Anime: Hitsuji no Uta

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Good animation and sound can elevate a lackluster story and make it something worth recommending. A lot of harem anime fall into this category, with semi-interesting characters and a so-so storyline made enjoyable by beautiful and attractive animation, and a heart-pumping/melting soundtrack. However, as good animation and sound can raise a series up, poor animation and sound can bring an excellent story to its knees. So what happens when a series is plagued with poor animation, poor sound, a lackluster story, and cardboard characters? Well, you end up with a series like Hitsuji No Uta.

Hitsuji No Uta does not look good. The animations are stunted and awkward, with the only fluid movement belonging to the badly done CGI cars, which feel as out of place as the helicopters did in Golgo 13 – The Professional and Escape from L.A., or the Ghouls in Divergence Eve.

Everyone looks alike in Hitsuji No Uta. All of the characters have the same facial structure, whether they are male or female, with a curious roundness and low detail that is far from attractive. The characters in Hitsuji No Uta not only look the same, but they’re not enjoyable to look at either.

Hitsuji No Uta also suffers from an overuse of repeated footage, repeated dialogue, and still frames. With a running time under two hours, it’s disconcerting to see so much padding, with the final episode feeling rushed and unsatisfying. If you haven’t read my review of Revolutionary Girl Utena, I’m not one who takes kindly to padding. The repeated scenes don’t look very good either, especially the one used whenever Akira is hungry for blood. Akira is standing against a white background, holding his mouth and shivering, while red blood splots flash in and out behind him. This is supposed to provoke feelings of horror, but all it manages to evoke is boredom.

The sound is another problematic area. The music itself is fine. The problem is that the same song is used constantly, unendingly, ceaselessly… all the goddamned time! The quiet techno rhythm started to grate on my nerves by the end of the first episode, with my annoyance level steadily increasing as the series progressed. It got so bad that I spent the better part of the last episode wrestling a knife away from my wrist, shouting, “Calm down! Calm down! It’s almost over!”

The sound effects are hardly noticeable, which is usually a good thing, but what’s noticeable is the lack of sound effects. Very little happens in Hitsuji No Uta, with very little sound effects being used in most scenes. It was not bad enough to be distracting, but it was noticeable. One good thing regarding the sound is the Seiyuu, who did a very good job overall.

The characters are hardly worth mentioning. They were not very interesting, nor did they do much of anything with the time they were given. Everyone seems very depressed in Hitsuji No Uta, and it’s contagious to the audience. Akira is the main character, whose family carries a blood disease that basically makes its members vampires without all the cool tricks. Chisana is his slightly older sister, whom he comes to live with. The two of them spend a lot of screen time having spasms and feeling weak, thirsting for blood that they deny themselves for… no particular reason. They could literally get by with drinking each other’s blood to survive, but if they did something so logical, there wouldn’t be a story. Instead, they take multiple rides to the hospital with anemic feinting spells and heart trouble.

There are few semi-interesting side characters, though they’re not given a lot of screen time. Yaegashi is the love interest, who looks the same as everyone else, never smiles, never confesses, never does much of anything except paint and look depressed. Minase is the family doctor who knows of Akira and Chisana’s blood curse, who… well, he’s sort of the love interesting of Chisana in the same way Yaegashi is for Akira. He’s depressed and annoyed, constantly lamenting his love for Chisana.

The story is pretty simplistic: After Akira learns of his blood disease and of his sister who shares the disease, he decides to move in with her and lock himself away from the world with her. Thanks to the high number of padded scenes, very little happens in Hitsuji No Uta.

There are no twists, or interesting happening in Hitsuji No Uta. A couple of sick vampires slowly getting sicker, craving blood, but denying the urge for no good reason, until they’re at death’s door. A very depressing piece of anime, to be sure, but it’s not all bad. The series, since it’s about vampires, feels like it maybe building towards something, which is enough to keep most people interested. That nothing really happens is one of Hitsuji No Uta’s biggest flaws. I wouldn’t recommend this series to any but the most die-hard vampire fan.

