Alice to Zóroku

This show features a strange couple, a young and cute girl, and a caring older man. At first, this show promised to be action-packed and fascinating because of all the skills and fight scenes shown in the first few episodes. I was therefore expecting more fight scenes and for it to turn into some kind of dramatic show that would end with a trope, some tired old message. However, this anime series stopped being all about the fight scenes in the second half of the season and calmly resolved everything. Then it started to deal with the interpersonal dynamics concerning relationship issues mainly and address some fairly common problems. The fact that the main female protagonist has supernatural powers spiced things up a bit. So, in the end, this show makes for such an unexpectedly warm and charming anime series. It does not go down the usual road of being a show about fights between kids gifted with special abilities, but rather a female protagonist on a journey of self-discovery. Well, it definitely appealed to me in that regard because Sana is incredibly cute, and Zouroku proved to me that older people deserve respect - that is how great the old man was, even if he was mostly just giving everyone a piece of his mind and opinions based on his own experience. I liked how the characters were animated; it made them look quite endearing. Sure, some aspects, like the fact the cars in the first episode, looked worse than, say, the third episode of the GTA series of action-adventure games, and significantly spoiled my impression of this show. However, I am watching the new season of Berserk, so I guess bad CGI does not irritate me as much these days, plus it was only the cars, really. The soundtrack was also good, and in general, I found the whole world loosely inspired by Alice in Wonderland quite enjoyable. I liked it despite the fact this show is not brilliant, and it definitely is not going to suit everyone. It was mostly a charming, warm and cuddly show. So, in the end, I am going to award it an above-average rating because I was looking forward to each episode. 6.9/10. (2017.06.25)