First Impressions: Kaiba

Every season brings one anime that falls into that “artsy” category whose only goal is to hurt your head by the end of each episode. Mononoke and Mushishi were both excellent series that fell into that category. The Spring season has brought us Kaiba, the story of a world where memories and the body have become easily separable from each other.

The story beings when a young man named Warp wakes up in a broken room. After meeting Popo they are both attacked by machines who are designed to capture the bodies of those living in the slums in order to sell them back to the rich.

Warp woke up with no knowledge of his surroundings, or even knowledge of himself. He seems to be someone important because of the way Popo, who is treated like a hero by the citizens of the slums, recognizes him and quickly attempts to get him to safety. He is also carrying a picture of a girl in a locket. When asked if it was his girlfriend his response was “I wonder”.

The first episode doesn’t explain much about the world, other than Popos quick explanation of why the machine started to chase them. There rich desire bodies in order to allow them to live longer, and there is something special about Warps body because an unknown character agrees to take him away from that world, and a man only known as “Collector” wants his body. He has two characteristics no one else has shown yet. A strange triangle pattern on his lower abdomen, and a hole that does straight though his chest.

The art is what makes this series stand out from other Anime. In a world where the generic Anime art style has become a staple of the medium any show that diverges from it gets immediate notice.  They use very round designs in everything from the characters to the builds, and even in the guns and space ships. Some scenes even gain their own color tone, like the picture above which took place in a shady club.

The story, even though it has an overall dark and serious feeling, also incorporated tons of humor into the show. A combination of slapstick and character driven human created the scene above where the “collector” attempted to board the spaceship without a ticket and encountered the ships hard-assed sheriff.

This thirteen episode show has a ton of potential. I can’t wait to see where they take the dark character driven story, the interesting use of art, and well integrated humor. The world is also very interesting and I’m waiting for more of it to be revealed to the audience. Hopefully there is something more to it than just the fact that people can swap out their bodies and memories at will.