Hitsuji no Uta is an interesting and unique approach on the vampires theme.

From the beginning on HnU shows that it's different from anything else on this theme, may it be Hellsing or Vampire Hunter D. You don't get Vampires in their classical sense, but the thirst for blood which is an illness the two main-characters in this anime have, inherited from their ancestors together with the burden it brings uppon them.

The animation in HnU consists of many still-frames and reused scenes (flashbacks etc.). You could even say the anime consists to 70% of recap scenes and only 30% original scenes. I'm not a fan of this generally. There are times when I'm annoyed by such art of animation, especially by flashback episodes, but that's only if there's really no point in using it. In Hitsuji no Uta it's different. The whole point of doing such an animation contributes to the whole mood of the show. And the way it's done is different from what you see most of the time. It's comparable with Noir's animation and style, but only to a certain degree, HnU takes it even a tad further. There are times when you see a still-frame and hear people talking in the background or things happening in the background and next time the scene continues everything changed, people are sitting different etc. Often you get even a flashback of a scene which happened just a few minutes ago in the episode. Everything is cut in a way which makes the anime seem really fast-paced, what it isn't in reality. The viewer is being deceived by this way of cutting and has to figure out for himself what exactly is happening and what feelings the characters may have.

Some people may say that the animation is very poor, the character design is pretty blank and uninspired and the production company only made use of that many reused scenes to save themselves costs. This may be partly right, but they're missing that the way it is animated is very essential for this ova.
Honestly, I couldn't think of Hitsuji no Uta having an animation and design like other ovas from the same time-span (Macross, Yukikaze and whatever else there was). It just doesn't fit, HnU has to have such animation or could you imagine Lain without the particular character-design, Interlude without the two different backgrounds and the cuts or Noir without the flashbacks. That just wouldn't feel right.

But it's not only the animation which builds up the whole mood, the music and sound effects and the seiyuus add their part too. Unlike the animation you can hear the sound throughout the whole show. While the animation phases out you can still hear people talk etc. the flashbacks have always underlined a special music piece, same for many other scenes. The whole show starts with sounds which are typical for a school and you hear people talk while the view still zooms in and doesn't show who is talking. Together with the dark and dull animation it shows from the beginning what is waiting for you and it shows how important the spoken word and the sounds are. Shocking and important moments use fast beats, that adds a lot to the impression that the anime is fast-paced. The used music reminds of Yuki Kajiura's music (compositor for Noir, .Hack//Sign etc.), some classical instruments like the violine are used together with synthesizers and other modern technological achievements, too bad I still can't find out who was responsible for it.

Interesting is the fact that HnU is lacking an opening, every episode starts of with the action and it's better that way. It has an ending though and what an ending that is! The music fades in while the last scene of the anime is still running and gives this last scene which is always a key-scene for the episode more impression. The song has a somewhat slower tune and sounds sad and melodramatic. The title of the song is Destiny - Fate, together with the lyrics it lets us know more of the feelings the two main-characters have and emphasises them. The fact that the two main-characters (Chisana and Kazuna) are singing it helps a lot to this.

Megumi Hayashibara (Lina - Slayers, Rei - NGE and many more) is Chisana's voice and Tomokazu Seki (Sagara - FMP and many more, see Kenran Butoh Sai ;)) is Kazuna's. Both are really good seiyuus and already did many openings/endings for animes as well as they've given a lot of characters their voices (and I'm a big fan of both). And they do a good job here as well, it's not only the ending which shows their qualities. Over the 4 episodes they are able to make their characters believable for the viewer, all the struggles they have with themselves and their fate seem realistic and griping. It's astounishing how well they fit to their roles, especially compared to their other works. And that once again shows how well thought out this whole OVA is.

