Kurenai Episode 1 - Deepest Night

Shintaro Kurenai seems to be a high school student who takes on jobs to rough people up for cash on occasion; for some reason his body is peculiar, but the show hasn’t seen fit to elaborate on what exactly is up with that at the moment. Anyhoo, his “boss”, Benika, arranges for a young girl, Murasaki Kuhoin, to be kidnapped from her father; she is shut away for no immediately apparent reason, although her stepmother’s hatred of her might have something to do with it. Benika offers Shintaro the job of being Murasaki’s bodyguard to protect her from unspecified problems, which he accepts after having a patented angsty flashback to his childhood; however, despite seeming to warm up to him Murasaki runs away from his studio apartment when Shintaro goes to school, causing him to have to run out to find her after dark; one small tantrum about being left alone later, all seems to be patched up.

The first part of this episode is deliberately confusing, and I have to say I really didn’t like it at all - aristocratic people bandying around names that meant nothing to me makes me feel stupid, to be honest. Imagine my surprise when the writing proved to be surprisingly interesting and the characters well portrayed; both Shintaro and Murasaki feel like real people, rather than anime charicatures. Murasaki in particular is impressive - this seems to be a good season for break-out seiyuu performances, as this appears to be Aoi Yuuki’s first role and she pulls it off with impressive aplomb.

I suppose I should have thought more carefully about this series considering that Kou Matsuo, the man behind Red Garden, is behind the wheel. While I don’t think the first episode of Kurenai is quite as strong as Red Garden’s was, Kurenai clearly has an advantage in that it appears to have actual money behind it, rather than the magical pixie dust that Gonzo seems to think funds the creation of anime.

So there’s ANOTHER Thursday night anime that seems to be worth following. Obviously Thursday is a night of otaku joy in Japan. I have but one first episode left that I’m planning to try (Himitsu, of which I hear terrible things…) and then I can get on with catching up a bit!

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