It is fundamental to express emotions in order to make a work of fiction great – that’s something the anime industry knows very well. Sad and depressing emotions are frequently seen in anime works, but the real key to success is to combine them with pleasant and hopeful emotions. Thrill, suspense, compassion, excitement and enjoyment; all of them are important to form a good show. Fumetsu no Anata e has its unique style, which most people like – considering its global appeal and popularity - and others do not. But this style is what really prevents it from standing close to “top tier” anime, and that is a fact.

Fumetsu no Anata e started off with an amazing opening episode; full of emotions, beautiful character interactions and plot twists. It felt romantic and succeeded in piquing the watchers’ interest. This episode was the prologue arc, and then a chain of longer character arcs followed. What went so wrong that made this anime’s content controversial? That’s definitely the repetitive use of the pattern Ooida Yoshitoki used in every character arc. And after giving it some thought, I reached the conclusion that this pattern I’m talking about might work in a novel, but not in a TV show. So it is not necessarily the writer’s fault.

The pattern promoted mostly depressing emotions and failed to emit the ones I mentioned before. As the series moved on, everyone was able to make a successful guess on how the story would proceed, which led to the loss of enthusiasm, thrill and enjoyment. The protagonist’s character development made sense, but in the end, that was all that happened in these twenty episodes. What only mattered was how strong (mentally and physically) Fushi would become, after a row of unpleasant and heartbreaking events.

Nevertheless, a character alone cannot make a top tier work of fiction. When it comes to the world build up, what is understood is that it concerns Fushi and only himself. People live in an underdeveloped society, but the mystery revolves around the supernatural element of the series; which is something he has to solve alone. The main villains’ character and motives (Nokkers) are not exactly shown yet, but it seems they are simple and exist to end our protagonist’s journey. As for Kansatsusha, it is not yet known if there are other creatures like him or why he behaves the way he does.

The soundtrack of this anime is mostly atmospheric (“Emotional Suite”, “Pink Blood”, “Mediator”). It is not something special, but it fits well the atmosphere. The animation looks nice and fits the atmosphere as well. The prevailing colours are purple, brown and green. The voice acting is sometimes good and sometimes bad. Tsuda Kenjirou’s narrating is great.

To conclude, Fumetsu no Anata e is a fantasy/supernatural anime whose main purpose seems to be to indicate how people can become stronger by facing hardships and moving on with their lives. To convey this message, it uses many short arcs which include a lot of tragic events and sad human emotions. It also shows human behaviour under difficult circumstances, people’s hope, people’s narrow-mindedness and other characteristics you may find out by watching.

My personal advice is to not expect much even if you love the first episodes. Because I loved them as well, but my final score was 35/100.
Thank you for reading!