A different "Hyuu"... plus: "She's Huuuge!"

When episode 22 of "Tsubasa Chronicle" wasn't available first thing Sunday morning, I was a bit disappointed, and dug around my archive to see what I could watch in it's place. Sunday morning breakfast with anime -- I can't break that ritual.

So I realized I hadn't watched "Popolocrois Story" in a while. It's an early Bee Train series that is pretty much "kids' show". Cloying opening & closing music, and cutesy & somewhat simplified overall with respect to the characters and story; still there's a little spark of interest to it. It's got that little bit of cinematic flair, and in places, the animation is rather good.

In particular, a sequence that completely caught me off guard on Saturday morning was in episode 8. "Hyuu" is the name of one of the characters, a young girl of a lost race called "Wind-kind" -- which essentially means she can fly. And in this scene, she was doing an air ballet that, for what would otherwise be a simple children's show, was amazing!

And to top it off, the story is into this arc of betrayal and a bit of a dramatic edge that, while not at a deep grownup level, is still rather surprisingly involving.

So my advice -- skip the OP & ED, and give this little underrated effort a go. After a few episodes, the cloyingly-sweet aspects are tempered by a rather creative, yet simple story and interesting-to-watch characters.

Eventually, "Tsubasa" 22 made it, so I got to watch it last night. The "She's Huge!" line really cracked me up, though I suppose it would have been more of a joke if I knew what the character was from. Plus there were other great little moments -- I really like how lil' Sakura is animated in the flashbacks; she's so expressive.

Overall it was a little unsatisfying, though. The story was pretty much just setting the stage for what they seem to be billing as a big confrontation, so I was left with the feeling of "that was it?" I guess I thought there'd be a little more revealed at this point. Oh well, maybe next week. But I get a sense that all we're going to get is a big set-up for the next season. I'm just hoping there's at least a ".hack//SIGN" moment of closure; yeah the whole story is left wide open, but on a character level you're satisfied with what happens.