Anime Review | Kekkai Sensen (Lights, Camera, Action!)

Kekkai Sensen

Kekkai Sensen crafts a world that gives the potential for so many great stories. One day in New York, a huge explosion rocks the city and a gateway to another world appears. This event is later known as "The Great Collapse" and turned out to be disastrous to both worlds involved. It needed "Casters" from both worlds to come together and raise a barrier to stop the collapse, but the world would be forever changed. New York becomes known as Hellsalem's Lot, a Lovecraftian melting pot of all manner of creatures, and within it a clandestine organisation known as "Libra" that fights from the shadows to keep the inhabitants safe, both human and inhuman.

This whole new world of aliens, demons and all manner of other creatures suddenly being thrown together with humans makes for a beautiful chaos. With the stage set, the story follows a young boy called Leonardo Watch, who, after a traumatic experience, is gifted the All-Seeing Eyes of God, a quirky Deus Ex Machina that allows him to see everything. A chance encounter with an agent of Libra when Leonardo visits Hellsalem's lot, results in him joining the organisation. The series uses the classic "Monster of the week" style of story-telling, and it has independent and original stories to each episode, while slowly developing an underlying threat known as the Blood Breeds.        

These Blood Breeds are a group of vampires that seem to be running things behind the scenes, like the antithesis of Libra itself. Initially, it's thought there are only thirteen of these in the world, living inside of a chasm deep beneath Hellsalem's Lot. Leonardo's eyes reveal their true strength, establishing a conflict running through the series. Much like the original Trigun anime adaptation, the series uses many plot points from the manga but tells an original tale, with some brand new characters. It doesn't rely on exposition to explain everything, instead establishing the world and its inhabitants before telling the story. It's a form of storytelling that does particularly well, not feeling the need to handhold the viewers and instead just crafting the world and developing the characters within it.

The design of the characters is superb, and with the human characters there is plenty of Nightow's style shining through. The Libra member Zapp is channels the cool from Nicholas D. Wolfwood and the other members of the cast all manage to be memorable. The non-human residents of New Hell Salem's lot are great, too, filled with a wide and unique range of creatures. These designs are brought to life beautifully thanks to Studio Bones, known for high-quality art and animation.

9/10

Exceptional - Gold Award

Of all the anime of Spring 2015, Kekkai Sensen is the must watch. It excels in every aspect and deserves to be remembered for a long time to come. A rich and stylish creation, filled with compelling characters and a story that takes inspiration from some cult classics and infuses it with Nightow's original vision to create something special. Easily on par with Trigun, and easily the best thing to come out of the Spring 2015 season.