(This review was originally written on June 12th, 2011, though in recent years I reworked parts of the review to reflect my feelings on watching it years later, as you can tell by my referencing shows that came long after this. This was before Yutaka Yamamoto outted himself as a...pretty controversial figure, and no mention of it will be made here for the sake of staying on topic)

This anime is directed by Yutaka Yamamoto, who is the guy involved with Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens and the ED theme of Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, both of which I didn't watch, nor do I plan to. But he is also known for being a bit of a drama king for reasons I myself do not really know. Sorry! In 2011, he created a short sci-fi anime called Fractale. 2011 was a pretty awesome year for anime and many titles from that time are well remembered and beloved even to this day. But while winter of 2011 certainly had great anime, out of all the ones I've seen, Fractale is not one of the better shows that come out during that time.

Fractale is basically about a boy named Clain who is living in a futuristic world dominated by a socially structured system called Fractale, whose purpose is to ensure humankind's stability and prosperity. Not only that, people now use computer generated avatars called Doppels to do everything for them while the humans do nothing but laze around peacefully. But the system seems to be falling apart and a girl named Phryne is required to restore it back to it's original state. Clain runs into her and she gives him her pendant, which contains a young Doppel girl named Nessa. Both she and Phryne are required to help the Fractale system return to normal. But Clain and the two girls are caught by the Lost Millennium, a rebel group that wants to destroy Fractale and regain what humanity has truly lost: it's independence and sense of hardship.

On the technical side of things, the animation is very top-tier from characters constantly moving around and displaying small, subtle movements to very detailed and life-like background scenery. A-1 Pictures, the studio behind anime such as Kuroshitsuji, Valkyria Chronicles, and half of Fairy Tail, seem to have some kind of awesome benefactor giving them bottomless buckets of money because I can't think of an anime where they screwed up their budget big time, and Fractale is no exception, looking just as nice as all the other anime it produced. Plus they took inspiration from places in Ireland. How cool is that!? The soundtrack is nice too, ranging from small chipper tunes to epic fight BGMs and all that jazz, with a nice insert song that's a pretty significant plot point for part of the series.

I do feel the characters could've been more developed. Clain especially. He's simply portrayed as a bystander who gets roped into the affairs of the Lost Millenium and isn't really all that special. He's normal, and I don't really mind it. I do kinda wish he was fleshed out a bit more and did more. He's a techno geek and quite realistic as far as I know. I know REAL people who act just like him, though to a lesser degree, and his whining could get annoying at points. Phryne's a reckless and strong-willed tomboy and Nessa's the cute and innocent little child who knows nothing of the world around her. They're all fine characters, but I do wish they got a bit more explored (except for Phryne. She's just fine). But there's one character that seriously annoyed the hell out of me: Enri. Throughout 85% of the show she kept whining and screaming, "Ecchi! Ecchi!! Ecchi!!!" at practically EVERYTHING Clain did! Goodness girl JUST SHUT UP!!! Having her rant at Clain on a regular basis and make stupid pervert jokes is not the best way to win an audience over.

Speaking of annoying stuff, one thing I really don't like in this anime is how it treats Clain. God, this anime is just DYING to paint Clain as some kind of pervert when he really isn't, from making him walk in on Phryne swimming naked to being forced in a dress by some bland, sexy woman for some contrived reason. Every episode has some kind of perverted moment when someone (like Enri) is constantly calling him a pervert and won't let him explain himself, or forcing him into something that'll "expose" him, like people making Clain and Nessa share the same bed. Jeez, it's like the creators have some kind of grudge against him and are forcing him into so many awkward and perverted situations it's not even funny. Those are all really not necessary. Honestly, rewatching this show again, I honestly feel sorry for him. He's a decent person but everybody is convinced he's some kind of pervert and absolutely refuse to believe otherwise! They don't even let him explain himself, and even if some of the things he does are by accident, everybody seems to believe he does everything on purpose, nothing more! For someone who made this anime to save the industry, he's not exactly helping his case by having the producers deliberately humiliating his main character every chance the show gets.

Furthermore, the storyline is a convoluted mess. Fractale has a lot of great ideas, like the Fractale system being a society where humans lost the need for physical interaction, but little to no time to really flesh them out or utilize them to their fullest potential. But more than that, Fractale as a show simply has no interest in even spending any time on what it advertises as the central theme of the show. Any interesting ideas it comes up with get abandoned quickly for the sake of moving to the next plot beat, and the show becomes nothing more than a generic adventure show with annoying, whiny characters that don't really get any moments to shine and rushing to get to its equally WTF-inducing finale that solves nothing, similar to what Fena: Pirate Princess did.

In the end, Fractale is an ambitious anime that stumbled every step of the way and completely fails at both telling a story and deciding what story it wants to tell. It's just a generic adventure show that comes and goes, leaving nothing in its wake.