But not only the two main-characters are well sophisticated. Despite the great screen-time they have there are two other supporting characters, Yaegashi (Satsuki Yukino aka Kagome - Inuyasha etc.) and Minase (Shinichiro Miki aka Takumi - Initial D etc.), who as well have some development and add an insight in the feelings of outsiders on this matter, needless to say that they both had as well good seiyuus giving them their voice and therefore were plausible as well. My only gripe is that their screen-time was limited and their pasts weren't very detailed because of that. That's also where the story loses something. I felt the whole time that there was possible for some more plot regarding the side-characters, but in the end the main-characters got the most attention. Pity! The two flashbacks in the past of the relations between Kazuna/Yaegashi and Chisana/Minase looked really interesting and provided an opportunity for some really interesting twists.

All in all Hitsuji no Uta is a promising and especially stylish anime. Despite the bit lacking animation and some downs in the story, it also shows its strengths in both categories and the music and characters add their part to the overall picture.
The approach on the theme is interesting and well conveyed. Too bad the high anticipation isn't living up to the end. At the end of the third episode it's already obvious that such a story can't be finished in such a short time. Still, the end of the fourth episode is really shocking in many ways. I've read that there's also a live-action movie and both, ova and movie, are based on a manga, so perhaps the manga goes much further into detail than this ova and offers an other end. Well, I will check it out for sure.

If you like things like Serial Experiments Lain and Interlude or are interested in Vampires, then you should watch Hitsuji no Uta for sure. If are an animation fetishist and can't get along with this way of story-telling then you can skip on HnU, but as long as you are ok with many flashbacks and rather blank animation you can take a look on it. With 4 episodes it's not that long either, though it's probably not worth watching a second time.

Sometimes, an anime doesn’t need anything except for pure style. Hellsing had its bloodshot skies, Noir had its pounding, pulsating soundtrack, Big O had the comic book world and SoulTaker had absolutely mindbending visuals. As well as the ones I’ve mentioned, countless other animes are entertaining not for a particularly coherent storyline or characters that we can actually empathize with, but for a distinct and very appealing “feel” to the show. In the same vein, Hitsuji no Uta is pretty much nothing but style… but what an amazing style it has.

Every single aspect of the anime seems engineered to create a specific mood. The animation remains at all times muted and dark, and there is very little color throughout the show (with the noticeable exception of red). The sound, with its alternation of frantic drumbeats and slow violin pieces, further complements this feeling. The story is thoroughly melodramatic and just about devoid of any hope whatsoever, and the characters move past dysfunctional to sheer insanity. As a result of these combined elements, Hitsuji no Uta’s morbid style is so distinct and memorable that this is really all it needs to be watchable.

Of course, style is really all this anime has. Technically, the anime is definitely lackluster. While initially impressive, both the animation and sound suffer from shameless repetition. Over the course of the series, only about 2 or 3 songs are played, and they are played almost constantly. Animation-wise, along with several recap scenes, various segments are just flat out reused as if they are new material. Considering the anime’s relatively short length, this is pretty much unacceptable.

Additionally, the characters and plot are definitely on the thin side. While not quite one-dimensional, the two protagonists definitely lack depth, and they certainly aren’t likeable. Rather than developing its characters, Hitsuji no Uta instead chooses to jerk them around in a storyline that is often illogical and rather contrived. With vampires, school romance, a sickly, beautiful women, and incest (which I seem to be immune to now that I’ve seen Koi Kaze), there are few plot clichés that the anime doesn’t use. I traditionally have no problem with tragic melodrama (check my positive opinions on Ima Sokoni Iru Boku, Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, or Hotaru no Haku), but even I felt the anime to be a little heavy-handed.

Still, despite all of the OVA’s weaknesses, I feel compelled to (lightly) recommend it anyway. Hitsuji no Uta is slick, daring and provocative, and the fact that there isn’t any substance underneath the whipped cream doesn’t seem to make the show any less tasty.