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labingiFantastic Children: An Anime That Deserves... More
I recently came across a rec for Fantastic Children, a 2005 anime I had never heard of. It intrigued me enough that I put down some serious money on a DVD set, as it’s hard to find streaming. And... I understand why it’s forgotten, and it’s a shame because it has immense potential. Like the Star Wars prequels, it fails in the execution. This is an anime that deserves novels worth of fic to flesh it out. On Ao3, it has... two short fics. Alas. Goodbye Fantastic Children; we barely knew you.
Truly, it’s good in a lot of ways. If you like philosophical, complex, somewhat relationship and psychology-oriented anime with a strong Please Save My Earth vibe, it is worth a watch. Spoiler free: A group of mysterious children keep re-appearing across the centuries. What do they want? Perhaps our spunky boy hero can find out. Spoilers beneath the cut
FC seems heavily inspired by PSME. Their setups are very similar: alien scientists are reincarnated on Earth as teens (PSME)/kids (FC), and they have to deal with the legacy of their past lives. Plus, there is a very “PSME” love triangle—though it doesn’t involve the core group of scientists, and that’s where the problems start.
A quick digression on PSME. I have a long-standing love/hate relationship with PSME. The parts I adore, I deeply adore, but I am perennially angry at the manga’s ending, which I consider to be a betrayal of its premise. (I won’t go into details here.) But for comparison, FC lacks both those highs and lows. Its general writing quality illustrates what a masterwork PSME is. But it has the virtue of being consistent. While it has a gajillion plot holes, it doesn’t betray its emotional core. Its characters work fine through to the end. It’s just lackluster.
This is partly because it has too many characters. For reference, where PSME (anime) has seven “alien” scientists plus one main normal human, FC has seven alien scientists, plus one normal human kid, plus two villains, plus two additional alien characters, plus one important backstory-only character, plus one robot (adorable!), plus two detectives running around. Virtually all its character drama revolves around the love triangle and one of the villains, leaving the seven--seven--core alien scientist kids with next-to-nothing that has emotion oomph. The script doesn’t know how to connect characters to each other, which is a shame because their broad sketches are all good, and there’s so much potential to do something.
To me, FC feels like it was a huge saga conceived of by a genius who abruptly died, leaving nothing but a few notes scribbled on napkins, from which the genius’s pedestrian chum attempted to churn out a script with no idea how to develop characters or do worldbuilding. Almost every plot idea is exciting. Almost every one goes next to nowhere.
Specific spoilery examples, in no particular order:
* The (PSME rip-off) love triangle where two nice guys are in love with the same nice girl, who loves only one of them in return, leading to jealousy and regrettable actions and guilt/karma: This is FC’s strongest plot, and it works quite well, but it flounders on the fact that, in the backstory, none of these characters is interesting. The lady love is just the cute princess who’s nice. She has literally no other personality traits. The two dudes are almost indistinguishable noble, loving, warrior, protector guys, one a shade broodier than the other. Why does she love one and not the other? Who knows? Why do they love her? Pedestaling? Hormones? With developed characters, it would have packed a punch. As is, the pure plot mechanics pack a little but not enough.
* Two of the scientists are engaged and then get separated in their reincarnations. That’s it. That’s all. There’s no reason why they are in love. Their only relationship development is one of them tells an old romantic myth about a constellation. I don’t know what else to say.
* The core premise is these kiddos of about eleven years old are actually these scientists who have been knocking about for 500 years on a mission. So when we backstory into their past lives, they are... exactly the same. Their adult scientist bodies look just the same, maybe three years older. I mean, they all look like teens, which vitiates the contrast. They have no discernable adult lives, beyond being scientists. The two of them are engaged, but no one else seems romantically attached, to have kids, adult responsibilities (outside work). Five hundred years later, they behave the same. Why bother to emphasize they’re old folks in kids’ bodies when as young adults they’re basically the same kids in the same bodies?
