Despera - The next Yoshitoshi ABe's hit anime

If you ask me about anime that has the biggest impact on my life, I couldn’t pick anything better than Yoshitoshi ABe’s ‘Serial Experiments Lain’. The show was everything that a cyberpunk and tech geek can hope for. This particular anime was also the reason that I decided to take a major in Computer Science back in the days. I have to mention that it’s also one of the most psychologically challenging anime of all times. Lain is by no means suitable for everyone, it’s jam packed with computer terms, even things that go beyond common knowledge at that 1998 era, things like ‘wired’ which is a term for an all-connected computer system, similar to a cloud system on the Internet, but ABe brought it even deeper with Augmented Reality systems that’s similar to the technology found in ‘The Matrix’. While Masamune Shirow’s ‘Ghost In The Shell’ puts us in a high-tech police and military technology whiz, Lain was more of a gritty self-realization of a wired-obsessed young girl, trying to poke the boundary between real and virtual worlds.

ABe is also known for his other brilliant work that is ‘Haibane Renmei’ or otherwise known as ‘The Charcoal Feathers Federation’. A beautiful and touching story about a world, where the inhabitants have charcoal-toned wings. Despite their wings, they are NOT angels. The show elevates the values of life and death, compassion, friendship and what truly caring for each other means. The anime won lots of awards, including one of the best art direction in anime for all times by Newtype magazine Japan. I personally loved everything about it: the music (the Hanenone album gives me the chills everytime I listen to it), the art, and the story.

This 2009, something really big is coming. The three musketeers that brought Lain to realization have gathered again for the second time and it seems that they have been busy producing the next candidate-to-be-legendary title: ‘Despera’. They are Yoshitoshi ABe (art), Ryutaro Nakamura (direction), and Chiaki J. Konaka (story). The anime will tell a story about a 14 year old girl named ‘Ain’ who is able to create high-tech devices unknown to the era that she lives in. The sci-fi alternative period story is set in Tokyo during the Taishō era in 1922, one year before the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. There will be pre-WWII military references, old Japanese societies, and someone that has the premise similar to Half-Life 2’s G-Man. Quoting from Animage: “Unknown Man - A man in his 30s who is an associate of Ain's. In the prologue chapter of the novel, he claims to be able to see the future through the displays on Ain's computer monitors. His face and identity has yet to be revealed.” And judging from all those info, we can safely conclude that the anime will have thick cyberpunk theme, with the usual unpredictable deep plot written by Chiaki-sensei.

Most looked forward to anime this season? Definitely yes. Best anime of the upcoming season? Might not be, but the three big names that delivered Lain should be a great benchmark on how this anime will certainly rock most otakus in all over the world and blow a fresh wind of remarkably high quality presentation rarely found in the mainstream anime shows nowadays, like: Naruto, Pokemon, and Katekyoushi Hitman Reborn! to name a few.

note: Credit goes to Weiss for the scanned pictures.