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Towa no Quon

Back to my old pastime. Haven't written a new review in a while. This will be a review of the entire Towa no Quon movie series, not just the final movie. I gotta say, I like this concept of a movie series in the context of anime. And generally, I wish more anime would use the extended episode format. You can fit so much more content in less episodes. But I digress. Towa no Quon is a very good 6 episode movie series. It's not a true epic. But it has some epic moments. It doesn't have the most well-developed story. But the story is rather intricate and it has great sub-plots. And while I've taken the dichotomous approach in my review here, this is not just an ok series. Before the final movie it was a good series. The final movie made it a very good maybe even a great series. But it's not a fantastic series. The final movie was truly epic. But the ending was average. You've seen this ending before. But does that detract from the merits this series had earned throughout? I posed myself this question. And I thought about it this way... Much of the plot is what you would expect from an epic, but the story was never meant to be epic. The story, the over-arching story, is that of a lite series. Does that make it bad? No. It's not great. But, why is it that we've all become so jaded that anything that has a story with any sort of positive message we automatically dismiss as cliché and childish. I don't really know where I was going with that rant to be honest. Anyway, Towa has certain aspects that make it special, that compensate for the lack of a great story. So time for some vague plot summary. The series begins as a collection of short stories of a few of the larva (people with supernatural powers) whose lives were touched by Quon (the title protagonist). There's a really nice story about a boy who's able to manipulate plant-life (I forget his name unfortunately). During this introductory short story phase, the series catches your attention with how the story is told seemingly from two perspectives. That of Quon and his larva comrades and that of Shun and his team tasked to eliminate Quon and all the larva he's protecting. Then comes the third movie when these two perspectives merge. This is the flashpoint. Furthermore, this leads to the most intriguing subplot of the series which centered around Shun. Quon is of course the unquestioned main character of the series, which is why Shun's story is only a subplot. But unlike the main story, this subplot is beautifully developed. And it's probably one of the best subplots I've seen in any anime. Shun's personal journey is very compelling, and then the greater theme of what it means to be human was a nice touch as well. I should clarify. Shun and his team are androids that were once human. You can probably guess how things progress from there. And it must be said, the ending of Shun's story was indeed fantastic. No less. Some other thoughts. The OST was timely and effective for the most part, but nothing spectacular. The characters I overall enjoyed. Particularly Quon and Shun. The other minor characters had their moments as well. So it's not the best cast, but a good one. One thing you really wish is that you learned more about Towa (Quon's brother) than what amounted to a few cutscenes. Another note, the animation and particularly the occasional variation in animation style is impressive. To wrap things up, here's what I can say about Towa no Quon. It's an entertaining movie series to watch. If you let yourself be immersed in the series, you will doubtlessly enjoy it. If you don't give it a chance, you'll miss out on the subtleties that make it special. I give Towa no Quon a somewhat conservative 8 out of 10.