* As to their individual characters, apart from the engaged couple, who are present less and so less developed, they all have good character sketches. They’re not exactly one note. They’re not stereotypes. I want to know them better. Personally, I especially want to know Soreto and Agi better (their default leaders). But not one of them gets any deep development. They’re reduced to each having one or two traits (like the Seven Dwarfs) so you can tell them apart. Agi misses his little sister and likes singing and is kind of serious. Soreto misses her dad and is kind of serious. Hesma comes off as unflappable and mission-oriented, Tarlant has the robot, and Hasmodai... is just kind of a nice guy who misses his 15th-century family? None of them have any particular dynamics with each other. They get along, which is nice to see, but there’s little sense of depth or complexity. Fantastic kiddos, I wish I knew you.
* A note on Hesma: he’s the Avon of the bunch (in Blake’s 7 terms), the guy who pretends he’s dispassionate and never swayed by foolish emotion, but who really has deep feelings: his dispassionate “I never change” eventually collapses into a hot mess of terror at the idea of having to change, of not being able to just go home and pick up his life. And that should have been a winning formula. He also walks some interesting lines around betraying his friends, but not totally—and they are taken aback but don’t really hold it against him, which I like—that they’re not petty and see larger contexts. It’s just all underdeveloped. There should have been more unpacking of his betrayal, more talking through it. I mean, he semi-betrays them both in the backstory and present, and no one really says anything about it either time, which is weird. There should have been more setup of his fear of relinquishing home—like maybe give him a backstory. It’s half-baked.
There’s one thing, though, I undividedly love, and it’s very unusual for me: the robot, Wonder. Mind you, there’s not much there there. She (?) (I feel like she’s a she) is rather like a faithful dog but with more mechanistic immediate obedience. But the visual concept is original and the single sort of cross between a bark, seal lion noise, and gong that she makes whenever anyone says “Wonder” is utterly perfect, both alien and relatable.
Well, I wish there were a fandom, because this story could go a lot of fascinating places with a fandom to actually write it. But I guess, at least in English, there wasn’t quite enough to hold onto the get the writing going. Bye-bye, FC. No one will ever remake you, but if they do, I’ll be there to watch it with my hope goggles on.
I recently came across a rec for Fantastic Children, a 2005 anime I had never heard of. It intrigued me enough that I put down some serious money on a DVD set, as it’s hard to find streaming. And... I understand why it’s forgotten, and it’s a shame because it has immense potential. Like the Star Wars prequels, it fails in the execution. This is an anime that deserves novels worth of fic to flesh it out. On Ao3, it has... two short fics. Alas. Goodbye Fantastic Children; we barely knew you.
Truly, it’s good in a lot of ways. If you like philosophical, complex, somewhat relationship and psychology-oriented anime with a strong Please Save My Earth vibe, it is worth a watch. Spoiler free: A group of mysterious children keep re-appearing across the centuries. What do they want? Perhaps our spunky boy hero can find out. Spoilers beneath the cut
FC seems heavily inspired by PSME. Their setups are very similar: alien scientists are reincarnated on Earth as teens (PSME)/kids (FC), and they have to deal with the legacy of their past lives. Plus, there is a very “PSME” love triangle—though it doesn’t involve the core group of scientists, and that’s where the problems start.
A quick digression on PSME. I have a long-standing love/hate relationship with PSME. The parts I adore, I deeply adore, but I am perennially angry at the manga’s ending, which I consider to be a betrayal of its premise. (I won’t go into details here.) But for comparison, FC lacks both those highs and lows. Its general writing quality illustrates what a masterwork PSME is. But it has the virtue of being consistent. While it has a gajillion plot holes, it doesn’t betray its emotional core. Its characters work fine through to the end. It’s just lackluster.
This is partly because it has too many characters. For reference, where PSME (anime) has seven “alien” scientists plus one main normal human, FC has seven alien scientists, plus one normal human kid, plus two villains, plus two additional alien characters, plus one important backstory-only character, plus one robot (adorable!), plus two detectives running around. Virtually all its character drama revolves around the love triangle and one of the villains, leaving the seven--seven--core alien scientist kids with next-to-nothing that has emotion oomph. The script doesn’t know how to connect characters to each other, which is a shame because their broad sketches are all good, and there’s so much potential to do something.
