C: Control - The Money and Soul of Possibility: The Complete Series
Show me the money or actually my future as an animal/monster that fights other people's future. Imagine one day you're not doing that well financially then a freak weirdo who bears an odd resemblance to Tim Burton's Mad Hatter shows up and gives you lots of money and a magical credit card. That would be the start of C:Control. As I just wrote about in my review of Steins;Gate, I've been waiting for this one since the summer and the mess that was Anime Expo next to the X Games.
Not even the X Games could stop me from previewing some of the episodes and when I saw them I was hooked. I was hooked for it's utterly strange financial paradise world where Entres (competitors) fought in crazy visceral fights with their Assets (monsters) all in a dance of death and money loss to gain more cash.
The opening sequence grabs yours attention with it use of different money from around the world and some short little nags of what its motivations might be, oh look America likes war. In all seriousness the visuals from the opening should be playing at banks instead of the local news or weather. Same goes for the closing, but it should replace the stock listings at the bottoms of business channels.
As I stated earlier a weirdo gives you money, however to keep it and gain more you have to do battle in another world called the Financial District and you even get your own little troll like driver to take you there with a smarmy attitude. This happens to the young college student Kimimaro Yoga. He has the Assest/monster of Msyu. She's a young girl who should probably have more clothes on, but she does have horns and floats around. She also lives in Kimimaro's credit card sort of like a pokeball. She's is tsundre so she fights for her master, but talks back to him and calls him an idiot now and again. She's Kimimaro's future and if he loses her it ain't going to go well for him.
So what's that mean? Well, let's say, if you keep winning fights you buy a nest egg and have children. Let's say you completely lose/go bankrupt in the district. Well, my friend, I'm sorry to say those children are gone. When your Assest is gone so is future you built with the money from the the Financial District, so what you earned with it no longer around.
The show get into this darker tone quite soon and you might see it righ away in the kill or be killed fights. This was produced by legendary Tastunoko productions, so they now how to show some action filled fights. When your locked in battle your Asset doesn't just fight you do too. These fights become vicious. A Entre can summon energy swords from their hands and can make other Entres bleed out. It's not real blood, but it seems to be somewhat painful as reality. You'd of course die from the hits you take in these fights if they really affected you. Assets attacks take you down in the same way and they have special attacks ranging from energy to just eating you.
What eats me up is how short the series is thanks to notiminA. NotiminA is an animation block in Japan with short series and most of them are 11 episodes and like it's predecessor of 11-episodes -Fractale it shoves way too much in at the last minute. I wanted some more battles and time before Kimimaro got into a predestined fight that happens in the opening credits. Kimimaro follows a father like figure almost from the start of the series, but fights him after little reasoning as why he would shift sides. Then there's a subplot about a secret agent that doesn't pan out fully. There's an orginization within fiancial district that gets taken care of in minutes, but seemed would matter more.
The show isn't ruined by this as they're are some touching moments or great considerations on how we all spend our money. It does make you think about the future and for noitaminA's future they might consider more episodes for plot to grow.Included in the extras other than clean openings and closings are handy guides on economics and episode breakdowns, with explanation on some financial terms you might not know. These are nice little features if you missed something.
High recommendation to see this one for epic fights filled with economic jargon. I kind of would like it to be a video game too. Having a stock market for pocket monsters sounds fun. Kind of amazed they're wasn't a betting ring with in the show now.
The DVD's/ Blu-rays were provided by the publisher for review
