classic finale to one of the most satisfying mysteries anime has seen in many a season. There was certainly a lot to cover in the final episode, as BONES and (to whatever extent all this […] Read more
It’s a shame more people aren’t watching UN-GO, because it’s delivering some of the smartest and most interesting non-commercial anime in ages. I wasn’t wild about this series for the first couple of weeks, but to say it’s grown on me would be an understatement. If this turns out to be the […] Read more
With only two episodes remaining after this one and so many unanswered questions hanging over things, it seems very likely that this is the arc that will take us to the end of the series. If so, they’ve chosen to go out with what looks to be a good mystery. […] Read more
The prison mystery wraps up – sort of – in a mostly satisfactory and highly entertaining manner that plays something like a cross between 60’s sci-fi and early Hitchcock. I can’t help but wonder whether much was changed from Ango’s original story, or Ango was simply a remarkably visionary writer. […] Read more
There’s no Fall anime that guards its secrets as closely as UN-GO, and none that makes you think so hard almost every week. Whether you consider that a positive or a negative probably determines how much of a fan of this series you are. I’ve actually had to think quite […] Read more
I ended last week’s post by wondering what the results of the first anime-original episode of UN-GO would be like. We have our answer – absolutely bloody brilliant. I sort of suspected that, absent the constraints of trying to adapt Ango’s unusual source material to the 22-minute format, the highly […] Read more
UN-GO certainly isn’t the best new series of the Fall season, but it just might be the most interesting. Make no mistake, this episode was not as strong as the stellar fourth episode. The pacing felt very rushed, almost comically so, as the episode raced at blinding speed through a […] Read more
Now that was more like it. Building on the strong first half last week, UN-GO delivered a conclusion to its first two-parter that was exactly what I hoped this show would be – smart, funny, dark and extremely interesting. I think this episode worked on pretty much all levels. It […] Read more