Dennou Coil is a great show, feeling unique and like a mesh of both the sci-fi and fantasy genres in some ways (in terms of feel), it crafts an incredibly interesting and well realised world and mystery plot. Very ahead of its time conceptually, yet also unafraid to leap out of the constraints its concept and genre might pose to explore a more entertaining direction for its characters and plotting. Thematically its dive into digital technologies such as AR and the internet, using its Dennou glasses, not only crafted the interesting world and felt ahead of its time for its ideas alone, but felt like it understood the split between physical and digital reality well and explored it with subtlety, also including ideas such as escapism and conspiracies spreading.

The aesthetic is very likable, very early 2000s, but still plenty unique for that period, with strong Honda character designs and a muted grey aesthetic that worked very strongly for its particular world, accented well throughout and switched up into different colours such as yellow and blue/ greens (though remaining consistent palette-wise) when needed for great effect. The strength of the shows overall design also meant this muted aesthetic was utilised to its fullest, with its glitch effects, fog, shadows, and other key design choices and 3D uses meshing well.

The animation is also very good, rarely feeling stiff, and opting for its own style of weight and shape utilising the character designs. I mean you wouldn't expect bad animation from a show helmed by an animator as prolific as Mitsuo Iso (I point in the direction of the Asuka fight in End of Evangelion for the main example of his work that comes to mind for me). I also really like the OP for this, which like plenty of the rest of the show has great camera work, further showing Iso and staff know how to modulate weight and shape.

▶ Video ^^^charismatic character animation (from the OP), one of many instances.

Spoiler, click to view

▶ Video

^^^Only a small snippet of the clip I wanted to show, but still kind of illustrates the camera movement adding weight to already tangible animation. Have spoiler tagged this one, as it's a 1 second clip and I don't want it looping and giving anyone a headache etc. It is from the OP, not a spoiler.

Of course Mitsuo Iso is not just great at animating, this script was his own too, an original project. I've already mentioned how incredible the world, concepts, themes, and mysteries of this gem are, but the characters and plot also have plenty of heart to them.

The first half is slowly paced and feels more like a slice of life set in this unique world, following the antics of these kids, with mysteries and plot points unfolding in the background. This could turn some off, and at first I was a little unsure about it, but it ultimately felt essential to crafting the characters, and showing the ways in which the technologies have been integrated into their ways of life and all the positives and negatives and so forth this entails. Its' really quite hard to explain how interesting this first half actually feels in retrospect unless you've seen it. It's brand of slice of life and context.

The second half begins to dive more into the complex lore and mysteries of the world (plus characters and their emotions). It sometimes felt overwhelming to me, and several times I got frustrated at how often it dived into expository technobabble sequences, followed by more expository sequences which added things yet also left previous things with more question marks. However, the plotting comes together quite neatly at the end, and the frustration of the story's complexity feels pretty necessary. Technobabble is probably a bad word to use actually, as each show-specific word had direct meaning attached to it by the end and very clear relevance.

The second half not only ramps up the plots but dives more into specific characters and their motivations and pasts. Isako and Yasako are particularly great characters with exceptional writing, but I won't go into too much detail, in part because its hard to explain, but also to avoid spoilers. Many other characters are also present throughout the show, and all play their part and role in the whole, with several having interesting stories of their own, such as Harakawa. A lot is shrouded in mystery throughout the show when it comes to most of the characters, and it all unravels very satisfyingly by the end. The more I think about the show the more I like it haha.

Overall, despite some complaints around its pacing and narrative style, this show was not only unbelievably interesting in so many ways (world, visuals, themes, characters, and unfolding mysteries), but ended on a strong emotional note. That emotional note, while not fully hitting as much as I wanted, likely due to a disconnect caused by the density of (arguably pretty brilliant) plotting and exposition that occurred right beforehand, still hit quite strongly and impressed.

I highly recommend this show. It's just so interesting and unravels everything very nicely in the end despite some frustrations, yet is also more than just 'interesting'.