Kaiba belongs to the group of those demented shows which follow the footsteps of Neon Genesis Evangelion in terms of controversy and are a reason I bother to watch anime. Set in a far future where humans can transplant their memories and change their bodies at will the plot follows a young amnesiac, Kaiba, and his adventures in one of the most bizarre worlds anime realm has ever seen. If you are into philosophy or simply like to think, this thought-provoking masterwork not only comes with highest recommendations, but also has a big chance to become your all time favourite. Just don’t even consider watching it without having at least 100 of titles under your belt, it’s not only hard to understand, half its charm is built upon originality which is hard to appreciate if you don’t know what generic means beforehand.

What are memories? Souls? Spirits? This is a world where memories can be turned into data and stored. Even if the body dies, its memories live on and can be transferred to another body. Bad memories can be erased and good ones downloaded. However, this is something only the privileged can do.

Both originally created and directed by Yuasa Masaaki (Mind Game, Kemonozume) Kaiba is one of, if not the, best anime of years 2008. Set in the distant future where people don’t value their bodies anymore, it tells a tale about an amnesiac Kaiba who is traveling through alien world trying to learn his origins. His travels will take him through many demented environments, ultimately leading him to learn all the truth behind himself and the degenerated world. Unique presentation and epic storyline will make this show unforgotten for many years to come, its sheer originality and deep layers will put it on the same shelf where other controversial shows which are being debated up to this day are.

The main philosophical theme of this show is the value of human beings and to what level is the body a necessity. There are also heavy themes touching evolution, future of humanity, power of emotions, absurdity of existence and the all consuming greed of humans. And I must say, all of those themes are carried out brilliantly, be it through dialogue or through sheer presentation. Kaiba is a heavy philosophical bundle to be enjoyed by anyone who is interested in searching for new answers and knowledge in anime. Shows like it come only once in a few years.

Animation: 3

Probably the most unique aspect of the show is its animation done by Madhouse (I wouldn’t be surprised if it had a literal meaning actually). Everything is drawn in such peculiar way that you’d be forced hard to tell that it’s an anime outright. However, the creators had to sacrifice much of technical stuff for the sake of originality which also makes animation the most controversial aspect of the show. Backgrounds for example, though innovative and packing a lot of weird things in the corners (like weird shaped flower things which eat stuff) lack detail and sometimes make it hard to tell different things apart. Most of the time it feels as if all the world around the characters is built of melting pudding which is unable to keep shape, sometimes appearing as an allegoric imaginary and sometimes as a mess of bright colors done by a drunk painter. In the end it heavily depends on the viewer, if you prefer realism you’ll be in hell, if you prefer innovation you’ll be in heaven. On the other hand, though I prefer innovation and allegoric imaginary I still would have liked backgrounds better if they had more clear lines. That way they’d at least look different from the backgrounds I’ve painted in picture books when I was five. Coloring effects are pretty good though, bright and never striving to be realistic.

Most of the same things apply to character designs as well. Though different from most anime, they are neither attractive nor beautiful at all. Bodies are disproportioned and some rough lines make them look as if they were taken from a 3D game of XXth century. Most of the time it’s really hard to tell adults, kids and animals apart. On the other hand their demented forms work well to create the bizarre environments successfully achieving an atmosphere suiting the show as extraordinary as Kaiba. ‘Rough’ doesn’t apply to the fluidity of animation though. All characters move and jump in realistically and there are no corners cut when it comes down to inbetweens. Backgrounds, as if made from pudding, react to the touch of their environment in a believable, well, relatively believable way. Flying things, bullets, rockets; everything, though roughly drawn move the way you’d want them to, hence I have nothing to reprove in this particular aspect.

Finally, direction is very good, much better than in the most of the shows you usually see. Then again, Kaiba relies on allegorical presentation so lame direction would make the show fall apart and it doesn’t. Most of camera angles are peculiar in one way or another and the show never wastes its times on close-ups to characters who are talking. Transition to different scenes is masterfully done, never appearing nor too lazy nor too sudden. And the few occasional shots at the odd flora and fauna living on the surroundings always bring great results at sucking you in the show even further.

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Sound: 4

Both OP Never and ED Carry Me Away by Kagami Seira are calm lyrical songs with hints of melancholy. Not only they are pleasant pieces to listen to, they are just perfect for the atmosphere of this show. I haven’t skipped them once and even when re-watching this show I won’t. They blend with the anime so well they appear as vital pieces of an episode, what most of the OPs/EDs fail to do.