To me, FC feels like it was a huge saga conceived of by a genius who abruptly died, leaving nothing but a few notes scribbled on napkins, from which the genius’s pedestrian chum attempted to churn out a script with no idea how to develop characters or do worldbuilding. Almost every plot idea is exciting. Almost every one goes next to nowhere.
Specific spoilery examples, in no particular order:
* The (PSME rip-off) love triangle where two nice guys are in love with the same nice girl, who loves only one of them in return, leading to jealousy and regrettable actions and guilt/karma: This is FC’s strongest plot, and it works quite well, but it flounders on the fact that, in the backstory, none of these characters is interesting. The lady love is just the cute princess who’s nice. She has literally no other personality traits. The two dudes are almost indistinguishable noble, loving, warrior, protector guys, one a shade broodier than the other. Why does she love one and not the other? Who knows? Why do they love her? Pedestaling? Hormones? With developed characters, it would have packed a punch. As is, the pure plot mechanics pack a little but not enough.
* Two of the scientists are engaged and then get separated in their reincarnations. That’s it. That’s all. There’s no reason why they are in love. Their only relationship development is one of them tells an old romantic myth about a constellation. I don’t know what else to say.
* The core premise is these kiddos of about eleven years old are actually these scientists who have been knocking about for 500 years on a mission. So when we backstory into their past lives, they are... exactly the same. Their adult scientist bodies look just the same, maybe three years older. I mean, they all look like teens, which vitiates the contrast. They have no discernable adult lives, beyond being scientists. The two of them are engaged, but no one else seems romantically attached, to have kids, adult responsibilities (outside work). Five hundred years later, they behave the same. Why bother to emphasize they’re old folks in kids’ bodies when as young adults they’re basically the same kids in the same bodies?
* As to their individual characters, apart from the engaged couple, who are present less and so less developed, they all have good character sketches. They’re not exactly one note. They’re not stereotypes. I want to know them better. Personally, I especially want to know Soreto and Agi better (their default leaders). But not one of them gets any deep development. They’re reduced to each having one or two traits (like the Seven Dwarfs) so you can tell them apart. Agi misses his little sister and likes singing and is kind of serious. Soreto misses her dad and is kind of serious. Hesma comes off as unflappable and mission-oriented, Tarlant has the robot, and Hasmodai... is just kind of a nice guy who misses his 15th-century family? None of them have any particular dynamics with each other. They get along, which is nice to see, but there’s little sense of depth or complexity. Fantastic kiddos, I wish I knew you.
* A note on Hesma: he’s the Avon of the bunch (in Blake’s 7 terms), the guy who pretends he’s dispassionate and never swayed by foolish emotion, but who really has deep feelings: his dispassionate “I never change” eventually collapses into a hot mess of terror at the idea of having to change, of not being able to just go home and pick up his life. And that should have been a winning formula. He also walks some interesting lines around betraying his friends, but not totally—and they are taken aback but don’t really hold it against him, which I like—that they’re not petty and see larger contexts. It’s just all underdeveloped. There should have been more unpacking of his betrayal, more talking through it. I mean, he semi-betrays them both in the backstory and present, and no one really says anything about it either time, which is weird. There should have been more setup of his fear of relinquishing home—like maybe give him a backstory. It’s half-baked.
There’s one thing, though, I undividedly love, and it’s very unusual for me: the robot, Wonder. Mind you, there’s not much there there. She (?) (I feel like she’s a she) is rather like a faithful dog but with more mechanistic immediate obedience. But the visual concept is original and the single sort of cross between a bark, seal lion noise, and gong that she makes whenever anyone says “Wonder” is utterly perfect, both alien and relatable.
Well, I wish there were a fandom, because this story could go a lot of fascinating places with a fandom to actually write it. But I guess, at least in English, there wasn’t quite enough to hold onto the get the writing going. Bye-bye, FC. No one will ever remake you, but if they do, I’ll be there to watch it with my hope goggles on.
