Moon Phase (Phase 2: Beauty IS the Beast)

Moon Phase (Phase 2: Beauty IS the Beast)

Chimaera

Are you FUNiGIRL enough for this anime? Sure, if you like things more cute than scary, then this anime works out great. If not, then it can be a bit hard to bear. The second volume of Moon Phase briskly picks up a story in progress and charges full speed ahead.

For those not familiar with the premise of Moon Phase, these episodes pick up after Hazuki has been rescued by supernatural photographer Kouhei and she is settled back with his family. They apparently took a quick liking to her, although, I’m not sure why.

After visiting the Funimation site to catch up, I quickly realized this anime is targeted towards girls, start to finish. Not women, girls. The tragic part of this cuteness is the anime vacillates between wanting to be serious and cute, without doing a successful job at either. My personal vote would be to crank up the darkness factor, tone down the cat ears and toss in a bit of blood to improve the experience. Or, at least they could turn Hazuki’s cat into a vampire as well. These are vampires, but most anime appears to treat vampires with a light hand, as if too much darkness will scare away viewers. Handy hint: there’s an audience for everything in anime. However, Moon Phase is obviously being marketed towards a younger, “goth loli” style audience and as such, the desire for just a little more darkness probably will go on the wish pile to wither and drown although the potential is there, teasing you just beyond your reach. I still hold out some faint hope for future volumes.

Hazuki and Kouhei spend so much time arguing that you wonder why he helped her escape from the castle she was trapped in to begin with. Before you get too irritated by the manipulative Hazuki, the slinky vampire Elfirede shows up. While it is clear she was sent by her master to retrieve Hazuki, Elfirede has her own agenda. She envies Hazuki’s “freedom”, and believes Kouhei is a “vampire lover” that will give her that freedom as well. Hazuki of course resents any presence in Kouhei’s life that isn’t hers; however she appears to make an exception for Hiromi, Kouhei’s best friend and coworker at Occult Magazine, when she isn’t trying to manipulate Hiromi into following her every wish.

Too much attention in these episodes is given on Hikaru and Kaoru, two girls that are pledged by their parents to marry Seiji and Kouhei respectively when they grow up. Considering they’re both currently younger than Hazuki and she looks twelve, if that, the near constant obsession these have with this matter is disturbing. The duo does possess magical powers, yet these wayward wacky sorceresses are quickly squashed down and the girls are told to behave. For the sake of the series, you hope they disobey often in the future.

This volume visits Kyoto, a popular destination for anime characters, and once they return to take care of an obligatory filler episode that does little to demonstrate anything but how spoiled Hazuki has become in such a short time with her hosts, trouble quickly sets in. No amount of new clothes and kitty cat ears can take the place of family, and so Hazuki pines for her mother who promised to come back to her. Unfortunately the villains here know how to exploit this weakness and lead her outside the protective barrier she had courtesy of her new host family. She is then spirited away by the wicked Count Kinkel far too easily and the remainder of the volume focuses on rescuing Hazuki and offers up a bit of a cliffhanger style ending. But really? Everything will probably be okay.

Drenched in the syrupy sweet J-pop song “Neko Mimi Mode”, each opening sequence has small visual variations, some of which are explained here. The simplicity of it will leave this song in your head for at least an hour after viewing, whether you want it to be there or not. Not because the song is that good, but because it is redundant. This would be entertaining if the images were not so disturbing – keep in mind Hazuki popping up in triplicate looking like she is about to kiss someone is not disturbing. Hazuki popping up in triplicate looking like she is about to kiss someone from a bowl of noodles is disturbing. The same can be said for the anime itself – while Kouhei acts like a big brother to Hazuki, she insists in varying levels of tantrum that he is her “slave”. These are small things that make all the difference to the viewer.

Aptly named, the beauty of the show is apparent, but too bad it is a bit of a beast to pick up and watch.

[/b]Entertainment: 6.5[/b]
My attention keeps wandering, and that’s not good. I’m sure this middle of the road goth cute thing appeals to someone.

Technical: 9
Five episodes, art cards, and a nice thick booklet of interviews and episode summaries does make me happy.

Overall: 7

DVD Features: Episodes 6-10, English, Japanese with English Subtitles

Extras: Trailers, Textless Songs