Yoshida Kiyoshi (Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo, Kurozuka) is known for his ambient OSTs. Kaiba is no exception as its background is as ambient as it can get. What sets it apart from other shows which Yoshida Kiyoshi worked on is that Kaiba also possess a few emotional and even vocal pieces to spice the things up. While ambient music does a perfect job at creating the bizarre sci-fi atmosphere for the show, vocal pieces never fail to instill emotion, making the already dramatic and epic scenes even more so. Though I didn’t particularly like Yoshida Kiyoshi before watching this show, it changed my opinion that everything he could do was ambient sound. Let’s hope he does more good background music in the future as well.

Voice-acting in Kaiba is marvelous. It’s been awhile since I’ve heard such an original seiyuu work. A good use of different japanese dialects and skillful voice-actors made the world reach the pinnacle of bizarreness. Note goes to many side characters who sound just as demented as the world they live in is. Main characters are voiced by experts like Kuwashima Houko (Inuyasha as Sango, Claymore as Clare), Noto Mamiko (Monster as Anna Liebert, Clannad as Ichinose Kotomi) and Paku Romi (Fullmetal Alchemist as Edward Elric, Naruto as Temari). And you bet, they sound good. Noto Mamiko particularly demonstrates even more talent at voicing cold characters, despite getting only ‘clumsy’ roles lately.

Story: 4

Kaiba packs on of the best settings I have dared to set my foot into. I can just imagine how much fantasy went into its creation as its literally nothing like anything any anime has ever tried to set before. Evolutionary stage so far from our present state that it makes it hard to tell humans from.. err.. other things apart. Hundreds of planets, one being even more weird than the other. Strange rituals of the natives. Extremely weird animals. Ability to change bodies at will which main character tends to use almost every episode. However, it’s not only imagination which makes this setting awesome. What makes it awesome is that it makes sense. However crazy and bizarre it appears, it’s justified so well that it seriously makes you wonder if that world isn’t the one humanity will reach thousands of years after today.

The plot of the show could be easily divided into two parts. The first being traveling and learning new things about the world which allegorically mirror philosophical troubles in reality, like in Kino no Tabi and the second being the past of the main character and a light-hearted romance story. The show never wastes time on any trivial stuff and always goes at a pretty fast pace, so never boring its viewers. You either learn secrets about the world, get some philosophical material or experience the well crafted story of Kaiba’s heritage. In a sense you could call Kaiba a soft horror show, as the demented people and their complete lack of any empathy for human lives scared me quite a few times. The ending is satisfying and well carried out, though it’s left relatively open for viewers to speculate, in a similar fashion to Neon Genesis Evangelion. So in the end Kaiba is both strong at episodic philosophy and its own individual plot. What made me refrain from giving it a full score on story was the lack of emotional impact. Though indeed the plot and the setting are carried out perfectly and deliver everything what needs to be delivered successfully, there was not a moment I’d burst in tears or contemplate about how could this show be the ultimate form of art. Indeed it’s one of the best, but it’s not as engaging as some other amongst the “best” are.

Characters: 3

It’s quite hard to talk about characters in this show as rather than as living beings this show treats them as symbols. All characters possess some of the traits common to humans, both bad and good and those traits are exploited in their bizarre environments. However, rather than a multi-dimensional living beings they come off more like a combination of many traits since the show never bothers to give them much background. Also their personality seems to change mildly depending on which body they inhibit or which memories they do remember… So it does wonders for plot, but screws up the individuality of the characters. Being so focused on the plot Kaiba uses its characters as plot devices and cares little about their feelings which don’t move the story. In the end you have to create most of the background behind characters yourself in your head as you are rarely given any defining traits which would distinguish their personality. On the other hand, these characters, like they are, serve the plot perfectly and successfully instill the needed amount of emotion from the viewers. This show never strives to create living characters, it strives to tell a great story and it succeeds at doing so. Though characters wont become the faces of otaku culture, they serve the plot the best they can and any more added depth to their personalities would actually bring down the overall quality of the show. The creators did them as good as they could so they would never steal the light from the story.

Conclusion: Kaiba is not a show you would give your friend who is clueless about art. It’s a show which becomes better with more experience you get. It has little action and it’s confusing most of the time, deliberately so. Anyway, I recommend this for you if you have at least a hundred or so shows under your belt and are striving to see something new, something you have never seen before. If you are new at anime world, well, then come back at this show after a few years has passed to truly appreciate it. Though it seems it’s rated as family friendly, I’d recommend this show to mature audience only, as all the psychological horror can do weird things to a child’s mind. If you’ve liked Kaiba other shows of interest would be Kino no Tabi, Boogiepop Phantom, Serial Experiments Lain, Texhnolyze, Haibane Renmei and Neon Genesis Evangelion.